Soultaker (8 page)

Hal had other fantasies, too. Extremely vivid revenge scenarios. These usually came on the strongest right after one of Jolene’s torture sessions, and mostly he imagined doing some of the same things to Jolene that she’d done to him. The bitch. He’d cut off
her
fucking toes and fingers. See how she liked that shit!

But he knew the fantasies were doomed to forever remain fantasies, and so they were often followed by long stretches of utter despair. And in those moments he often thought back to the day before Jolene snapped and marched him out to the shed at gunpoint. He’d come home early from work that day to find her sitting on the mailman’s face in the living room. Hal knew his wife was a slut, and most of the time he didn’t give a shit, but coming home to that kind of thing wasn’t acceptable. So he kicked the mailman out and went to work on Jolene, determined to whip her into place with his fists. Hal firmly believed any man who caught his wife in the act had the right to do this. But he’d gone overboard, battering her harder than a prizefighter taking out his aggressions on a punching bag, keeping at it until his clothes were drenched with sweat and his muscles ached from the strain.

In Hal’s bleakest, blackest moments, he’d revisit those moments again and again.

And he’d think,
I deserve this
.

He felt something on his face, something so essentially different in texture he knew it was a different creature. It felt almost like a human hand. But not quite. Its flesh felt too rough, almost scaly. Fingers tugged at the length of duct tape, pulling it with surprising gentleness from his flesh. Hal spit out Jolene’s panties and sucked in air, and he mumbled a thank-you to his unknown benefactor.

His gratitude was short-lived, however.

The tendril pushed through Hal’s lips and entered his mouth. Its strange flesh was the most vile thing he’d ever tasted, like something awful from the darkest depths of the ocean. It moved to the back of his mouth and began to slide down his throat. Hal’s eyes came open at last as panic engulfed him. There was something standing in front of him. One of the monsters. It stood on two legs and had shimmery, sluglike skin. It had a curved spine that lent it a hunchbacked appearance, a long, ridged tail as thick as a python’s, lampreylike mouth, bulging black eyes, and a single tendril between its legs. When Hal’s mind made the obvious association, he tried to bite down on the appendage invading his mouth. It went rigid inside him and he felt a sudden warmth in his chest, as if something had been expelled from the tip of the tendril. It retracted rapidly, uncoiling itself from his body and shrinking to a length a fraction of its fully extended reach.

Hal’s mind reeled at the awful thing that had just happened. That goddamn thing had
raped
him! The sense of violation eclipsed anything he’d experienced in terms of sheer obscenity, and that was saying something. Jesus, this must be how that lady hitchhiker he’d picked up so many years must have felt when he—

His train of thought was derailed when the first monster, the one that had removed his gag, stepped into view. Hal’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to scream, but the lizard-woman clapped a scaly hand over his mouth and made a shushing sound.

Hal couldn’t take any more of this. He’d been through a
lot, but enough was just fucking enough. He prayed for a heart attack. Or a stroke. Some sort of natural end to this horror and suffering.

But that didn’t happen.

What did happen was more surprising, and perhaps more frightening, than anything he could’ve imagined.

The lizard-woman began to work at his bonds.

Rage consumed Bridget, her blood boiling as she vented her frustration by screaming threats at Jordan and banging on her door. This rejection was unacceptable. Bridget had never been spurned by anyone. It made no sense at all. She took great pride in being able to wrap sensitive little things like Jordan around her finger. Nothing gave her greater pleasure than playing with another person’s emotions until she’d broken them, and this turn of events left her feeling cheated.

Her fury didn’t begin to level off until a calm voice spoke inside her head:
You will have your fun with her yet. Be patient.

Bridget gasped. The voice of the Dark Mother was clear and lovely, like a soothing spiritual caress. This communication was a privilege, a blessing bestowed. The promise in the Dark Mother’s words erased Bridget’s fury. Anger gave way to delight. She stopped banging on the door and threw her head back and laughed.

She laid a hand against Jordan’s door.

“Soon.” Her voice was a whisper, a subtle insinuation of future pain she hoped Jordan’s subconscious would perceive. She pressed a cheek to the door. “Soon. I can’t wait to hear you cry again.”

Then she giggled.

A door opened to her right and one of Jordan’s neighbors, a scrawny young man with shaggy brown hair, poked his head
out to see what was going on. He gasped at the sight of Bridget’s trim, tawny, naked body. Bridget saw him and smiled. “Hi there.”

The man blushed. “Uh…is there a…problem?”

Bridget stepped away from the door and leaned against the wrought-iron railing that wrapped around the outer edge of the landing, displaying her body in its full glory. “Oh, just a little lover’s spat.”

She laughed when the man’s mouth dropped open. Men were so easy to manipulate. Put an image of two women going at it in a guy’s head and, presto, instant lust zombie.

Now for some more manipulation. This might turn out to be a fun day, after all.

“You’re cute. What’s your name?”

The man stepped out onto the landing. He wore rumpled khaki shorts and a dirty My Chemical Romance T-shirt with an indelible pizza-sauce stain just below its collar. He was nervous as hell, his hands jittering until he shoved them into his pockets. Pathetic. But then, this wasn’t the sort of thing a geek got to see every day—a beautiful naked woman in the flesh. Not without paying good money anyway.

“I’m, uh, T-Todd.”

Bridget smiled. “Pleased to meet you, Toddy.”

“L-likewise.”

Bridget knelt to pick up her clothes, deliberately extending the act to prolong the man’s erotic torture. She bent over at the waist, keeping her legs straight as she stood on her tiptoes and thrust her round ass into the air. Then she stood straight again and held her skimpy clothes in front of her chest.

“Say, Todd, could I come into your apartment to get dressed and use your phone?”

Todd grinned, displaying rows of crooked teeth with bits of food wedged between them. “Sure! I’m, uh, always happy to help out a lady in distress.”

Bridget sashayed past him, saying, “
Such
a gentleman.”

Todd followed her into the apartment and closed the door.

Bridget pushed up against him, snaking an arm around his
waist. She turned the dead bolt, heard the satisfying click of the bolt sliding home, then slid her hand under his T-shirt. Todd was too captivated by Bridget’s compelling cleavage to note the click of the lock. His mouth hanging open again, he stared down at the large breasts pressed against the front of his T-shirt.

Bridget smirked. “See something you like, little boy?”

Todd’s jaw moved up and down, flapping like a broken gear. He seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. “Um…I…uh…”

“Relax, baby.”

Bridget wiggled against him, pressing her thigh hard against the erection that strained the front of his shorts. The sound that emerged from his throat then was almost like a cry of anguish. Poor little fucker. He’d probably never even kissed a girl before, and now suddenly he found himself in a scenario like something out of a porn flick. Probably didn’t have the first clue what do do.

Bridget reveled in his discomfort. The ease with which she manipulated him was an ego tonic following the Jordan debacle. And the sadist within her gorged on the man’s exquisite agony, lapping up his misery the way a drunk guzzles cheap hooch.

“Would you like to fuck me, Todd?”

Todd shuddered. “Yes. God, yes.”

“It’s funny you should say that, Todd.” She smiled and wiggled against him one more time. “Because I think I’d rather be shot point-blank in the face than let you so much as lay a finger on me. You’re one ugly little fucker, you know that?”

Todd flinched. “What?”

She seized a handful of his hair and gave it a vicious twist.

Todd shrieked.

Bridget giggled again and said, “Aw…did that hurt?”

Todd’s initial shock gave way to anger. His voice boomed with rage as he said, “Get out of my house, bitch!”

Well, this was just astonishing. What had happened to the flustered loser?

He pointed at the door and yelled at her again. “Go on, you cock-teasing whore, get out of here!”

Bridget fumed.

Her breath emerged in great gasps.

She waited to hear again the soothing voice of Lamia, the Dark Mother, but this time there was only silence.

Todd scowled. “The fuck is wrong with you? Get your psycho ass—”

Bridget screamed.

Then she raked her long, sharp fingernails down the side of Todd’s face, drawing blood. Todd clapped a hand to his face and staggered away from her. Bridget screamed again and surged toward him, her hands going to his face again. Todd tried to fend her off, spewing curses as he tried to grip her wrists. But Todd’s survival instinct proved to be no match for Bridget’s replenished rage. Her fingers found his eyes, and she drove her nails into the soft orbs, thumb and middle finger hooking into the sockets like the holes of a bowling ball, piercing the tissue and eliciting loud, girlish screams from Todd. She rode his thrashing body to the floor, landed on top of him, pinning his arms beneath her as she continued to drive her fingers through tissue and into his cranial cavity, where she dug around in brain matter and made his body twitch like a live electrical wire for several moments before it went still. Bridget orgasmed more than once while he died.

Then she climbed off him and stared at the utterly still body.

“Was it as good for you as it was for me, Toddy?”

Bridget laughed.

She laughed for a long time.

Then she went into Todd’s kitchen and found several sharp implements. And she went to work on the dead geek’s body. She felt so powerful. It was wonderful to kill! The elation she felt obliterated the previous blows to her self-confidence. She knew now there was nothing she couldn’t do. This was a gift, this power, this strength. A sacred reward for her loyalty and service to the Dark Mother.

She slapped Todd’s lifeless face with his dismembered hand.

He didn’t react, of course, but it was fun.

Bridget again longed to ascend to the rank of Priestess. How endlessly amusing a spell of resurrection would be right now! He would be a zombie. Her slave. Like all the other men who served the Sacred Circle.

She giggled.

And slapped the dead man with his own hand some more.

The sensation she felt as the hard, flat plane of the wooden paddle struck her ass rendered Penelope Simmons cross-eyed with pleasure. She stood bent over at the waist, her hands braced against the edge of Slater’s desk, her long skirt hiked up over her waist. Slater caressed her taut ass with one rough palm. His breathing was shallow. She knew the way she looked in this position was devastating to him—her long, sleek legs encased in sheer black stockings, toned calf and thigh muscles lent extra, exquisite definition by the high heels that lifted her perfect ass. Penelope gasped when he slipped the tip of a finger inside her. Any minute now, he’d unzip his pants and enter her from behind. Penelope tensed, awaiting the explosion of ecstasy she knew was coming.

A moment passed.

And another.

He was really drawing it out, prolonging her torture to the goddamn nth degree. It made her furious. And frustrated. But she loved it, too. This forced denial of pleasure was a pleasure itself, a divine level of sweet discipline. And every passing moment only increased the sweetness of the eventual reward. Every nerve ending tingled with sensual hunger. She was certain this would be her most intense sexual experience in a long, long time, perhaps even eclipsing the frenzy of ecstasy she’d known with her sister’s husband-to-be in the back of a limo on the wedding day.

But then Slater sighed.

And set the paddle on the edge of his desk. He collapsed into his chair, triggering squeals of protest from ancient casters in desperate need of oiling. He folded his hands over his stomach and leaned back with his eyes closed.

Penelope remained braced against the desk a few moments longer. She wasn’t able to process what had happened right away. All day long, she’d been unable to concentrate on her classes, her head filled with fantasy images. Mad with desire by the time the final bell tolled, she’d proceeded directly to Slater’s office, knowing he’d be up to the task of giving her the rough treatment she craved. In her mind, she envisioned it being wilder than ever. There was an extra element of risk at the outset, as there always was during their rare daytime trysts. She imagined rabid, desperate couplings in every position, the two of them clawing at each other and drawing blood, throwing their sweaty bodies around the room and knocking over furniture.

This, though.

Jesus, this was more than she could have anticipated. By the time she was able to speak again, she knew she couldn’t take much more. “Oh my God. Master, you are an artist. But I can’t wait any longer. Please…”

Slater groaned. “I’m sorry, Penny. I’m not playing. I…I’m not up to this right now.”

Penelope went very still. Projecting an outer calmness she didn’t feel, she stood up straight, allowing the long skirt to fall over her ass and drift back to her ankles. She smoothed the skirt, adjusted her horn-rimmed glasses, and turned to face Slater with an expression cold enough to frost the Sahara.

“I don’t think you know what you just did,” she said, her tone as flat as Slater’s. “Do you really want to cross me, Raymond?”