Strum: virgin captive of the billionaire demon rock star monster (The Squirm Files) (9 page)

“Stay there,” yelled
Zagan as he stormed past. “You can’t do anything.”

Good
to know, considering she was so scared her knees were knocking. So she sat down in the poppy field beside Lars and took up weaving.

The bangs, roars
, and whistles, the planes zooming past at breakneck speed, ten feet above ground level, the crunches of bones and splatter of blood, it all said
War
, with a big
W
.

Knit one.
Pearl One.
Knitters said that didn’t they? It was like a calming mantra.

Besides, shielding the
booklings and Lars seemed the best she could do.

A hundred yards to the left
, she was aware of the battle slowly rolling past. There were more screams. She peeked. Zagan was alive. The blood and other icky things flying about made her go back to weaving, after she’d soothed and patted a small, shaking book. By the time the noise abated, she’d woven a poppy stem skirt.

She rose,
dragged on the somewhat holey and crooked skirt then took a breath. She looked past the smoking wreckage of a plane, past a few slumped bodies, and beyond a burnt-out tank with several steel pages jutting from its turret.

Far in the distance, Mr. T
., in his gigantic T. rex form, was chewing on the Necrosexi-texmexicon. Sparks sprayed from his mouth. The book wriggled loose from his jaws and shot away. It bashed a hole in a wall that hadn’t been there before, but was apparently the boundary of this story’s setting, and vanished. Mr. T. lumbered after it, smashing an even bigger tear in the wall as he exited.

“Well. This is interesting.
And can’t be real.” She rubbed her eyes.

But
Zagan was nearby and had been watching the distant battle. Alongside him stood Crush and Bob. He pointed to the other side of the field, a mile or more away, where there was a purple flickering dome of electricity. From the purple dome walked forth a man. She knew him in an instant. Karl.

Karl
Thulhu.

And she remembered
everything
. He was a possessive man cross tentacle monster. She distinctly recalled a long, detailed statement that ended with him saying mine, over and over, even if he hadn’t wanted her china animal collection.

Oh my.

Awkward.

“
The Necrosexi-texmexicon did it!” Zagan yelled to her. “It’s made the portal and Karl is back. You stay there. I’ll go meet him and explain everything.”

Her knees
wobblified again and she had to kneel among the poppies – that or fall over. Not good. Maybe this was all a dream? An opium dream? One could hope. Either that or she was going to have to explain to Karl how she’d had sex with a demon.

How was she going to choose between these two lovers? Th
ey both had places in her heart and, she supposed, elsewhere, considering where all those tentacles and that tail had been.

She didn’t even have a coin on her to flip.

Decisions, decisions.

“Okay, here we are. To the left is your typical battle scene. Do try not to step on the innards or you’ll have to wash your feet when we leave.” Prudence Prim ha
d arrived with what looked like a baby dwarf hippo trotting at her heels.

Virginia squinted as they waltzed from the jungle with Prudence pointing out things of note like dead people and sizzling left-over rockets. What were they up to? The little group of tourists, mostly men, were happily taking pictures of everything from pools of blood to what looked suspiciously like a dead
bookling hanging from a tree branch. She growled, wanting to smack the guy in the head.

“It’s you!” Prudence said brightly as she wandered over.
The little hippo squealed as it hurried to keep up. “Oh dear, whatever are you wearing?” She waggled a ruler in Virginia’s direction. “Is that skin? You can’t do that, dear. Not here, in a story, that’s like, being seen by the general public.”

What? There were dead people, or something...Virginia wasn’t sure what as she hadn’t looked
closely...only two yards behind Prudence. The woman had even stepped over a puddle of blood to get here.

“
You
brought them. And it
is
an erotic story.”

“Doesn’t matter.
It’s a brand new rule. Like one-second new. Look, I’ll check with administration.” Then she bent down and whispered to the hippo. The critter snuffled into her ear and she nodded, plainly believing it was saying something. She straightened. “There. Told you it was a rule.”

Hell.
Was this for real? If the attendants could make up the rules like this, she was about to be shafted.

Without asking, Prudence poked at the skirt.

“Ahem.” Virginia scowled and edged backward. Invasion of privacy, or what? “Aren’t you supposed to be shepherding those people?”

“They’re all having fun
. And being law-abiding. But you....ooooh. That skirt is just on the edge of disgraceful. I may have to cite you. You simply cannot expose that much skin. Do you even have panties on?”

She folded her arms, p
repared to stand her ground and wedge a book up Prudence’s hoohah if she did one more poke. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“
The horror!” She shuddered. “You must be joking?”

Crush sneaked up behind her and tapped Prudence’s shoulder. She spun around.

“You! Darling man. Have you been a good boy?”

Though he blushed, Crush nodded.

He wasn’t saying much, but at least he’d distracted Prudence from her puritanical invasion of Virginia’s poppy stem skirt.

The scars on his face looked pale,
as the rest of his face was so beetroot red. Prudence caressed them with her ruler. “I like these. Makes you such a beautiful man.” She lowered her voice. “I wanna take you somewhere and do bad things to you. Would you let me? Hmm.”

There was a pause so pregnant a herd of wildebeest popped into being in the fields and proceeded to have baby wildebeests. Virginia cocked one eyebrow. What
ever
were
wildebeests anyway?

Crush nodded
shyly but croaked. “Yes, ma’am.”

Wait. What?
Virginia took a step and tapped Prudence on the shoulder. “You can’t take him anywhere. We need him to defeat the Necrosexi-texmexicon.”

“
Ummm. Really? Though I know that book. It threatens the existence of the Zon itself. That’s what this battle was about?”

She nodded but rummaged through her expressions and summoned a glare.
“You can’t have Crush. Even if I have zero idea as to what exactly he did in the battle. I mean a cock that could hammer nails is interesting and all, but does it have any other use? Seriously?”

After choking for a few seconds, Prudence recovered. “Yes,” she squeaked. “I do believe so. I will do you a deal.
Crush comes with me. I won’t prosecute your see-through skirtness disaster.”

Virginia glared harder.

“And...if you come with us, I will give you a weapon of inestimable value. The weapon to end all weapons. And probably the Necrosexi-texmexicon too. The Wand.”

“The wand?
What. The Fuck?” I can’t go traipsing off to get this. Zagan and Karl...” Oh god, explaining time soon. “They expect me to be here.”

“
Pfft.” Prudence hooked a finger under Crush’s chin. “I have like a scifi teleport thing. You can be gone and back again in the buzz of a futuristic
zzzap
before they notice you missing. Come.”

“Come? N –”

The world blinked out, went
pinnng.
And she was there. Somewhere else. Virginia looked around. There were shelves everywhere and there were dildos, and topless women with clampy things on their nipples, and others wearing dildos like cocks, and
ohmigod
it was too much. She stared at Prudence and totally nowhere else. Was this the Hall of Dildos?

“You wanted to sue me over my skirt and there’s all this!” She gestured wildly with
out actually looking at anyone or anything. So what if she’d had tentacle sex, and tail sex, and all that. This was rude!

But Prudence merely
sauntered to a display of what seemed black dog collars and steel chain leashes, then sauntered back and buckled the collar onto Crush without doing more permission wise than looking deeply into his eyes while she did so.

The little hippo squatted nearby watching everything.

God damn.
Maybe Crush had found his woman? She shook her head, Concentrate on the task at hand.

“You said you had a magic wand? Who in this day and age has wands?”

“Fairy godmothers.”

She’d
said it so seriously that Virginia was stunned. “You’re joking.” She surveyed the blonde woman from heels to corset and back. “You? A fairy godmother?”

“
Meh.” She shrugged. “Who knows? I go with the flow. But look...I do have a wand. Here.” She went to another shelf and selected something vaguely ice-cream-cone shaped but bigger. Then she returned and solemnly held up the thing.

“What?
This is it?”

“It is. Behold.” With a gran
d gesture, and a bow, Prudence presented the device to Virginia like a prize in a game show. “The Wand of Magic.”

“
Mmm. I don’t know if this is a fair swap. It looks electrical. Where am I going to find a wall plug?”

“How the fuck do I
know? Begone!”

And with that, she was back at the battle
scene, and a few feet from a very unhappy looking Karl and a grinning Zagan, her demon with those sexy, black horns. Virginia blinked and tried not to fall over.

“Where have you been?” Karl
’s black suit looked perfect, as if he’d just returned from a wedding.

“Getting this.
A, ummm, magic wand?” She held it up, waggled it.

“That’s a vibrator.”

“Oh shit. That bitch.”

“Don’t worry. I can find something to do with it.”
Zagan winked at her. “But now, let’s go track down the Book. Where’s Crush?”

Oops.
“I think I just let a dominatrix with a thing for dildos get hold of him.”

Zagan
sniggered. “He’s well and truly fucked then. We’ll just have to do this without him. The Book has tried to distract us by returning Karl. But if we let it go, it will destroy this place. However.” He raised his brows. “I have an idea or two. And they all involve you.”

From his smug look
, his ideas probably involved Zagan’s favorite occupation – sex.

“Na-uh.”

“Yup.”

“I agree.” Karl nodded solemnly. “And so will you.”

Fuckitty
. She pouted and tried to look disgruntled. “What do you mean, exactly?”

“You want details?”
Zagan shook his head. “I’m not good at talking. Doing is more my scene.” He glanced at Karl. “Let’s show her how to
do
?”

“Agreed.”

Oh my.
Just one under-the eyebrows-stare from Karl and she had an urge to run. Those black irises...
Gulp.
Except her non-existent panties had just become sizzling, fireball hot. Which really was damn uncomfy. She
squeeezed
her thighs together and whimpered.

“We’re fucking with your head, Virginia.” Karl smiled
, though with his mouth only. His eyes were stone.

Scary
man.
Granite? Onyx? She had this urge to go up and tap on his eyeballs to check.

He continued.
“We had a look through the tear in this world that the Necrosexi-texmexicon made and we have a plan for destroying the Book.”

“
No crazy sex?”

“No.” He shook his head.

Phew.
Relief. She put her hand over her heart. “You’re both bastards.”

“Shall we turn her over our knees and spank her for that?”
Zagan flexed his hands. His horns loomed above, making him look scrumptiously intimidating.

Crap.
She scurried to elaborate. “But nice bastards. Absolutely, really nice...bastards.” Being around these two was like setting up house in a minefield. Which was close to the truth. She looked at the carnage, spotted a bookling trotting about with a finger in its mouth. At her frown, it froze then slowly dropped the finger.

“Later
, I will spank her.” Karl’s mouth twitched. “We’ve seen where the book is. I believe it created the portal because a dinosaur was chewing on it, because it was stressed. We’re going to annoy it again, get the Sea Wolves back, and then we will push the Book through the portal.”

“
How do you annoy a book with every type of sex in its memory bank? A book that can make portals to other universes? Sounds complicated. Like being in the middle of an orgy with six men and trying to remember where you put your gum.”

Zagan’s
eyes lit up.

The man was impossible. “
Not that I’ve ever done that! But I can
imagine
. Complicated means more chances for things to go wrong.”

Karl
tsked. “We’re going to make a herd of sex-crazed dino-shifters stampede and chew on the Necrosexi-texmexicon. Watch. Follow.”

They dragged her out into the corridor and along to the fantasy romance genre where the book doors had titles like
Prophecy of the Twins
,
The Long Lost Prince
, and
We done followed the Trail of Clues and You’re Saving Our Kingdom, Man.

That
last title ran all down the page and she ended up reading the final letters off the floor. It gave her a crick in her neck.

“
These look good,” Zagan shouted, from further along. He muttered as he walked, trailing his finger under the letters. “
The Lost Ninja Seal Team. The Found Mercenary King. The Orphaned Biochemist.
That’s it!” He tugged open the door and they followed him into a city of dark alleyways, to a room where an oily-haired drunkard lolled on a bed. The man squinted at them while clutching his beer bottle.

“Who’re you?”

Karl announced, “Your unwanted child from this unforeseen pregnancy will grow up to be the One Foretold who Saved the World from an Evil and Crazy Book.”

He frowned and hiccupped once. “No shit? I thought this was the story
where our biochemist daughter saves the world from a future plague?

His partner popped up her head from under the sheets. “Or the invading demon army
?”

“Neither.”
Zagan shoved a document in front of the man. “Sign here, both of you, to release all rights to the baby.”

“Why?” The man squinted.

Without more than a second’s pause, Zagan transformed into a demon with flames pouring off him and Karl plopped out a random large tentacle that landed on the man’s lap.

“
That is why.
” Zagan’s voice rocked the room.

Virginia screwed a finger into her ear.
Ouch.

“Good enough!” The man snatched the offered pen, hiccupped, and sig
ned, as did the woman.

The following events happened in a rush –
they departed the story and twiddled with the door knob. “Twenty years in the future...thirty years. This should be it!” Zagan declared.

They
re-entered the book world and found a woman at an apartment. They quizzed her and, after confirming she was the same person as the baby and therefore also the...cue drumroll...
Orphaned Biochemist
, they rushed her to a laboratory.

D
espite Virginia’s screams of embarrassment, Zagan gave the woman Virginia’s long lost panties and demanded she synthesize some chemical compound.

Time whizzed past in a montage of Bunsen burners and test tubes and people with goggles staring at things that bubbled.

Carrying a clinking bag filled with bottles and bottles of whatever the woman had made, they returned to the jungle-war book and exited through the tear in the world, to wherever it was that Mr. T. had gone.

Virginia clutched at her heart, which was pounding along so fast, she was sure it was a wasted moment of cardiac
excitement. She should’ve been having desperate sex, or kissing at the very least. Racing hearts and sex went together like the flu and sneezing, like bikers and body shots, like blow jobs and mouth wash – or so she’d heard.

Dangerous Bob was
here already, on the other side of the tear, standing at the top of a small rise. He was watching something through binoculars.

Where was this?

A distant scream then a roar chilled her blood.

She leaned her head toward Karl and whispered. “Where are we?”

“Cretaceous period in history.
Dinosaur Abduction by I. M. Horny
.”

“
Uh-huh.”

Here was g
reen. More jungle-y than the last jungle, but it had an ancient air. The plants seemed different and bigger, which she figured was probably because this was millions of years ago before anyone invented weed killer. Something large buzzed in and tried to sink a proboscis the size of a hypodermic needle into her arm.

She swatted the bug,
unscrewed it from her flesh while going
ow, ow, ow
, then flung the creature away. Dinosaurs roamed the earth along with fucking huge mosquitoes.

From the bushes, something
crept. It pounced on the corpse of the mosquito and swallowed it. After blinking at her, the dead-bug swallower scuttled off.

S
he grabbed hold of Karl’s arm. “Can we go elsewhere, please?”

*
We need to be there.* As he swore, Bob pointed toward a distant herd of something big.

Everything was fucking big here.

He hitched the coil of electrical extension cords into a better spot on his shoulder, did the same with the belt for the twin Colt revolvers he’d found somewhere, in one of the stories, then he set off. All the men had found shirts too.

A pity that.
Funny how she’d forgotten to find panties or something to wear on her bottom half.

“
Crap. I’m sure that’s further away than
elsewhere
should ever be.” She considered telling them to leave her here, but at the snap of jaw and snarl of some hidden beast, she hurried to catch up. At least she’d found some gym shoes in the last book. And a frying pan. Which were totally more important than underwear.

Everyone had their chosen weapon and now she did too – strapped across her back like any legendary weapon should be. She stretched up her arm to check it was reachable...and couldn’t
touch it, no matter how she curved her arm. Or, or...this way maybe? This time she did a little
hop
, as if that would help.
Fuckit.

“You okay there?” Karl looked perplexed.

“I’m fine.” She snatched her hand down, smiled stiffly, and walked on.

He chuckled. “
Virginia, you dork. Next time, when you find one lying about,
tak
e the damn singing ninja sword with the glowing blade and the Word of Power on the steel.”

Her mouth turned down.
“Smart ass. I was being honest, is all, and not stealing.”

He swatted her butt.
“You stole the frypan anyway.”

Took another half hour before the sting faded.
Owie
. That man could swat. Besides, the frypan was good steel too and even had a word on it that was close to her name –
Virgin Steel
.

When they reached their destination, she had he
r frying-pan draw down pat and could get it out and ready for action within two minutes of gymnastic reaching.

“It’s near here,”
Zagan whispered.

“What?” She stopped practicing
, wiped sweat off her forehead, and looked up. From the nearby grunting and the pounding of the earth, she should’ve been watching where they were going.

“The
Book. It’s here.”

Where?
The copse of trees to the left, or the swamp to the right...or somewhere among the bunch of dino...saurs...having sex...with, what the fuck, with women? Gee whizzes. The things one learned.

She tilted her head one way and then the other, hoping to figure out how they did it without exploding the women.
From the women’s screams of joy, it was fun. But surely dino dick was huge?

Squinting didn’t help.
“Dangerous Bob.” She put out her hand, palm up. “Binoculars, please.”

He grunted,
gave her a ton of advice along with a slew of swearing, but handed them over.

They didn’t help
either. Still impossible.
Concentrate. Concentrate.

Big dick poised to go in – like, it was
close to half as wide as the woman. Naked woman held by little dino arms, butt out. Dick in, disappears inside her. Out again and still visibly big.

Fuck.
“Argh! I don’t get it! Is this like some space time continuum warp where things are bigger or smaller than they appear? It has to be. If I keep looking, I will figure this out. Surely sometimes it goes wrong?”

Bob
snatched away the binoculars.

“Hey! You’re interfering with important schlong research.”

“Leave it be, Virginia.” Karl grasped one of her wrists. “The Necrosexi-texmexicon is watching too. We have to act now before it vanishes again.”

“Besides,”
Zagan added, as he grabbed her other wrist. “If she goes pop you won’t want to see. My fans do it sometimes, on the high riffs, and it’s messy.”

“
Okay! I get it. Let me go then.”

But instead they proceeded to hold her s
till as they stripped off her T-shirt, bra, and poppy stem skirt. She screeched a few curses at them but they didn’t stop until she was naked. Then they let her go. If there was anything guaranteed to make her nervous, or maybe that should be
nervouser
, considering Bob was watching her and there were giant dino-shifters nearby...it was that Zagan and Karl were pulling off their shirts too.

“Hey, guys.” She waved her hands. “No sex. Remember?”

“We’re not.” Only Zagan could say that with a straight face yet still look like he wanted to fuck her until she couldn’t walk.

“That would be more reassuring if you weren’t moving in on me. If we’re not having public,
dino-voyeur sex, why are we naked? Or mostly naked, in your cases?”

Hmm.
Two men with bare chests. Sexy men. She had a sudden urge to sing out
I can see man titty
while doing a dance. Somehow, she was certain that would not end well.

“
We’re attracting the attention of the Book. Is it coming closer?” He jerked his head slightly backward. Swampward even.

Virginia went up on her tiptoes while still attempting to cover her pussy and breasts with her arm and hand.
The swamp? What was there?

Something bright green
that glittered caught her eye. “Oh damn. You’re right!”

Could a book sneak
?  Because this one was. There was a moving
V
in the water behind where the peak of a green book cleared the surface. As she watched, it emerged until a few feet above the swamp. Weed and water dripped from it.

“When it gets to within throwing distance
, say.” Without taking his eyes off her, Karl rummaged in the long bag they’d brought with them that held several bottles of the biochemist’s synthesized compound. “We’re throwing these at it, so it has to be close enough to be accurate.” He smiled, arching one brow. The aim of that look hit her at breast level. From the bulge in his pants, her standing within his reach and nude was going straight to his cock.

“I can do that, but...” She waggled her finger. “Don’t be getting ideas.” She lowered her voice to whisper. “
Doing it once in front of Dangerous Bob was enough, thank you.”

Bob
chuckled and she shot him a glare. The man had the hearing of a bat.