SF Books by B. V. Larson:

  Pax Solis Series:

  #1 Titan War

  #2 Venus War

  #3 Neptune War

  Rift Warrior Series:

  #1: The Techborn

  #2: Ghost Signal

  #3: Depths of Tamil

  The RED COMPANY Series:

  First Strike!

  Discovery

  Contact

  Invasion

  Steel Rain

  Visit BVLarson.com for more information.

  DEMON WORLD

  (Undying Mercenaries Series #24)

  by

  B. V. Larson

  The Undying Mercenaries Series:

  Steel World

  Dust World

  Tech World

  Machine World

  Death World

  Home World

  Rogue World

  Blood World

  Dark World

  Storm World

  Armor World

  Clone World

  Glass World

  Edge World

  Green World

  Ice World

  City World

  Sky World

  Jungle World

  Crystal World

  Throne World

  Rebel World

  Rage World

  Demon World

  Copyright © 2025 by Iron Tower Press, Inc.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  “Better to die in armor than live in shame.”

  —Roman military maxim

  -1-

  Georgia swamps in September were hotter than Satan’s middle finger, despite the approach of fall. But there was a whisper of change in the evening air—a cool breath that slipped through the Spanish moss and the cypress trees when the sun dipped low.

  It wasn’t enough to break the sweat on your back, mind you, but it was enough to make you remember that nothing—not even a Georgia summer—lasts forever.

  I sat on the creaking porch of my shack, watching fireflies pulse in the gathering twilight. The bog stretched out past the yard, a patchwork of dark water and twisted vegetation. The cypress trees stood in the swamp like aging sentinels. Their roots reminded me of knobby knees, pushing up through the black water. The bullfrogs were already starting their nightly serenade, competing with the drone of mosquitoes and cicadas.

  Three solid months of shore leave had gone by—but it hadn’t softened me much. My hands hadn’t yet lost their calluses, and the scars that occasionally came through a revival reprint-job had not yet smoothed out. But I did have a sense of relaxation in my gut that I’d been enjoying over the summer months.

  I’d labored for long days fixing up my old shack, doing just enough to make sure it wouldn’t fall down. My nights were spent chasing skirts in Waycross. The rest of the time I frittered away fishing in the bog, riding floaters that looked like surfboards over the water out on the Satilla River—and drinking beer. Lots and lots of beer.

  By September, the starry nights on the porch had begun to blur together. It was a peaceful kind of existence that most legionnaires dreamed about during long deployments, the kind of life that I should have been savoring thoroughly.

  But as always, there were a few deep-seated worries that didn’t let me attain complete and utter peace. Mostly, these had to do with my family—but there was one other concern that was never far from my mind.

  I thumbed the edge of my tapper, feeling its thick rim embedded in the skin of my forearm. The organic device contained more than just messages and media—it held secrets, too.

  There was one big one, in particular. It was the kind of secret that could get me shot—or worse—if certain people knew about it. Just consorting with rebels was treasonous in and of itself, but harboring one inside a man’s tapper? That had to be a whole new class of treachery as far as Hegemony was concerned.

  Even as I stared at it, the tapper vibrated softly. It gave me a little start, but it was nothing important—just another news update about the hero of Rage World, honored at Central. It was just Legion news, something the general public didn’t know or care much about. But in Legion Varus, it was a pretty big deal.

  The amazing fact of the matter was that I had been declared to be that “Hero of Rage World”. Naturally, my heroism had been overblown. It was, in fact, a load of crap. But the propaganda machine had been churning out the story all summer long, anyways.

  If only the Legion brass and the hogs at Central knew the truth…

  I rather suspected that, in my case, they didn’t want to know the truth. They were always hungry for something positive to harp about, if only to keep soldiers happy while they were being printed out like pieces of paper—then wadded-up, burned and mutilated by Earth’s enemies.

  For a moment, my mind visualized Armel in his final moments. He’d been bleeding out and freezing to death. Eyes wide open, a blaze of burnt flesh across his forehead and his overly large and somewhat melted nose…

  “James? Supper’s ready!”

  I startled again. My mother’s voice had carried across the yard from the main house, a hundred meters away through a stand of pines and a wide yard that always seemed in need of mowing.

  I knocked back the last of my beer and headed over. The path was well worn, my boots easily finding the way even as darkness settled.

  The main house glowed with warm light—a two-story structure that had weathered countless storms and floods. My parents had bought it when I was young, and since then they’d rebuilt it once or twice, each time a little higher off the ground than before. When you lived in a swamp, the very ground itself seemed hungry to swallow your home.

  The screen door slapped shut when I entered, and the smell of fried catfish and hush puppies filled the kitchen. My mouth was watering already. These were favorites high on the McGill shopping list year-round.

  “About time you showed up,” my father grumbled from the head of the table. Frank McGill was a weathered copy of myself—tall, broad-shouldered—but friggin’ old. Today, his hair was white with streaks of gray, and his jutting jaw displayed a perpetual scowl.

  “Uh…” I said, “something wrong, Pop?”

  Naturally, as I saw the catfish sitting untouched on a big plate in front of him, I knew what the problem probably was. My mama didn’t like people eating until everybody was at the table and together and ready to go at the food at once. This was because us two men in the family tended to eat so quickly, and so thoroughly, that we were done before anybody else showed up. This, in my mom’s mind, ruined the entire point of family togetherness at mealtime.

  “Sorry if I lost track of time,” I said, sliding into my usual chair.

  “You always do,” Dad complained, but there was no real heat in it.

  My mama bustled around, setting out plates in front of me and herself. She was small, wiry, and over a century old. Her hair was pulled back in a practical knot, and I marveled at how well some of the longevity drugs were working these days.

  “Hell’s bells,” I said, “I think you look younger today than you did last year, Mom.”

  She smiled, but my father just gave me a little scowl.

  “I talked to Ms. Hensley at the market today,” she said, taking her seat. “Her son just joined Hegemony. He’s shipping out next month for basic training.”

  “Poor frigger,” I said.

  “James!” she scolded, “it’s an honor to serve Earth—even as a hog.”

  “Sure, sure,” I said, “if you like flying a desk into boredom instead of going out into space.” I stabbed a fresh piece of catfish, having already consumed those that were on my plate. “Tell Hensley that Hegemony’s a different beast than the legions. They’ll have him polishing boots for two years before he sees anything like action.”

  “Not everybody wants constant danger, son,” my father said, his eyes sharp and locking onto mine. “Some folks prefer steady work without getting killed every other Tuesday.”

  I shrugged and stuffed more food in my mouth to avoid continuing the conversation. My mom, however, was not deterred.

  “I saw that interview you did for the Legion news,” she said, “about Rage World.” She beamed with pride.

  Uh-oh. Now I knew where this was going. She’d started off by praising Mrs. Hensley’s kid, but really, she knew in her heart of hearts he was a loser. She’d probably brought up the entire interlude for a chance to brag about her own kid.

  Kid—who was I fooling? I was pushing a century myself.

  “My son, the hero,” she said. “Just think of it, taking down that traitor Armel all by yourself. People are still talking about it, even to this day.”

  I nearly choked on my first hush puppy. There had been an interview, but it had been a carefully scripted propaganda piece that Central had made me record. Lies layered with half-truths, all designed to make Earth’s victory out at Rage World look clean and righteous.

  “Uh, yeah, well, you know how those reporters exaggerate,” I reached for another piece of fish. “It wasn’t just me—the whole Legion was out there, you know.”

  My father’s eyes
narrowed, and he stared for a moment, saying nothing. He could always tell when I was bullshitting, when I was covering, when I was leaving things out. He’d always been able to do so, ever since I’d been a kid trying to explain why the neighbor’s pig had been painted blue.

  “So…” he said quietly, “what really happened with Armel?”

  I shrugged, staring at my plate. “Classified,” I said.

  “Bullshit!”

  “Franklin!” Mom gasped.

  “What? The boy’s lying through his teeth. He’s always doing that.”

  I kept eating, hoping that they would drop it, but they didn’t. Now, Dad was giving me his stare of vast suspicion. It almost stopped me from eating my fill of the fish.

  Mama was clueless. She was too busy telling us about her plans for various holiday gatherings.

  Shit… the holidays? It was only September.

  “James, did you know about that?”

  “Huh…?”

  “I asked you about Thanksgiving, son.”

  “Oh yeah, so you did,” I said, despite the fact I hadn’t heard a word of it.

  “Well…?”

  “Uh…”

  They were both looking at me funny. I was expected to provide an answer. I decided to dodge.

  “The holidays?” I scoffed. “Hell, it’s hardly even fall yet, momma.”

  “Never too early to start,” she huffed.

  “James has a point,” my dad said. “You’ve been telling everybody how your hero son and his entire family are all coming home to visit.”

  At long last I knew what was bothering Dad. Momma was going nuts with this hero thing. She didn’t have much in life to be proud of, and now that she’d gotten something—call it a rare a scrap from the luck of the cosmos—she wanted to make the most out of it.

  That’s why Dad wasn’t happy. He was suspecting tomfoolery on my part. He’d already calculated that playing up my proclaimed heroism was going to blow up in their faces.

  To be fair, that sort of thing had happened before.

  Next, Momma started talking big about Etta and her husband and my grandbaby William. I winced a little. They were all official rebels, now. People who’d never be welcome on Earth again—but I hadn’t told my folks about that part.

  I glanced up with a flash of the eyes—not tilting my head up, mind you. Not even lifting my chin from my plate—but my eyes definitely flashed high.

  My mom was playing around with her food, as usual. Yapping more than eating. But my dad was giving me that stare. It was a hard stare.

  “There it is,” my dad said. “There it is again.”

  “There’s what?” Mama asked.

  “Our boy is looking dodgy. Every time you bring up Etta and her family, and when their next visit’s going to come, he starts turning deaf.”

  The catfish suddenly tasted like sand in my mouth. I didn’t want to eat any more. I wasn’t even hungry. That was a weird state of being for me, so I set down my fork slowly.

  “I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you about that, Mom,” I said, forcing up a smile. “There might be a delay in their travel plans this year—just a small one, mind you.”

  Mama’s face fell and fell hard.

  “What? A delay? But they promised they’d be here for Thanksgiving. Derek’s parents—we’ve invited them already. I’ve already ordered the extra dining table.”

  “Well…” I said, “you know… we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves.”

  “And what about those baby-proofers I gave you?” Mama added. She planted two fists, bony but still strong, on her hips. “Have you installed them yet?”

  I shifted around uncomfortably in my chair. The box of baby proofing equipment was still sitting on top of my fridge where I’d tossed it months ago.

  “I’ve been working on it,” I lied. “I’m just taking my time. You know, you’ve got to do these things right.”

  My father snorted. “Like hell you have!”

  “Frank!”

  “No, Margaret, I’m tired of watching him lie to you.” Dad leaned forward, fixing me with a hard stare. “Something happened out there at Rage World, didn’t it? Something bad. It’s got to do with Etta, doesn’t it?”

  Silence stretched out between us, broken only by the hum of the cooling unit and the distant chorus of frogs outside. I stared at the remains of my meal, my appetite still oddly gone.

  “You need to tell us the truth now, son,” my father said. “Your mother here deserves that much.”

  Mom looked between us, confusion and worry clouding her features. “What truth, James? What’s your father talking about?”

  I grunted and rubbed my face a bit, wiping the grease off on a napkin with both hands. “It’s complicated, Mom, that’s all. Etta and Derek—why, they might not be coming. Not for a while, at least.”

  “But why? Is something wrong with the baby? Is he sick?”

  “No, no, no, nothing like that.” How could I explain that my daughter and her husband were part of a growing rebellion against Earth? That the hero they were so proud of might soon be ordered to hunt down his own child?

  “It’s just politics,” I laughed. “Nothing to worry about. It’s Dust World stuff, you know.”

  She looked confused. “What does politics have to do with visiting family?”

  “Everything, these days…”

  “You’re still not telling me something,” she insisted. “You’ve been poking at your tapper constantly. You usually tape that thing over when you’re on vacation and ignore it.”

  “It’s just stress, Mom, leftover from the mission.”

  “Stress?” She squawked. “Now I know you’re lying. You never stress about a damn thing, even when you should.”

  I stood up, needing to escape the conversation. “Thanks a bunch for dinner,” I said. “I should be getting back to my place before it gets too dark.”

  “James McGill, sit your butt right back down,” my mama said, her voice cracking like a whip. “I’ve raised you better than to walk away while we’re talking.”

  I hesitated, still half-standing.

  “Let him go, Margaret,” my father said. His eyes had never really left mine. “Boy’s got ghosts chasing him. He’ll tell us the truth when he’s ready—or at least, maybe half of it.”

  There was resignation in his tone, so I took the opportunity. I mumbled another thank you and escaped into the night.

  The walk back to my shack felt longer than it should have, and the shadows were growing deeper every moment. By the time I reached my porch, the Moon had risen, casting silver light across the dark water of the bogs. I felt the need for some beer and some drinking. Fortunately, I had plenty on hand. I grabbed one from the cooler and settled back into my creaking chair.

  That’s about when my tapper vibrated. I ignored it. There was never a message born at 8 p.m. that a man couldn’t ignore, leastways when he wasn’t expecting feminine company.

  The swamp night closed in around me and my shack. The darkness was a living thing, full of rustles and croaks and distant splashes.

  A warm breeze stirred the moss hanging from the cypress trees, but beneath it was that hint of autumn coolness.

  I thought about Etta, way out there on Dust World with her husband and my new grandbaby. I thought about the rebel camps hidden in the deep canyons. Then there was Rebel World itself, of course—nothing but forests and oceans, with evil half-Wurr things marching around. What a weird place to raise a human child.

  Then I thought about Armel’s final words before I killed him, about the consciousness I’d stolen and kept imprisoned in my tapper.

  My beer tasted a bit bitter. Worse, it wasn’t enough to drown out my thoughts. But I kept drinking them down, one after another, chugging and hoping.

  As the night deepened, the mist began to rise from the bog, twisting around the cypress trees and clawing across the surface of the black waters. The mist was mesmerizing to watch. The vapor in the moonlight was always like that—like a weird effect in a feely.

  My eyelids grew heavy—but when it got close to midnight, there was a splash that snapped me fully awake.

  That sound… it was too deliberate, too close.

  I set my latest beer down quietly. It had gone warm in my hand, and it touched the creaking boards of my porch with the slightest tapping sound.

  My eyes scanned the tree line. The mist was still hanging there, and it made it difficult to see clearly, but years of living and dying in combat zones had honed my senses. Something was moving out there—or someone.