“Because my large friend,” Alan replied. “Everyone knows ships don’t sail on the rivers. They fly.”

“Flying ships…” Logan looked at Karen, who nodded as if Alan’s claim about flying ships was the most normal idea imaginable. “I… did not see that one coming.”

I definitely don’t remember reading about flying ships in Dante’s Inferno, he thought to himself.

“How odd.” Alan rose to his feet. “Well then, if it is still your intention to meet the others, I should return and prepare them first. Otherwise, arriving armed as you are, would only frighten them and achieve no good purpose. Please allow me that courtesy.”

“Ok,” Logan replied. “You do that. Come back tomorrow and you can show me the way and introduce me to your friends.”

“Agreed.” Alan held up the small crystal in his hand. “May I leave this here to charge?”

What the hell is he talking about? Rather than advertise his ignorance, Logan noded. “Sure”

They watched Alan walk over to the orange glowing crystal cluster and place his own smaller crystal among them. Moments later it too began to glow a bright orange. With a gentle tug, he pulled a different small crystal loose that continued to glow with the same bright light.

“For the walk back,” Alan explained.

Logan just watched in stunned silence. In the last minutes he had learned of flying ships, Circle hopping, wandering neighbors, and detachable crystals. Information overload made his head spin.

Alan paused just before walking off into the darkness and turned to Logan. The crystal in his hand cast eerie shadows across his face.

“Regarding your stated intention to escape out of Hell. Allow me to leave you with this thought for our next conversation. What if I told you Hell was not supposed to exist?”

Logan looked around and chuckled. “Friend, I hate to break it to you…”

Alan smiled. “Yes, yes. And yet, consider that this place we see around us, this Christian Hell, was not once mentioned in Christian teachings during the first four hundred years of being an established religion. It is later mentioned in the various versions of the Bible, of course, but every one of those examples is a mistaken translation of one of four words, none of which accurately translates to a fiery domain of eternal punishment.”

Alan stared at him and smiled in the orange glow of the crystal. “In other words, my friend, about fifteen hundred years ago, the church fathers made it all up.” He tapped the side of his head and winked. “Think about it.”

Karen stood beside Logan and watched as the strange, little man turned a corner and slipped away into darkness. Logan startled her by suddenly leaping into motion to strap his armor on. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“To follow,” he answered as he pocketed a handful of small rocks.

Karen shivered and seemed to shrink in on herself. “You’re going to leave me here alone? You don’t have to go. He seems nice enough. Besides…” She smiled. “I’m sure we could find more interesting things to do right here.”

“Perhaps his people are no threat and perhaps not.” Logan buckled his blades around his waist. I’m not taking any chances. If they are a danger, I intend to have the advantage of surprise.”

He walked over to the crystal cluster and bent down for a closer look. Carefully, he tugged at the smaller crystals. Sure enough, one came loose in his hands, glowing a bright orange. “Cool.”

He looked back at Karen, staring at him wide-eyed. He gave her a wink and a grin. “Remember you are Karen the Slayer and officially a badass now. Stay alert. I’ll be back in no time.”

Logan moved off into unexplored darkness as quickly as stealth would allow and tried not to think about how many things could go wrong with this plan. Cave exploration came with serious risks, especially in a rush. The ground was not level or smooth. He climbed, crawled, and squeezed through the random flow of stone and sediment where serious injury could happen at a moment’s notice.

Side passages emerged out of the shadow. The faint sound of movement ahead kept him oriented but getting hopelessly lost was a real, and terrifying, danger. He carefully placed small rocks at every new passage to help point the way back home.

It was a great relief to finally catch up to the orange nimbus of Alan’s borrowed light crystal. Logan smothered his light as much as he could and still be able to see where to put his feet. From that point, the greatest danger was destroying what little trust they had managed to build with this new neighbor.

If Alan discovered him sneaking along behind, the man would have every justification to think the worst. It might start the exact conflict Logan hoped to avoid. Alan was careful, looking back over his shoulder as if worried about the very thing Logan was attempting to do.

Logan felt guilty about it, like he was the bad guy in this scenario but not, he realized, as guilty as he would have felt only a few weeks ago. Life in Hell was changing him in more ways than one. The fight for survival was reshaping him, body and mind. Back into the mindset of the soldier he had been on the war-torn battlefields of Afghanistan. Weeks of hunting had melted the softness of easy living off of his body until nothing but lean, hard muscle remained.

Whatever was happening, it wasn’t just to him. What did I do to Karen?

He knew his way around a woman’s body, but this had been something entirely new. Never before had he fucked a woman into unconsciousness and into what he could only define as a transformation.

Logan had watched it happen as he kept a worried watch on Karen as she lay sleeping. Over a few hours, her body had begun to change. Karen’s complexion and hair had lost that pale wash of color so common amongst the few damned souls he had seen. The circles under her eyes had vanished. By the time she had woken, Logan could almost swear she looked…

Almost alive, he realized with a shock. What the hell happened?

And, of course, he had abandoned her almost immediately after she had woken to stalk a man who had offered them no threat. With all that was happening, should he have stayed to look after her?

No, he decided, remembering an earlier conversation with Beauty. Everything in Hell was predator or prey. He could not afford the luxury of assuming strangers were not a threat. All he could do was tackle one problem at a time and trust that both women could handle themselves just fine.

Alan led him on a merry chase through twisting passages before eventually stepping out into a second, large cavern. A fissure in the ceiling allowed a slim ray of light in. Two small clusters of crystal glowed a pale beige. Between the two, there was enough illumination to drive the blackness back and see…

Logan looked but could not believe what he was seeing. He remembered a vacation to Greece during his second deployment and a visit to the Parthenon, still standing after countless centuries, with its many columns of marble and peaked roof. Here, buried in this cavern below the blasted landscape of Hell, he was seeing it again.

Or a smaller version of it, he realized. Three, low steps led up to a platform lined with six, tapered columns. The columns supported a triangular roof decorated with a band of elaborate carvings Logan could not identify from so far away. What should have been a long building appeared to melt into the cavern wall. All that could be seen was maybe fifteen feet of the structure and one open doorway, almost like the fake buildings Hollywood built on studio lots for filming Western movies. The entire structure was canted at a slight angle, perhaps from a long-ago earthquake.

As he watched, Alan approached and called out a greeting. eighteen men and ten women emerged out of the doorway and into the light. Some had that haggard look Logan had come to associate with damned souls. Most looked relatively healthy, at least by Hell standards. Ages ranged from young adults to the elderly. They were all, of course, completely naked.

“Back so soon?” one of the men asked.

“I have some good news,” Alan replied. “I have made a new friend. Someone who could be an ally in our efforts to save more souls.”

Multiple voices spoke up at once. Logan couldn’t make out the conversation but he could hear the doubt and suspicion in the way they spoke. By all accounts, they seemed more afraid of discovery than Logan had been. More importantly, what he did not hear was any sense of anger or violent response. There were curiosity and concern in their collective reaction but nothing Logan saw gave him any reason to think the gathered souls were a danger.

That would have to be enough. The longer he stayed, the more risk he took of being discovered. Logan backed into darkness and began to find his way back home, trying to understand what he had just witnessed.

An ancient Greek building in Hell. Then there was what Alan had said. Five rivers in Hell, all of Greek origin.

It made no sense. What did ancient Greece have to do with Christian Hell? The Greeks worshipped pagan gods like Zeus and Athena. What was the connection?

Logan found no answers on the return journey. Karen beamed to see him return and jumped into his embrace, kissing him with feverish intensity.

“I was so… worried about… you!” she managed between kisses.

Logan gently untangled himself from her. “I was worried about you too. Are you ok?”

“I am now. What did you see?”

I wish I knew. Out loud, he said, “A group of human souls hiding out in the deep caves. Perhaps thirty, counting Alan. They seem harmless enough for now. Tomorrow I will go to meet them and be able to better judge how to move forward.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about them.” Karen offered. “Our kind gather into small communities when we can. It’s dangerous but often better than being alone. And we know better than to try and fight back. Damned souls only know two options, submit or run away and hide.”

A slow, wicked smile spread across her lips. Her hand reached out to rub at his crotch. “Speaking of which, I wouldn’t mind doing a little submitting right about now.”

“Horny again already?” he laughed.

Good lord! he thought. These women are going to kill me!

Karen opened her mouth to reply, then paused. An odd look passed across her face. “Yes, and… also no.”

She blinked at him in astonishment, smiling in pure delight. “I don’t feel like I have to have it anymore, at all. The hunger is completely gone! I feel wonderful!”

“You look amazing.”

She laughed self-consciously and touched her tangled hair. “Well, that’s probably an exaggeration.”

“No, I’m serious, Karen. You look like you have put on a couple of pounds of muscle and the lines have eased on your face. I wish I had a mirror to show you.”

He shook his head, baffled. “I watched it begin to happen after you passed out last night.”

She frowned thoughtfully, then nodded. Yes, I feel… stronger. And the hunger... “ She looked up at him and grinned. “You did this to me.”

“How?” Logan frowned. “Why?”

“Because you are special.”

He shook his head. “I told you-”

Karen stopped his protest with a kiss. “No, you are and I think I know why, though I haven’t figured out the “how” part yet. It’s been staring us in the face this whole time.”

“Ok,” he replied. “Color me curious. What’s your theory?”

“It has to be because you are alive, truly alive.” She pointed at her chest. “I died, Logan. I am here only in spirit, just like every other human in Hell.”

She laid a hand on his chest. “All except you. Somehow, you are here in spirit and body. That has to be where your strength and power comes from. What’s more, I think you can share that strength with others.”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “How’s that?”

Karen grinned and gave his crotch a playful squeeze. “With this.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “I thought we were having a serious discussion.”

“Oh, we are,” she nodded with a sober expression. “Logan, I can still feel your sperm inside me. Not like a fluid, not anymore, but like a… a warmth slowly spreading throughout my entire being.”

Logan chuckled. “Ok, that’s weird as hell but weird seems to be the new normal these days, so might be something to this theory of yours.”

The wicked expression was back on her face. “We could test my theory.”

“I thought you said you weren’t horny?” he laughed.

“I said I don’t need to. I didn’t say that I don’t want to. To be more specific, I want to blow you.”

“You do?”

She nodded and licked her lips. “I do. I really do.”

Logan heaved a dramatic sigh as if shouldering a heavy burden. “Well, if you must. I suppose it would be rude to deny you the opportunity.”

“Yes, it would,” she laughed. “But first things first. Kindly strip and join me in the water.”

“Yes ma’am!” Logan stripped in record time and climbed into the steaming pool. Karen followed him in.

“You just relax and let me do everything,” she murmured into his ear as she straddled his legs, trapping his dick between them. Karen began to wash his face and neck, then down to his chest, all while rolling her hips and sliding her sex up and down his thighs in a most distracting manner. She slid back to better reach his abs. Logan could feel the plump lips of her pussy pressing on the top of his leg as she cleaned him.

“Turn around.” Once Logan had complied, she started again from the top, rubbing every inch of his back.

“Stand up.”

He stood. Karen did not and continued, gliding wet hands over his thighs and knees, down to wash and massage his calves. Her hands slid up his body to cup and squeeze at his muscular ass. She used her pert breasts, dragging her nipples across his goosebump covered flesh.

“Did I forget anything?’ she asked in an innocent, playful voice.

He turned to look down at her with an amused grin, his dick swaying and pointing at her face like a loaded gun. “I think maybe you did.”

Karen twirled her finger in a “turn back around” gesture. Logan offered only a grunt of mild protest, then obeyed.

Her hands reached around to glide over him from knob to balls, pausing occasionally to scoop a handful of warm water and let it trickled down onto his now aching rod. Her fingers closed around his shaft and began to stroke him in long, slow motions. The other hand cupped his balls and rolled them around in her palm. He could feel her tongue gliding across his ass. Logan jumped as Karen’s teeth gently nipped at one cheek and then the other.

Logan fought to keep his breathing slow and regular. It was a losing battle. Karen stoked the fire of his lust one slow stroke at a time.

“All done.”

He turned around and looked into her eyes, bright and sultry with excitement. Her hands trailed over the wet curves of her own body in languid pleasure.

“We should get you clean too,” he offered.

“What, like this?” Karen moaned as her hand slipped beneath the water and between her legs.

He watched, spellbound. “Yeah, something like that.”

She slipped beneath the water, then rose to her knees to wring out her long, dark hair. “All done!”

“Fuck,” Logan grumbled in good humor.

“Not this time,” she grinned with a saucy gleam in her eye. “Ok, stud. I think you’re ready for the main event. Get settled on the moss and get comfortable. This is going to take awhile. I’m feeling… inspired.”

“I’ve created a monster,” Logan smiled at her as they climbed out of the pool. His raging erection led the way.

He stretched out on the moss, resting on his elbows so he could watch the show, eager and curious to see what else she had in mind. Karen started by crawling up between his legs and dragging wet hair across his body, down his thighs, and over his cock in soft sweeps. Back and forth, around and down until Logan was squirming and cursing under his breath. Cold hair was soon replaced by warm breath as she moved lower. Almost, but not quite, touching his skin with her open mouth.

The first shock of contact made his whole body jerk as her lips closed around one testicle and began to gently suckle. The tip of her tongue traced around and down. Logan groaned through gritted teeth when she reached the spot between ass and balls and licked at the tender flesh. Karen’s hand resumed stroking his shaft.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of waiting, her mouth brushed against the underside of his cock and began to explore upward, kissing and licking as she went. Her tongue glided up and circled the swollen tip. Her dark eyes looked up at him, full of mischief and almost daring him to take what he so desperately wanted.

Logan was more than a little tempted to do just that. “You’re going to pay for this later,” he promised in a lust-filled voice.

“Why?” she teased. “Have I been bad? Are you going to spank my tight, little ass?”

“Yes, I will,” he decided at that moment. The idea made his cock ache even more. ”Next time.”

“Mmm… promises, promises,” she breathed and closed her lips around the swollen, purple head.

“Gah!” Logan’s hands curled into fists. His entire body tightened into a coil of muscle and nerve endings.

She worked his length into her throat with no sense of urgency. She rose, gasping for breath, only to descend again, moaning at the feel and weight in her mouth. Karen began to throat fuck him with reckless abandon, driving Logan to the edge, only to back off into slow suckling, again and again, until he writhed in exquisite agony.

His cock popped out of her shiny, smiling lips. “I can taste your pre-cum.” Karen smacked her lips and ran her tongue over them. “You ready to give me the rest of it?”

“Yes!” he growled.

“Then show me.” Karen flashed her teeth in a predatory grin, echoing his own words back at him. She reached up and gathered her long, silky hair into her fist and held it up in offer.

Nothing else needed to be said. Logan reached down and twined his fingers into her hair, just behind her skull. His hand closed into a loose fist.

For a moment, her wicked behavior faltered. She looked up at him with vulnerable eyes. In that instance, he understood the enormous trust she was giving to him.

“Be gentle,” she asked.

“Always,” Logan promised.

Karen bent down and wrapped her lips around the head of his cock. One hand wrapped around the base. The other resumed playing with his balls.

Logan began fucking her mouth with precise, careful motion. He moved her to his will and pleasure, reveling in the power she had granted him, the silken fall of her hair over his hand, and the wet, welcoming embrace of her throat as he pulled her lower and deeper.

He felt the pressure of the ring muscles at the entrance to her throat, felt it yield to his desire and girth. When she looked up at him with worried eyes, he pulled her back up to gasp for air, trailing a line of spit to his cock.

“You ok?”

Karen coughed and nodded.

“Want to stop?”

She looked up with that glint of challenge in her dark eyes and shook her head within the limited range his grip on her hair would allow. “Show me,” she said again. “Cum down my throat.”

Logan responded by adjusting his grip on her hair and forcing her back down. Slowly at first but with increasing speed, he set into a steady pace, pumping his hips up and her head down in a single driving motion. The pressure in his balls grew painful.

“Get ready,” he grunted warning. “Going to… fuck… cum!”

Karen re-adjusted her hand higher up his shaft to indicate to him her comfort zone. He took the gesture as permission to proceed and picked up the pace until her hair flew and her face was a blur of guided motion. His grip tightened. She began to whimper in eager anticipation.

Every muscle in his body clenched. His roar bounced off the walls as Logan fucked her mouth and blasted jet after jet of cum down her throat. Karen swallowed as quickly as she could but some still spilled, thick and white, from the corners of her overstretched lips.

Logan did not stop, even when the last shot had passed from him to her. He held her there with his softening cock on her tongue, as she swallowed every drop.

Karen crawled up to lay her head on his shoulder. She heaved a sigh of satisfaction and smiled at him. “That was fun.”

“Fun?” he laughed and curled an arm around her to pull her close. “The word 'fun' doesn’t begin to describe how amazing that was.”

“I can feel it inside me, you know.” Karen touched her belly. “There is a heat growing in my stomach. Intense, but not at all uncomfortable.”

“How bizarre,” Logan replied. “I wonder if Beauty experienced something similar?”

Karen nodded against his shoulder, hearing what he did not say. “I miss her too.”

*****

Alan announced his arrival by tapping against the rock as he drew near. “Hello,” he said as he walked into their light.

“I appreciate the warning,” Logan smiled from where he sat by the fire.

“I appreciate you not pointing a sword at me,” Alan replied. “Are you ready to meet your neighbors?”

“Yes.” Logan looked at Karen. “You want to come?”

“Every chance I get,” she said with dancing eyes. “Oh, you mean to travel with you?”

“Yes,” Logan grinned. “I mean travel with me. It couldn’t hurt for these other damned souls to see me in the company of one of their own.”

“Happy to. Let’s go.”

The deep stillness and thick darkness of an underground world was an unnerving sensation as they fell into step behind Alan. They reached the other cavern in less than an hour of travel. The others were already gathered on the porch of the partial ruin and waiting anxiously.

Logan raised a hand in greeting. “Hello. I… come in peace?”

An older woman with short-cropped, graying hair and sad eyes looked him up and down, especially the blades hanging on his belt. “Why then do you wear the weapons and armor of our tormentors?”

Logan looked to Alan for direction. Alan just nodded.

“To do to them what they would try to do to me first. To defend myself as I search for a way to escape out of Hell. My name is Logan and this is Karen. Karen is one of you, a damned soul.”

“Like us?” Sad Eyes came closer, staring at Karen. “Look at you, young lady. So vibrant and beautiful! How have you managed this?”

Alan blinked in surprise, immediately picking up on what Logan had not said. “Are you saying you are not a damned soul?”

“To the best of my understanding, no, I don’t think I am.” Logan shrugged. “It’s a long story.”

Alan smiled. “We have nothing but time.”

“Let’s table that discussion for another day.” Logan gestured at the ruin. “What is that?”

“Our salvation, I suspect,” Alan replied. “Come, sit. Make yourselves comfortable and I will explain.”

The others split off into smaller groups, draping on and around each other with casual intimacy, and settled nearby to listen. Logan and Karen looked for someplace to sit. Here, there was not even the modest comfort of a bed of moss. He settled on squatting on his haunches on the cavern floor.

“Look there.” Alan pointed at an image engraved at the top of the peaked roof in the exact center. “What do you see?”

Logan looked and saw a figure of a man, dressed in a toga that hung from one shoulder. In one hand was a spear. At his other side sat a three-headed dog.

“That is Hades,” Alan explained. “The Greek god of the underworld.”

“A temple to Hades… in Christian Hell.” Logan shook his head in bafflement. “How? Why? I mean, I finally see some evidence of civilization in the wasteland and it’s…”

“Not what you expected?” Alan almost smiled.

“Yeah,” Logan replied. “Let’s go with that.”

Alan nodded. “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. Revelations 20:34.”

Logan stared at the ruin. “A Bible quote… about the Greek god Hades…”

“The very same,” Alan nodded and gestured at the broken temple. “We are looking at the bones of a dead world, my friend. A fading echo of another reality and, I suspect, our sanctuary from the infernal influence above. One that is being slowly and inevitably consumed by the very walls of this cavern.”

Logan blinked at him. “Consumed?”

“Consumed, eaten, assimilated, the word doesn’t matter.”

“That’s…” Logan stopped short of saying “crazy”. After all, this was Hell, and there was no shortage of crazy in this place. “That makes no sense,” he offered instead.

“Doesn’t it?” Alan asked. “Tell me, how much do you know about Christian teachings on the subject of Hell?”

“Not much,” Logan admitted. “I was never the religious type.”

“I was,” Alan replied. “That is to say, as much as I had to be to convince people to throw their money at me. I was famous once, you see. Preaching 'the word of God' on TV to millions, promising endless bounty in exchange for their donations.”

His smile was bitter. “We called it the 'Prosperity Gospel'. Give me a dollar and God will give you three in return. Amen. Praise the Lord. Of course, the only ones who truly prospered were me and those I chose to include in my lucrative business.”

“You were a TV evangelist?” Logan wrinkled his nose. Disgust drove impulsive words out of his mouth he would never have imagined saying to a stranger.

“Holy shit. You might be the first person I have met who truly belongs in Hell, and in the realm of Lust no less. What did you do? Diddle one too many young believers?”

If Logan’s harsh accusations angered or offended him, Alan’s expression did not show it. The bitter smile remained fixed in place. His eyes were haunted with knowledge but did not waver beneath the burden of guilt long since weighed and measured.

“Yes, it has occurred to me that perhaps I do belong here, but no. Lust was not my sin, especially not for young flesh. Nor was it my punishment. I was brought to this circle of Hell by ship for the amusement of my demonic Master until he grew bored of me and I managed to escape into the wastelands, and eventually, to these caves.”

Logan stared at him. “There is a lot there that you are not saying, I think.”

Seeing the look on his face, Alan smiled and shook his head. “Let’s table that discussion for another day. For now, we were speaking about Hell, and how it does not actually exist.”

“You said that before. My eyes tell me you are still wrong.”

Alan leaned forward and held up a finger. “I mean to say that should not exist. Not, and this is the important part, according to the Bible. Which, as I hope I have established, I was something of an expert on and sufficiently jaded to question its inconsistencies. Do you recall what I said about the word Hell?”

“That it is an incorrect translation, apparently of four different words.”

“Indeed,” Alan said. “Every instance of the word “Hell” in the Old Testament is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word “Sheol” or as in the Greek text, the word “Hades”. He pointed at the carving on top of the temple roof. “Neither of those original concepts spoke of eternal damnation.”

“That’s only two,” Logan pointed out.

Alan nodded. “Later in the New Testament, all but one use of the word “Hell” is a mistranslation of the word “Gehenna”, which was an actual place in Jerusalem where trash and dead bodies were taken for disposal, quite literally a landfill of the ancient world. When Jesus is allegedly quoted talking about “rich people going to Gehenna, he is saying they would die and their bodies would be disposed of just like the poor people. Yet, in the King James version, “Gehenna” was replaced with “hellfire”.

Alan continued. “The only other use is a mistranslation of the word “Tartarus”, which in Greek mythology was the lowest level of… wait for it… Hades. And that passage in the Bible? It’s from the Book of Peter and happens to be a reference to a place where “fallen angels” are sent. Not humans. Not us!”

Peripheral movement distracted Logan. He looked over at the listening audience. They seemed to be paying less attention to the conversation and more to each other. Hands had begun to actively wander, fondling, and caressing whoever was within easy reach.

Alan sighed at them, like a parent, loving but weary. “Be calm, my friends. Remember to breathe deep and slow. Control your desires before they can control you, just like we practice.”

He turned back to Logan and Karen. “I do not ask your forgiveness for my friends. If your sin is also lust then you understand their pain.” Alan gestured around them. “This place eases that pain, that obsession, but it is a battle they must fight every waking moment.”

“Because nothing they do will bring them any kind of sexual relief, only more frustration. Yeah, I know,” Logan offered.“But not you, it seems.”

“No. As I said, lust was not my sin. My eternal punishment is quite different.”

Logan nodded and took the hint to probe no further into the man’s pain. He also turned to one side so that he was not distracted by the foreplay exhibition warming up around him. Every passing minute felt more awkward and he began to look for a polite way to make his excuses and leave.

“Well, Alan. It was nice to meet-”

“No!” The intensity in Alan’s voice seemed to startle him as much as it did Logan. “Forgive me, but you must listen. Please.” He went on in a softer, calmer tone of voice. “This is important.”

“Ok, Alan,” Logan soothed even as he checked to be certain that the way out was still clear. “If it means that much to you, then say your piece.”

Alan tried to smile but Logan was beginning to sense cracks in his calm demeanor. “You must understand that the very concept of Hell and eternal punishment has absolutely no authentic Biblical support. It is a two-thousand-year-old scam, fabricated by the church elders to leverage the fear of damnation for profit and control! Even Christianity itself, like every other religion, is nothing more than re-purposed beliefs from older religions. The cross, crucifixion, Easter, Christmas, the Sabbath, holy trinities, the son of God being born to a virgin, it’s all of Pagan origin.”

Again he pointed at the temple. “The proof is right there! That building is a physical remnant of that older religion, entirely free of demonic taint or sexual hunger. A slowly, fading echo of what once was.”

“Even if true, why does that matter?” Logan asked.

“Don’t you see?” Alan asked. “It is evidence that Hell is not real!”

Logan pointed up at the ceiling. “Except that it is real!”

“Exactly!” Alan said. “How can that be? What makes Hell real? What makes that broken Greek temple real? Or demons? Or flying ships?”

Logan resisted the urge to strangle him. “You tell me.”

“I don’t know!” Alan all but shouted. He pointed a finger at Logan. “But I believe that therein lies the answer to your very first question. Learn that truth, discover that secret, and you will have your means of escape out of this nightmare realm!”

“Logan.” Karen tugged at his arm. “I think there is about to be an orgy and that can’t have a happy ending for anyone.”

He looked where she was looking. The murmur of voices and the subtle whispers of desire were growing louder as bodies began to writhe together on the ground. Hands groped with desperate urgency. Lips and tongues explored naked flesh with feverish, need. Need that, inevitably, went unsatisfied. Women could not get wet and men could not get hard, no matter how urgently they tried.

When they started looking towards him with raw hunger in their eyes, Logan decided it was time to go. “Alan, why are they looking at us like that?”

“I don’t understand.” Alan looked at his friends. “They should not be so restless. Not here.” Alan leaped to his feet and moved to intercept his people as they began to move toward Logan and Karen with pleading, hungry eyes. “Something about you, or Karen, or both is agitating them to lustful behavior. I will try to calm them but you must go. Go now!”

Logan and Karen made a hasty retreat.