The Thaumaturge Ch. 31

Brooke and I slowed down once we were a little further away from the art studio, walking in silence for a moment or two.

I was thinking about how much more consequential the choice of who I gave power to had become.

Even putting the emotional connections aside, there was the practical truth that it would let me protect them -- and let them protect me -- so much more effectively.

But I was also thinking about Callistryllaxia.

I could tell that my well was near-empty. If I wanted to dream of the succubus tonight, I probably needed to leave something in the tank.

But was that even a good idea?

I hadn't had much time to focus on my succubus problem. Nine more feedings on me, and she could walk the earth without possessing anyone.

She didn't visit unless I had power to take. If I went to sleep every night with power available for Calli to drain, she'd be waltzing around campus in less than a week and a half. I wasn't sure exactly what that would mean, but I had visions of dorm floors full of lifeless husks of college guys.

There was no way we could focus on the succubus in the near-term, though. There was too much going on.

Which meant I needed to slow those feedings down, make sure that I emptied my well each day. Buy us time to solve some other problems first; then we could actually figure out what to do about this.

But, on the other hand: there were nine more feedings. The difference between nine and eight wasn't that significant. With this new evolution in my powers, I did want to hear the succubus's take. She'd always known more than she was letting on; it was her who'd pointed me in the direction of conquests in the first place.

And she might be able to tell me more about Stephanie, too.

I just needed to be judicious about how quickly I drained my well.

"You got quiet," Brooke observed.

I realized we'd come to a stop; the gym, where I knew Brooke was heading, was one way. My own apartment was another.

"A lot on my mind," I admitted.

"Well, there's a lot happening." She eyed me with a little concern. "What's your plan for this evening? Michelle is going to come in strong pushing all of us to help her deal with Stephanie and Vincent."

"We do need to deal with them," I acknowledged. "But... I don't think we can handle him directly. Stephanie, maybe." I shook my head, mentally replaying the scenes from Michelle's memories. "But Vincent was on another level."

Brooke hesitated. "I think I'll... defer to you on that point."

I blinked at her. "Really?" Deferring to anybody else on anything wasn't really Brooke's strong suit.

She inclined her head. "That encounter with Elana was... instructive. Serena's strong, Matt. That she was able to just-" she waved a hand loosely, in the direction of the art studio. "-defang her, that fast, that easily... I wouldn't want to be on the gorgon's bad side. There are some truly powerful beings out there."

"No kidding. Thanks for coming with me. Honestly, I'm kind of glad that it sounds like Clint knows her; at least it means she's not likely to get overtly hostile, right?"

Brooke nodded again, looking a bit more like herself in the wake of the mention of the pride's leader. "Speaking of Clint. The Midsummer Rites. You'll still attend, yes?"

"Yeah, of course."

Wordlessly, she pulled a plain white envelope out of her bag. It had my name on it.

I opened it. There was a single sheaf of paper folded up inside. It felt expensive -- it had substance and weight to it in my hands as I unfolded it.

Your presence is requested as an honored guest of the pride for our Midsummer Rites, which begin at sunset on June 21.

I stopped reading, looked up at her. "Wait, it's tomorrow? You said it was later this week."

She looked at me like I was stupid. "It's on the solstice. Obviously. Which is tomorrow, Matt."

"Uh, okay." I rubbed my face; some major event in the middle of the week was not helping me keep on top of my life. "Where is this thing happening, anyway?"

She gestured at the paper. I resumed reading.

Join us at dusk, in the place where bonds are forged and broken.

Where standing is earned and lost. Where loyalty is tested.

Where the young prove themselves, and the weak are sent away.

I looked up at Brooke, blankly. "Is this supposed to be a riddle?"

"Well, the location is a secret from outsiders who don't know the pride, so yeah. I can't tell you the answer. If you can't guess it, I can come get you and bring you, though." She frowned. "You know us well enough to figure this out, though."

"Kind of weird and culty, but okay. Uh... the football stadium?" I hazarded. Clint was an assistant coach for the football team, and it seemed to fit.

"What?" She looked blankly at me, then broke into a laugh. "Hah. No."

Damn. It seemed like a half-decent assumption to me.

She looked inordinately pleased with herself. She reached up with one hand and, impishly, ruffled my hair. "I gotta run if I'm going to get that workout in. Text me if you have a guess; otherwise, I'll meet you at your place tomorrow and bring you. Oh, and plan to be there until sunrise the following morning."

"What? This thing goes all night?"

"Lions mostly hunt at night, Matt. And this is literally the actual shortest night of the year. You'll be fine."

I spent an hour or two at my place, doing the kind of mundane things I used to do before I started fucking witches and gorgons and werelions. Homework, trying to make sense of the sculpture assignment Elana had emailed over. It felt a little silly, but what was I going to do, drop out? If I wasn't going to do that, it had to get done.

I did send one text, to Viv, Diana and Lauren.

Matt: Hi. Brooke and Michelle don't know about my new powers. I'd like to keep it that way -- I don't want the pride to know -- one of the lions definitely has a grudge against me now -- and I'm worried Michelle will do something rash. Please don't bring it up tonight.

Then I rushed out the door as quickly as I could... which meant I managed to get to Viv's about five minutes early.

She answered the door and immediately pulled me inside. "Okay. They're going to be here soon. Talk fast. You know Michelle's going to want us all to go over there, probably tonight. It sounds like from what you saw in her memories, that's suicide. So what's our alternative plan?"

"Uh. I don't have one," I admitted. There hadn't been time or brainspace.

"Matt." She gave me a flat look. "Come on, I was hoping you'd think about it."

"I did think about it. I thought about it while I was visiting my art professor who's a gorgon -- which went fine, by the way -- and then having sex with a werelion. No, not Brooke, a different one. Who hates me. It's been a busy afternoon, okay?"

Viv opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. "Of course it has. Okay. So... thoughts, then?"

"I know what I think we shouldn't do. Going after Vincent directly is suicide. We're not ready for that." I paused, rubbed the back of my neck. "If it was just Stephanie that'd be one thing. She's dangerous, but all together, I think we could handle her."

"That's not a plan."

I shrugged helplessly. "I know, I told you, I've been preoccupied!"

Viv looked like she wanted to strangle me. But there wasn't even time for her to do that. A knock came at the door, and the evening officially began.

They arrived, one by one, over the next ten minutes.

I could feel all of them -- well, almost all of them -- coming down the hallway. Knew who it was before they opened the door.

It was immediately, viscerally, strange to have them all in one room.

Diana came in first, and the bonfire inside her was bright and steady, drawing me toward it. She gave me her little half-smile -- but it seemed different, now, to me. Warmer. She settled in next to me on the couch; I could feel the muscle of her thigh along mine.

Brooke followed shortly after. I could feel that sense of a caged predator inside her, just out of view, pacing and snarling. She nodded to Viv. Gave Diana -- and, more importantly, the way Diana's body was draped against mine -- a long, hard stare. Then she sat on the couch on the other side of me, close... but not quite as close as Diana was.

Lauren slipped in more quietly, barely making eye contact with me or Viv. The constellation of little stars in her was dim, barely there, and she seemed to be trying to match that energy. She'd changed clothes since this morning, was now in a soft gray cardigan buttoned up to her collarbone, like a cozy suit of armor. She sat in a chair, leaving an open seat between her and Viv.

And then Michelle arrived.

The first thing I noticed: there was no magic in her. Nothing. Not a trace, not a residual flicker of my magic in her to give her character or light her up. It was like a city block experiencing a power outage where the power was on everywhere else. She was the only person in the room who was entirely, completely mundane.

The second thing I noticed was that she looked... rough. There were dark circles under her eyes. But her jaw was set, her spine was straight, and she was carrying a laptop bag like it contained state secrets.

"Evening, everyone." Michelle's voice was clipped, businesslike, as she moved to the chair. She scanned the room, cataloguing each of our faces. "I... thought I'd start by saying thank you again."

She swallowed, hard, and when she spoke again it was markedly less steady. "Being under Stephanie's compulsion was... the worst thing that's ever happened to me. Hands down. So... just thanks."

That got a moment of silent acknowledgement. And then Viv spoke. "So, Michelle, I think we-"

"I'd like to start, if you don't mind." Michelle's voice was all business once again. She unzipped the laptop bag and pulled out her laptop and a folder of physical documents. "Can I use the TV?"

"Uh... sure." Viv gestured at it, and Michelle connected her laptop. The screen lit up with what was, unmistakably, a PowerPoint presentation.

The title slide read: RECLAIMING THE GREY ESTATE - OPERATIONAL OVERVIEW

"Jesus Christ," Viv muttered under her breath.

"Is... is this a military briefing?" Lauren asked, bemused.

"My father raised me to be thorough when you're planning something dangerous." Michelle's voice was flat.

She clicked to the next slide. An overhead photo of a sprawling property appeared -- a large stone house, grounds that varied widely between being well-kept and in disrepair, what looked like a few outbuildings, all surrounded by dense forest. "This is our family estate. Twenty-three acres, about forty minutes north of campus. My father bought it twenty years ago."

She clicked again. A crude floor plan appeared, hand-drawn and scanned. "The property has a network of tunnels underneath it." Michelle pointed to dotted lines on the floor plan. "Originally part of a root cellar system from the 1800s. My father expanded them. He used them for storage, equipment, sometimes as an escape route. There are three access points outside the main house."

She paused, turning to face us.

"Vincent took our home six weeks ago. My father confronted him. Based on what Matt and I saw in my memories..." Her voice wavered, but only slightly. "... my father lost that fight. I... I acknowledge that we don't know if he's alive."

The room was very quiet.

"But I believe he is." Michelle said it firmly, like if she said it with enough conviction, it would be true. "My father is hard to kill. And Vincent kept Stephanie around as a tool; he'd keep my father around too, if he thought he was useful. As a hostage. Leverage. A source of information about other hunters and supernatural creatures."

Diana spoke up. "We don't know for sure though, right?"

"Right. But it's a reasonable presumption." Michelle's eyes were hard. "Vincent uses the things around him. He helped my father kill monsters to draw from their powers. He can't draw from my father, and he can be used in other ways."

"But we have to consider the possibility that he's already killed your father," Viv said gently. "And if that's true... what do you want to do, Michelle?"

"I know what I saw in my own memories, Vivian. And I know my father." Michelle clicked to the next slide.

I leaned in, looking more closely at the diagram. There were now blue circles on the map, marking the tunnel access points. One of them had an arrow.

"First thing's first: we need to confirm whether Stephanie and Vincent are operating out of my family's home, and if so, what they're doing. Second, we determine whether they're holding my father there or not. I can do both myself, if I'm careful, through observation and using the tunnel access, if needed." Michelle took a breath. "All I ask is that you all watch my back and help make sure I avoid Stephanie's influence like last time."

The rest of us glanced at each other.

Surprisingly, Brooke spoke first. "If I was in your shoes, and I peered in some window of the family home that had been taken from me and saw them torturing my father, nothing -- nothing -- would stop me from flying into that room and wreaking havoc. I'd end up dead or a hostage; Vincent would be that much more difficult for the rest of you to deal with." Her voice turned flat. "How do we make sure that's not what happens?"

Michelle hesitated. "Well..."

Diana jumped in, voice firm. "If this is reconnaissance, someone else does it, Michelle. You walk some of us through layout, we figure out a communication approach so we can stay in touch, and you trust us to scope things out."

Michelle frowned. "I don't-"

But Viv was nodding. "Look. Stephanie is going to come after us. We need to know what she's up to anyway. Give us a few days to prepare. You can come with us, but Michelle, you've got to trust us on this if you want our help."

I glanced at Lauren. "Can you make something that could protect someone from Stephanie's influence?"

She bit her lip, thoughtful. "Not indefinitely. She's a stronger witch than I am. But I could make something that stymies her for a little while -- gives you time to get away. Maybe even take her in a fight, although who knows what tricks she has up her sleeve. I'll... need power."

The words hung between us. I nodded; I didn't want to unpack how that might make her feel in front of everybody. I glanced at Viv, Diana, and Brooke. "Maybe... two or three of us go in, together.

Viv and Diana nodded.

Brooke and Michelle -- who didn't know about my newfound power -- both frowned. "Matt, why would you-"

I waved a hand at Michelle, who had spoken. "We'll figure out the specifics after we get a little further into the prep." I turned the subject towards something else. "Michelle, your father must've had all kinds of weapons for killing supernatural creatures. What would the armory in your house have given Vincent and Stephanie access to?"

Michelle winced. "All kinds of stuff. Mostly specialized things we don't have to worry about... but, um..."

"What?"

Her eyes flicked to Brooke "He... had these arrows. Something he got from an African tribesman when he was much younger. He helped them with a problem they had with were-leopards. They gave him a quiver-full of arrows. Said the arrows were really effective for wounding them, that they'd probably work on other shifters. Sorry. But at least he only had three or four left, I think."

Brooke's mouth twisted in distaste. "A coward's weapon."

Michelle rolled her eyes. "Weapons are just weapons. Anyway, if you think that's cowardly, you really won't like the poison that was his go-to for dealing with witches. It muddles a witch's powers. Has to be ingested, though -- food or drink or something similar -- and it takes a little while to take effect. You can't poison a blade with it or whatever."

Diana and Viv and Lauren all stiffened. It was Lauren who spoke. "Your father had a go-to poison for dealing with witches?"

"Look." Michelle's voice was frank, like she'd expected this. "I spent my childhood watching my father rummage through newspaper articles featuring sprees of mysterious deaths, unusual romances, fortunes suddenly appearing overnight, other unexplained stuff. It's not like we went around murdering witches for no reason. Witches went around fucking with other people. We stopped them."

Viv's eyes went cold, and she opened her mouth.

I suspected that what was about to come out was going to significantly increase the odds that Michelle ran off to pursue Stephanie all by herself, ended up hypnotized again, and Stephanie would have a lot of new information about the rest of us.

So I cut her off.

"I think," I said, carefully, "that we should all accept that for the moment, we're aligned in a desire to stop Stephanie. That starts by understanding what she's up to with Vincent. We all want that, yeah? We can talk about the next steps afterwards."

Reluctantly, everybody nodded.

"One more thing," Michelle added. I could hear in her voice that she wasn't sure about sharing this, but she bulled ahead. She clicked; the next slide was a more detailed diagram with a photo. "My father built a... prison, of sorts. A room intended to contain supernatural creatures, underneath the estate. I thought maybe, eventually... we could try to trap Vincent in it. But we definitely don't want to get stuck inside."

Lauren made an astonished sound.

She was staring at the slide in disbelief. It depicted a simple room: cinderblock walls, drain in the floor, dim lights hanging from the ceiling. It could've been anybody's unfinished basement.

Except that carved into the walls, and inlaid with a silvery metal, were runes. Floor to ceiling. The patterns were complicated and intricate.

It looked, frankly, magical as fuck.

Viv wasn't looking at the slide; she was looking at Lauren in concern. "What is it, Laur?"

"Those runes... I'm not sure, but... I don't think he should have something like this underneath his house," she whispered. "I... don't even know where he'd learn..."

She trailed off. She looked slightly horrified.

I glanced at Viv. I could see her gearing up to ask Lauren a million more questions about the room; to interrogate Michelle.

I decided that was bad for two reasons.

First: whatever Lauren could share about the room, Michelle might not know it already. I wasn't sure she needed to tell Michelle more about it, in case she fell back into Stephanie's clutches.

Beyond that, we needed her. Dealing with Stephanie and Vincent was going to be risky regardless. It would be harder without the information Michelle could provide.

Even harder if she went in by herself and fucked everything up.

"Okay," I cut in. "Michelle, here's the deal. We'll help you scout out the place. This Friday. That gives us some time to prepare. In return: you don't go in early. And you agree to go along with our plan. You can weigh in, but the final decision is with the rest of us. You're too close to it."

I glanced around the room. Diana looked at me appreciatively and just nodded. Viv, Lauren, and Brooke all nodded a moment later.

Finally, voice tight, Michelle: "Yeah. Okay."

We talked for another half-hour or so, eating the Thai food Viv had gotten. We tried to keep the conversation normal -- classes, tattoos, an upcoming gymnastics meet Brooke had, some conversation between Michelle and Diana about MMA.

But it was hard.

People drifted out the way they'd arrived, one-by-one. Michelle left first -- she'd eaten efficiently, packed up efficiently, and walked out the door with a wave.

Lauren was the next to leave. She stood, gathered her things, and paused near me.

"I'll start on some things that might slow Stephanie down." She said it quietly, not quite looking at me. "I have some ideas, but I'll need power."

"Let's find a time to do that soon, then." I kept my eyes on her. "Lauren, are you okay?"

She met my eyes, briefly.

Something flickered there -- an echo of the raw expression on her face as she'd watched Viv, of how fast she'd fled afterward.

"Not really." A small, deliberate nod. "I just need to... work through some things on my own."

"Let's talk about it tomorrow."

"Sure, Matt." She gave me a tired, tight-lipped smile and left.

Brooke was next. She eyed Diana -- who was chatting, civilly enough, with Viv about something in her kitchen -- before scowling at me. "She seems pretty familiar with you."

I refused to feel defensive about that; I kept my voice calm, unperturbed. "Yeah. She is. I'll see you tomorrow? I want to make sure you're ready for the Rites."

"Fine. Remember to think about the riddle. It'll be better if you figure it out on your own. In the old days, the only ones who needed to get escorted to the Rites were children."

She was out the door a moment later.

Diana wandered back into the room, handed me a glass of water. Her fingers brushed mine when I took it. A deliberate touch -- small, intimate, the kind of thing you do when you're comfortable with someone.

"You held that together pretty well," she said, settling onto the couch beside me.

"Did I? It felt like herding cats. Or lions, I guess."

"Six people with completely different priorities and relationships all agreed on a course of action in under an hour." Diana shrugged. "That's not nothing."

Viv dropped into the armchair across from us, tucking her legs up. She looked tired. "Friday doesn't give us a lot of time. Less than a week."

"No," I agreed. "It doesn't."

"But Michelle was going to go soon whether we were ready or not," Diana said.

"Right."

"So we'd better actually be ready." Diana stretched. She eyed me for a moment, but when I made no move to leave, she rose from the couch. "I should head out." She leaned down, and for a moment I thought she was going to kiss me -- right there, in front of Viv.

She didn't. She just squeezed my shoulder, let her hand linger. Her dark eyes held mine, warm.

"Get some rest, Matt," she said, softly. Then, louder, to Viv: "Night, Viv. Good meeting."

"Night, Diana." Viv's voice was carefully neutral.

When the door closed behind her, Viv and I sat in silence for a moment.

"Matt, this plan is pretty dangerous. Stephanie will... well, she's going to consider this a serious provocation if they become aware we're poking around."

"It's already dangerous." I was tired, too, and it came out blunter than I intended. "Stephanie's going to move against us sooner or later. We need to do something."

She nodded. Then, voice small: "Want to crash here tonight?"

It was tempting. Very tempting.

"Sorry," I said. "I think I need to get some rest. See you tomorrow at some point, I'm sure?"

"Okay. See ya."

I headed home.

I had a succubus to see.

"Have you ever considered getting new art for your walls?"

I bolted upright; Callistryllaxia's dubious words pulled me out of a dreamless slumber. She was seated on the edge of my bed by my feet, facing away from me.

She was staring, skeptically, at a license plate I'd put up on the wall. It had been on my old car, a beater that had died just after I went to college. I'd loved that car. It had only lasted two years after I bought it, but it was the first major purchase I'd ever made with my own money, from summers of mowing lawns and working landscaping.

"It, uh... hasn't been a priority, recently," I said, bemused.

I'd left my little desk lamp on, tonight knowing I'd probably get a visit from her.

It meant that could see her more clearly for a change.

She giggled, twisted to look at me. "I can imagine not."

I stared.

First, at her physical appearance: even more human than the last time I'd seen her.

No tail.

No wings.

No horns.

Shining dark hair that fell down her back.

Grey eyes, like last time -- but much closer to the kind of natural blue-grey you see in some people.

Her skin was still dark and grey, but a little brighter, less like charcoal and more like the grey of a cloudy sky before a storm -- still unnatural, but less so.

She had even put on a hot pink sundress that contrasted appealingly with her skin tone.

"Like the dress? I thought I'd wear something that felt college." She put a hand on her hip, popped one shoulder, and gave me a megawatt smile: the classic sorority-girl-taking-a-photo-pose. "What do you think?"

I thought that, in the dim light from the lamp, she really did look almost like a hot coed, instead of a powerful demoness.

It was troubling. Like each feeding was bringing her closer and closer to a guise she could walk the earth in.

But I only had a limited amount of attention for that.

I was staring at my magic inside her.

She was positively replete with it. Viv and Diana had each seemed full of power to my eye today; Diana with the merry flames of a hearthfire, Viv with the crackle of electricity.

But in retrospect it was like... thinking the moon is bright. It lights up the night sky, sure. But in comparison to the sun? No contest.

And Callistryllaxia was so bright with the power I'd given her that she was difficult to look at directly with my new magical senses.

The magic inside her was...

Well, it was like sex.

Raw, unfiltered lust. Unadulterated desire. Arousal, horniness, the hunger, the basic carnal need that had powered billions of years of evolution.

The need to fuck.

Fascinated, automatically, I reached out to touch the magic in her, to see what it felt like. I was hard, a part of me noted absentmindedly, but that a normal side effect of her presence. Well, normal was probably the wrong word-

I touched my magic within Callistryllaxia, felt that sexual hunger, an endless pit of desire -- and suddenly she was atop me in an instant, those grey eyes inches from my own.

She moved so fast that I didn't even have time to register it. And the look in her eyes was not friendly.

"Don't touch me there," she hissed.

"U-uh-" I was suddenly aware that she was straddling me. And her hands were at my throat. Manicured fingernails that had to this point been sexy and attractive, suddenly felt like weapons.

"That," she said, quietly, the promise of violence in her voice, "is not yours anymore. We made a deal."

"Sorry, sorry," I said, hastily pulling away from the magic inside her. "I, uh, meant no offense. Wasn't trying to take anything."

Callistryllaxia eyed me, suspiciously. "You weren't?"

I nodded as vigorously as her hands around my throat would allow. "I only learned how to do that today. You're, um... really... powerful, a-and the magic in you looks and feels, uh... different than in others."

The suspicion cleared after a moment or two, and her hands about my throat eased -- though didn't depart, I couldn't help but notice. Her eyes sparkled with amusement. "I see. Well, well, Matt. Someone's fallen for you, I take it. Who is it?"

I opened my mouth, but she slid one of her hands up from my neck to my mouth to cover it before I could get a word out. "Wait, wait. Let me guess. Let's see... the clever little one, um -- Laura, was it? No, it can't be her; she has to be the one you were telling me about, who's lusting after the other witch. Not exactly a recipe for love. And it can't be the one with the big tits, whats-her-name, she's a little too self-absorbed, too many walls up... the werelion then?"

"... Do you really not know their names?" I mumbled against her hand. "They've summoned you. Twice now."

"Shh, I'm thinking." Calli inhaled, deeply, then shook her head. "It can't be that werelion either. Tonight you smell like a different werelion entirely -- working our way through the pride, are we? Such a womanizer." She slapped my chest, playfully. "I give up; who has professed their love?"

I blinked, surprised by her oddly accurate inventory of my relationships. "A different witch."

"Ah, right." She shrugged, pulled her hands off me -- although she stayed atop me, settling in a little. "I've known so many witches over the years I forget which ones you've fucked. So: you can reach out and touch your magic in others now. It must be exciting."

I was conscious of the warm weight of her through my boxers. There was something about the way her body fit atop mine -- the soft press of her against my hips -- that was incredibly inviting. It had me getting hard. But I fought to stay focused.

"It is," I agreed.

"A dangerous time for you, though," she pursed her lips, looking down at me.

"What makes you say that?"

"Honey, everyone loves a baby thaumaturge. They're so delightfully helpless and defenseless and useful." As she spoke, she rocked her hips against me, like she was illustrating her point.

"R-right..."

"I mean, most people don't even know thaumaturges can grow beyond that, because so few of them do."

She'd started to move her hips faster. No penetration, just grinding atop my cock.

It still, of course, felt incredible. I stared up at the undulations of her body, the way it made her tits sway.

She looked down and gave me a perfect smile. "But you're becoming something, aren't you? Something more than a helpful little source of magic. And some will find that threatening. If they give you too long to grow, they won't be able to stop you. But right now, they might still handle you."

She rocked suggestively against me on the word handle. The way she slid along my length -- just the right amount of pressure, the way I could feel my cock nestle against her -- was enough to make me grunt.

I wondered if she was going to make me cum in my pants. My reaction to the idea was an embarrassing sense of futility. I'd had enough encounters with the succubus now to know that if that's what she wanted to happen, I wasn't going to be able to stop her.

"What... what do you think I should do?" I asked, doing my best to stay focused.

She arched an eyebrow. "Well..."

She fell forward atop me, dark hair brushing across my face, the soft weight of her tits pressing against my chest. My hands went to them automatically, exploring them through the dress.

"... you could give me my power faster," she murmured, right in my ear. "Some nights you're so drained, I can't even find you in the dreamscape. The sooner I'm walking the earth, I could protect you."

She nipped at my earlobe, gently. It pulled a moan out of me.

The sensations -- palming her big tits, her mouth on my ear, her sliding against the length of my cock -- were becoming too much to talk through. I could feel where her nipples were tenting the fabric against my hands.

"Calli-" I tried to hold onto the thread of the conversation. "The last time you walked the earth you killed a thaumaturge."

"Mmm. True..." She didn't stop moving. If anything, she rolled her hips slower, more deliberately, pressing down against me with agonizing intent. Through the thin fabric of my boxers, I could feel the heat of her, a slick warmth that told me she wasn't wearing anything under that sundress. "... But I'll be there eventually, Matt. You already owe me everything I need; why not make sure I'm on your side, when I arrive?"

"I might -- ngh -- might delay you for a while."

"I'm very old, Matt." I felt her lips form a smile against my neck; the movement of her mouth sent a rush through my cock that made me twitch against her. "I can be patient. And I'll be very upset when I arrive if you delay my arrival unduly."

I didn't have a response to that. Partly because it was a fair point, and partly because she'd shifted her angle and the head of my cock caught against her entrance through the fabric. The barrier between us was maddening -- thin enough to feel everything, too much to actually be inside her.

"You don't -- ah -- you don't have to seduce me into it," I managed. "Let's figure out a deal, then."

She pulled back far enough to look at me, grey eyes bright with amusement. Her hips stilled -- and the sudden absence of sensation felt like a loss.

"Oh, honey." She traced a finger down my chest, and she made a few tsking sounds, shaking her head. "I think I've given you the wrong impression. I'm not seducing you. I've never seduced you. Believe me, if I did, you'd know."

I believed her.

I tried to put on a winning smile, my head a little clearer without her grinding against me. "Maybe we can just talk for a moment. There are lots of things I want to know, like how Stephanie-"

But she let out a laugh. It wasn't amused; it was cruel, feminine derision. She was shaking her head, slightly. "You know, Matt, I believe I've been too familiar with you. You think I'm just another one of your little girlfriends. Fuck some power into me, in return for something you want."

"That, uh, that's not what I think of them-"

She pressed a finger to my lips. "I don't think you understand what I am. I've been too nice."

A sense of foreboding was developing in me -- but it did nothing to make my erection flag. If anything, my cock seemed to be responding to it positively, like something was about to happen that it had been hoping for all this time.

"Calli-"

"You ought to use my full name when you address me." She pulled away, lifting up off of me.

The opposite of what she'd told me previously. "Okay, let's just-"

My words cut off in a groan as I felt one of her hands snake down and smoothly wrap around my cock, pull it out of my boxers.

"That's enough talking." Nothing had changed about her appearance -- she was still gorgeous -- but it looked less natural than before. More dangerous. More demonic.

"Wait, I -- mmph-" I tried to get another word out, but she just leaned forward, arched her back, and pushed her breasts into my face.

"Here's what's going to happen. You get to cum when you beg for it. Not before."

She was doing something. Something magical. That erotic aura that emanated off her -- the one that always made it so hard to think clearly -- came crashing down on me in an enormous wave. Whether that was because she dialed it up or stopped holding it back, I had no idea.

The effect was the same: all I could do was stare up at her, openmouthed and captivated, as slowly, elegantly, she reached down, and pulled the sundress up over her head and off entirely.

My eyes drank in the sight of her. Flawless skin. Enormous tits. That tiny waist. The flare of her hips out into the round shape of her ass.

"Good boy," she murmured. The approval made my cock twitch. "Now beg."

It felt right, but I resisted. "Calli-"

She fell atop me again. "You don't get to call me that anymore," she murmured in my ear.

The sudden sensation of so much of her skin against mine -- warm and smooth -- made me moan. I bucked my hips reflexively, my cock trying to find its way inside her -- but she'd angled herself away or adjusted the position, and I just ended rutting uselessly against her skin.

Which felt good, don't get me wrong. Probably enough to get me off, if I kept doing it. But I wanted more. I knew what it felt like to be inside her. I needed that. Needed it.

"Beg," she commanded, again, in my ear.

I let out a sound -- frustration, arousal, the two blurring together into something inarticulate. "Callistryllaxia, I-I-"

"Yes?" she breathed in my ear. "You what?"

She was moving her body in these slow, undulating waves, each one brushing the length of my cock with the smooth skin of her abdomen.

"Let's... make... a... deal." I didn't say the words so much as mumble them, stupidly, at her, but I at least managed to get the words out.

She loomed above me, suddenly, those gray eyes, cold, locked on mine. "No more deals. No more talk. Not until our current deal is done. Now beg."

I gritted my teeth, clinging to the resistance I could feel melting away. I was dimly aware that my hands had drifted up to her body, that I was trying to pull her down onto my cock.

"Come on, Matt. I can tell your cock needs this. You need to fuck. And I need to feed." Her lips formed a wicked smile. "That's the only deal that matters here."

"N-n-" The word died on my lips as I felt her hot breath at my ear again.

"And I want you to fuck me with that big dick too, Matt. You just have to say the words."

Oh, god. It was too much to resist. I wanted to be inside her so badly. I'd already made the deal.

"Please."

The word slipped out before I could stop it.

Her eyes lit up like I'd given her a gift.

"Please?" she echoed, softly. She leaned in close. Her voice dropped, intimate and devastating. "Please what, honey?"

I wanted to reason with her. Some part of me wanted to push back, was aware that this felt like she was punishing me, or teaching me a lesson, or something.

But I didn't care anymore.

"Please... let me..." The words felt thick in my mouth. My hips were moving on their own, pushing up toward her, seeking. "Please let me fuck you."

"Mmm." She made a satisfied sound, low in her throat. "That's a start. But I don't think you mean it yet."

She shifted, slightly, and the head of my cock brushed against her entrance. Wet. Impossibly hot. Not inside, just there, just enough contact to make my entire body seize with wanting.

"Oh god. I mean it," I gasped. "Callistryllaxia, please -- I need to be inside you, I need-"

"Need." She savored the word. Her hips made a tiny circle, and the head of my cock slipped against her, parting her just barely: a millimeter that was everything. "There it is. Not want. Need."

"Yes -- fuck -- I need it, I need you, please-"

"Good boy."

She sank down onto me.

The sound I made wasn't human. It was this wrecked, guttural moan that came from somewhere deep in my chest. The heat of her, the tight grip, the way her body pulled at me, was like being swallowed. Like every nerve ending in my cock was being individually attended to, stroked, milked.

"Oh, god-" My hands flew over her body like they were reflexively taking inventory -- her hips, her ass, her tits, just fingers digging into her soft flesh. She was seated on me, every inch buried. I could feel her everywhere. The walls of her clenching in slow, rhythmic waves. Deliberate. Intentional.

She wasn't moving. She was just squeezing me, internally, in these rolling contractions that felt like nothing any human woman had ever done.

"There," she breathed. "This is what you needed, isn't it?"

I couldn't speak. I just nodded, dumbly.

"I know." Her voice was tender, smug in a way that made it worse. "I know what you need, Matt. That's what I become: exactly what you need."

She began to move.

Slow. Agonizingly, devastatingly slow. Rising up until just the tip remained inside her, then sinking back down in one fluid motion that took my cock to the root. Each descent a long, controlled glide that let me feel every inch of her.

It was already becoming too much.

"I'm -- I'm going to-" I couldn't even finish the sentence. It had been maybe five seconds. Maybe less. She'd barely moved, just these slow, grinding rolls of her hips, and I was already there. Already at the edge.

"You're going to cum." She was watching me. Those grey eyes, sharp and knowing above her perfect smile. She looked like she was enjoying a meal -- which, I supposed, she was.

All I could do was nod.

"Mm, already." She didn't sound surprised. She sounded delighted. "And we just started."

The shame of it hit me like cold water, but it didn't slow anything down. If anything, the humiliation seemed to feed the arousal, a loop I couldn't escape.

"I know -- I know, I can't -- you're-" I was gritting my teeth, trying to hold on, but her body was working me with a precision that made resistance laughable. Those internal muscles, squeezing and releasing in patterns that seemed specifically designed to undo me.

"It's okay." She leaned down, her hair falling around us like a curtain, her lips brushing mine. "You can't help it. It's delicious."

She kissed me. Deep, unhurried, her tongue sliding over mine -- and simultaneously she shifted the angle, rolled her hips in a way that dragged my cock against something inside her that made the inevitable loss of control just suddenly happen, all at once.

"O-oh -- oh -- fuck-" The last word was a whimper into her mouth as my body locked up.

"Maybe next time I'll make you wait for permission." Genuine amusement in her voice, now.

The orgasm was like being torn open. Like something inside me ruptured and everything poured out at once. Pleasure so intense it bordered on pain, my cock erupting inside her in thick, desperate pulses while she rode me through it, never slowing, never stopping.

And the magic -- god, the magic. It ripped out of me in a torrent. I could feel it filling her up. That blazing sun of power inside her flaring brighter, hotter, more. Feeding on me.

She threw her head back and let out a moan that was one of the hottest things I'd ever heard. Her body tightened around me as she drank me in, taking everything.

I came for what felt like a full minute. Wave after wave, each one pulling more from me, my hips jerking involuntarily as her body milked me dry.

When it finally, mercifully ended, I was shaking. Trembling from head to toe, covered in sweat, gasping for air like I'd been held underwater.

She'd never done anything like that to me before.

Callistryllaxia sat atop me, perfectly still, her eyes closed. When she opened her eyes, they were brighter. More vivid. Still grey, but more luminous, catching the lamplight in ways that normal eyes wouldn't.

She looked down at me and smiled.

Not a playful grin. Not the flirty smirk. Something older. Satisfied. The smile of something that had fed well.

"Eight more," she said, softly.

I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. My body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, pinned to the mattress by exhaustion and the aftermath of whatever she'd just done to me.

She climbed off me -- graceful, unhurried -- and stood by the bed. She pulled the sundress back on over her head, smoothing it down over her hips like she was getting ready for brunch.

"Callistryllaxia," I managed, my voice coming out hoarse and raw.

She paused, glanced back at me. One eyebrow raised.

"Was... that... some kind of lesson?"

She considered me for a long moment. Then she sat back down on the edge of the bed, by my feet where she'd started, facing away again.

"No, honey." Her voice was quieter, now. Not soft, exactly. But... honest. "It was a correction."

"A correction?"

"I can see the confidence on you. Reaching out to touch my power without asking. You're growing into your strength. It's... cute." She might as well have accompanied the word with a head-pat. "But you need to remember what I am."

"I know, you're-"

"You don't know. I haven't shown you. I've been toying with you." She paused, twisted to look at me, sidelong. "I'm not some new witch, fumbling with a few new spells and feelings. I'm not another budding relationship to juggle alongside the rest. I'm a demon. You made a deal with me. You will deliver on it. In a timely fashion. If you don't, I will make sure you regret it."

"Calli-"

"Matt. I'm fond of you. I find you amusing. You are useful to me. But don't mistake what I am." She gestured -- at herself, at us, at what had just happened. "You're food. I exist to drink you up until nothing is left."

I shivered, in spite of myself.

"You can only be who you are." It was an echo of something she'd said to me, once.

She smiled. "Just so." Was that sadness in her voice, or simple seriousness, gravity? The afterglow of the orgasm, her continued presence, made it hard to think.

"I'll see you again soon, Matt. I think from now on, we should do less talking..." the flirty smirk was back now, suggestive and enticing, "... and more fucking."

And she was gone, wisps of smoke dissipating into the dark corners of the room, like she'd never been there at all.

Eight more.

Eight more, and Calli had indicated that she'd be pretty pissed if they didn't happen quickly enough.

Eight more, and I hadn't even learned anything from this one.