The COMPLETE Witching Pen Series, Boxed Set (21 page)

Yes! Harder … harder!
"Harder!"

He complied. Teeth nipped at one of her breasts, found their way around a nipple, tugged…

So close…

Her gums ached … which would have confused the hell out of her if she'd been capable of coherent thought; as it was, she let it pass – the ache will go soon.
All
the pain would go soon, if she could just
get this.
 

"Harder!"

He groaned, then paused.

Paused? God, no! Don't stop!

A rustling sound, and then he pushed her legs apart, wide open, entered her once more, fuller, bigger,
harder … yesss!
 

The beginnings of an orgasm rippled somewhere deep within her belly, the pain in her gums and
teeth
for some reason, became so great she wondered if her mouth was bleeding … blood … the thought of blood seemed to heighten her senses, the ghost of the metallic taste filled her mouth…

Blood. I need … blood.

No time to ponder on the weirdness of
that
right now … the heat inside her unfurled, exploded, her climax hit her fast and hard. She relished it, rode it out 'til the very end, aware of nothing, but reaching that completion she had been seeking … the completion that never came.

Damn it!

But that was so good … what's missing?

With half of her sated and half of her still yearning for something intangible, she came down from her fiery bliss, confused, still … lonely.

Realities became more solid, began to separate. The cloudiness of subconsciousness parted, giving way to conscious thought, giving way to reason, reeling her in from her dream world … and
what
a dream…

Not a dream.

What?

Her eyes opened. Her stomach sank like the Titanic. She looked on in horror as she hit the iceberg of reality at full speed – both it and her shattered into a million pieces. This was wrong … so very wrong.

Oh God oh God oh God oh God…

"Paul?" she whispered, her voice sounding small, frightened.

His reply was a post-coital sigh of pleasure, as he lay embedded deep inside her, followed by a soft, "Are you all right? That was amazing…"

Oh, GOD … what have I done?

Chapter Three

It was the groaning coming from his left that stirred him into consciousness.

Oh, hell…

His head was pounding, as if his ears had been boxed.

It took Pueblo a few seconds to take in his surroundings. The first thing he realised was that he felt bruised all over; the second was that his clothes were waterlogged, even more than before, from the quicksand; and the third, was that he had landed on his front and was lying on a large, uncomfortable stone.

No, wait…  In his disoriented state, he shifted his weight. The stone didn't move. He was lying on his own fucking erection.

You've gotta be kidding me… While I was knocked out?

Then the dream came back to him – abstract images at first: blonde hair, lace underwear, hot, smooth skin, beautifully soft, her scent …
her scent…
Amy!

He sat, bolt-upright, and grimaced as his spine cracked. That was one evil portal.

The others!

"Karl?" he called out, his throat feeling like sandpaper.

The groan sounded to his left once more.

"Karl?" He scrambled over towards the sound and found him, about eight feet away, looking surprisingly good despite his wet clothes – not a mark on him. "Man, you okay?"

"I think this is why angels don't travel into demon dimensions," he mumbled.

"Can you move?"

"Yeah, I think so. I just don't really want to."

"Come on, man, up you get."

Karl grabbed his outstretched hand and hauled himself up to sitting. "Ugh – my head feels like it's been in a vice."

"Me too."

"Elena…"

"I can't see her."

They examined their immediate environment. Powdery, red, rock walls and a dusty floor were brought to life by naked orange flames – torches that sat in carved out holes in the walls, marking the entrance to three, maybe four passages.

"Elena?" called out Karl. The fiery light played with the fear in his eyes, just as a voice, wispy and cold, bounced off the rugged surfaces.

"Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of a witch – yum, yum."

Karl was on his feet in mere seconds, anger replacing the fear on his face. "Who are you? Where is she?!"

The female voice echoed from one of the passageways in front of them, but it was too dark to see anything within them, even with Pueblo's excellent night vision … although, he thought reluctantly, if he allowed his cat out to play, he may be able to see even better.

"Scaredy-cat,"
teased the voice, a laugh rippling around the edges of the words.
"It's your fear that will kill her."
 

The panther inside him arched its back at the insult and tried to claw its way out.

Amy – she's talking about Amy.

Pueblo gritted his teeth and forced himself still. Shifting now may not be such a great idea when he didn't know what he was facing.

"Where's Elena?" repeated Karl.

The blackness beyond them gave way; shadows emerged. The first one took on the shape of a woman, all curved hips and breasts, clad in some kind of sheer material that fell to her feet. She walked with the grace of a viper, her red hair looking positively poisonous under the torch-light.

Floating beside her on her back, unconscious so it seemed, was Elena.

Pueblo heard Karl's intake of breath. "Take it easy," he warned him. Then he turned to the Brujii demon. "Your Highness?"

She nodded. "I am she who rules over the Brujii."

"We don't mean any harm to you or your tribe. We have simply come in the hope that you may be able to help us."

The demon smiled. "Been a long time since I've seen a Dessec…" Her hand snaked down Elena's arm and encircled her wrist. She brought it up to her face and rubbed her nose along the pulsing vein. "Even longer since I've smelled the blood of a Shanka, and
never
have I come across it so potent with magic before." A forked tongue flickered out from behind her lips and licked Elena's wrist.

Karl was trembling beside him, he presumed from anger, although he daren't take his eyes away from the Brujii to check on him. He'd heard their stories. All demons grew up knowing the fabled histories of all seven demon tribes; they were mostly stories that were banded about in an attempt to scare your friends or to laugh over – no one ever took them that seriously. Maybe they had once upon a time, but not in his lifetime … all 305 years of it. It was the result of seclusion. The demon tribes had not co-existed since they'd lived together on Earth – all of them bar the Shanka – over ten thousand years ago. After Lokoli's murder, wars had broken out amongst them. And then the humans had grown in numbers, and the 'fallen' had come. Demons became outnumbered and were, over the centuries, shunned – kept at the periphery of existence, until, eventually, the remaining demons decided to leave altogether. They segregated into their own six tribes (the Shanka never having lived amongst them, but banished to the shadow world) and passed through Lokoli's Veil – a gateway to which the six tribes alone knew how to open, having been handed the secret of the Veil down from Lokoli herself – and into their own separate dimensions. Having disappeared from the face of the Earth, each demon tribe became all but a myth to the others.

Now, staring at the Brujii Queen in front of him, with her flashing citrine eyes, ruby red hair, shit-scary tongue and lightning quick reflexes, he wished he had paid more attention to the fables growing up.

She stared pointedly at Pueblo. "I want her."

He struck out his left arm, laying his palm on Karl's chest before he could take a run at the woman. "She's not mine to give. Besides … we don't trade our own."

"She's a Shanka. What does a Dessec want with a Shanka? They are hated amongst us all."

"Then why do you want her?"

She pouted. Which just looked plain creepy. "Do you not know, Dessec? Did you skip Demon Sunday School?"

He searched his memories for the tales of the Brujii that he'd grown up with.

Oh … there
was
one that stood out, if he remembered correctly. He snuck a sideways glance at Karl. This may not play out too well.

The Brujii reached a hand over her back, behind her neck and the next thing he knew, her dress – if one could call it that – had fallen to the floor.

"Does this jog your memory?" she asked, silkily.

"Er … Pueblo?" Karl sounded confused, understandably so. The female standing naked in front of them – apart from the waves of red cascading from her head – had no hair on any inch of her naturally bronze-coloured body, no nipples or areolae upon her perfectly domed breasts, and no belly button decorating her navel. If Pueblo cared to look, which he didn't, he knew he'd find no folds or opening where her vagina should be. She was just one curvaceous form of continuous, rich brown skin, that shimmered orange in the fire-light.

Despite her nudity, she exuded no sexuality, and no sensuality. No lustful feelings traversed him as he looked upon her, and he'd bet his bottom dollar that Karl was experiencing the same lack of sensation. In turn, Pueblo looked at Elena. She was giving off waves of sexual heat and blasting pheromones all over the place, even in her fully clothed, unconscious state – something he could see quite clearly as a demon and control his reaction to, to a certain extent. Human males, however, wouldn't know why they might suffer sudden hard-ons within metres of her vicinity.

Fuck it. He cleared his throat. "The Brujii have no erogenous zones."

Karl looked at him in bewilderment. "Come again?"

"They have no erogenous zones. They also have no oestrogen or progesterone, no sexual hormones of any sort. They cannot feel lust. They cannot feel pleasure.

"Lokoli gave each demon tribe a gift to master. The Brujii were given the gift of magic. Magic utilises energy. Sex utilises energy. In a bid to ensure the Brujii only ever used their energy for the mastery of magic alone, Lokoli stripped the Brujii from the ability to feel pleasure, particularly sexual pleasure, which accounted for the most amount of wasted energy as far as Lokoli was concerned." He looked at Karl, who was still staring at him as if he'd just seen two barracudas do the Tango. "If you ask me, she just wasn't doing it right."

The Brujii moved towards them, floating Elena along with a wave of her hand. She stopped about five yards away. "The only time I was with a Shanka – far too long ago now – was the first time I'd ever experienced sexual pleasure, such is the gift of the succubi. But Lokoli was right, I was without my magic for months after –
months.
But this one…"
she stroked Elena's hair, "this one is imbued with magic – I can feel it. I want her. She can give me what I need without my losing what is rightfully mine."

"Your Highness, I understand your pain, and the terrible injustice that Lokoli saw fit to carry out upon your race, but you cannot have her."

She hissed at Pueblo, her tongue waggling at him in defiance. Then she extracted a pair of hidden canines. "Just a taste…"

Shit!

He lunged at her just as she went for Elena's wrist. He hit an invisible force and went flying backwards.

The she-demon laughed. "My magic is quicker than your legs, Dessec." She went again for the wrist.

A scream filled the space they were in, just a millisecond after the light did.

Pueblo jumped to his feet.
Christ!
It was literally like the sun had risen where they stood. Goldenboy had done it again, only this time, he wasn't the only one lit up – Elena was too, through what looked like some kind of luminous umbilical cord that ran between them.

The scream had come from the Brujii Queen. She had fallen to her knees and was clutching her mouth, blood staining her fingers. "My teeth! They're broken!"

Pueblo looked at Karl questioningly, but the angel – and he looked all angel now – was standing within his gold shield, a blank expression on his face.

Pueblo's heart sank. Now that the queen knew Karl was an angel, there was no way she would help them find whatever magic hid Amy. He was yet another step away from finding her.

Karl walked towards Elena. The queen didn't stop him, but stared at him with a strange mixture of awe and rage.
"Angel!"
she spat.

"Not only that," Pueblo added. "They're soul-bonded."

Genuine shock reigned her features. "An angel and a demon?"

He nodded. "I don't know how that works either, but apparently it does."

"Then it's true…"

"What is?"

"The Witching Pen is made manifest on Earth."

All conscious eyes turned to her, and silence filled the cave.

Elena stirred with a moan. Karl took her hand in his and pulled her upright against him, breaking whatever spell had kept her afloat. She slumped onto his chest, still not fully awake.

"What do you know of the Pen?" Karl asked the queen.

Her bloody mouth stretched wide in a grin. "The nib is a needle and the ink is thread; the nib is a blade and the ink is poison."

"Riddles?"

"Life is a riddle, angel, you're just too above yourself to accept it, all super-consciousness and light and love … it's what the Great War in Heaven is made of."

"Light and love?"

"Lack of acceptance."

"Believe me, of all my vices in my short, complicated life, lack of acceptance is not one of them."

She frowned. "Then, you are not fallen? What are you even doing here? Ah…" she suddenly smiled, "you and her." Her eyes fell on Elena's slumped form. "Shadow and light. The Great Shanka Witch of the Old Scrolls. That's quite a darkness you have to counter, isn't it? Truly, you cannot be fallen."

Pueblo took a step towards her. "It seems you have a lot of information we could do with knowing."