Chapter 40.4
"I will take her," a man's voice said.
I blinked. Nate Kirkpatrick stood next to my former slut-sister Thamina. Seeing him here was a punch to the stomach. I had relied on Nate. He'd been my right-hand man in running the city. Why was Nate helping them? He was a man. I thought Lilith hated men?
"I caught her; I'll bring her to Mother," the bird-woman protested, squeezing my arm painfully.
"Lilith's orders, Pazu!" Thamina snapped. There was a flinty look in the Arab woman's eyes.
"Yes, Priestess," Pazu pouted, shoving me at Nate.
"What's going on, Nate?" I asked as Thamina and he led me to the stairs that led to the utility basement.
"I'm not Nate," he answered. "I'm Ziki. You are going to help get my mother back."
Your mother? Was he one of Lilith's children? Could she have male children? Then the import of his words struck me and hope blossomed. "We captured Lilith?"
"No!" Thamina hissed. "They captured Fiona. Mark and Mary love you. They'll be more than willing to trade you for her."
"But first, we need some information," Nate-Ziki smiled. I shuddered. "Then we'll trade you for my human mother."
I swallowed my fear. They couldn't hurt me too much. They needed me if they were going to trade me for Fiona. I glanced askance at Thamina, my former slut-sister. "Why are you helping Lilith?"
"For Fiona," she whispered, then glared at me. "It doesn't matter. I have chosen my side. You chose yours. Now we have to live with our decisions."
They opened a door, and I was pushed into a storage room piled with folding tables and boxes. It smelled a little musty. Nate-Ziki threw me roughly to the floor as Thamina pulled out a thick, black marker from her pocket and proceeded to draw strange symbols on the wall while muttering under her breath.
They were like the symbols in the Matmown.
"What are you doing?" I asked, falling back on my reporter training. Ask questions, get answers. "What are you drawing?"
"I'm masking this room from unwanted sight," Thamina answered. "It won't stop a powerful entity from spying in here, but it will keep out Mark's ghosts."
"Is that how Lilith kept Master from finding her first lair?" I asked her.
"We thought it would, yet he seemed to find it anyways. How did he do that?"
"I can't tell you that," I protested.
"Of course not." She was working on the third wall, skillfully drawing the symbols with what smelled like a permanent marker, sharp and pungent, burning my nose.
"So what are you?" I asked Nate-Ziki. "You say you aren't Nate Kirkpatrick?"
"He's dead," he answered. "I killed him."
"And took his form?"
"It was useful to get our people into the government." He gave a small laugh, his fat belly jiggling beneath his sweater. "All wasted thanks to Mark." He practically spat out Master's name like it left a bad taste in his mouth.
"I assume all the women you recommended for arrest were innocent?"
He grinned at me; I suppressed a stab of anger at the betrayal. How could I have been so stupid? I was so fixated on Lilith's hatred of men that I assumed any man could be trusted. Then it hit me. "You knew where all the soldiers were stationed in Seattle."
"That's why I was born," he shrugged. "To spy on Mother's enemies."
"Strip," Thamina commanded after she finished drawing her symbols.
"Why?" I asked.
"We can't take the chance you have some enchanted item from Sam," she answered. "Like the amulet you have around your neck."
"Fine," I sighed. I pulled off my bronze amulet, handed it to Thamina, then took off my transparent blouse and my short skirt. Last, I peeled off my stockings. "There."
"Choker, too."
My hands went protectively to my gold choker. Master gave it to me. "No."
"We'll take it from you, Jessica," Thamina sighed. "You'll get it back when we trade you for Fiona." Her expression softened. "We can't take the chance that it's enchanted, okay? I'll take care of it. We were sisters once. Trust me, Jessica."
I stared into Thamina's face and remembered the passion I once shared with the woman. "They still love you," I said, reaching behind my neck to unclasp the choker. "Fiona, too. Ask for their forgiveness and come back to them. Remember all the fun we had? You're missed."
Thamina shuddered. "I won't be their whore again!"
"Fine. But why side with Lilith? She's evil."
"Lilith never stole my free will."
"No, she's just unleashed a plague that's killing thousands and many more."
"Men," Thamina dismissed.
"Even the children? The infants?"
Thamina flinched. Then she fled the room with my clothes.
I glanced at Nate-Ziki and realized he had stripped naked. He was a big, burly man, his fat stomach hanging over his groin and his cock just visible beneath his gut.
"Are you going to Ra*e me?" I asked.
Nate-Ziki cocked his head, his eyes examining me. There was no lust in his eyes. It was clinical. He was studying me, a scientist peering into the microscope at some strange, new bacteria. For the first time since I became a slut, I felt self-conscious about being naked. I covered my breasts with one hand and my pussy with the other.
"What do you want?" I asked, fear trembling in my voice.
"What do you want?" The words came from his mouth, but that was my voice. The same pitch and timbre, the same rhythm. The same fear trembled in his words that afflicted mine.
"Oh, Gods!" I gasped.
"Oh, Gods!" His head cocked, still examining me like a specimen.
"What are you?"
"What are you?" he mimicked perfectly.
Fear strangled my heart.
"You have a very controlled voice," he said, still sounding like me. "But this is not your real accent. I can pick up its intonations buried beneath this learned diction. You are from the area known as the South, yes?"
How? I had worked very hard in college to lose my accent. A journalist should speak clearly.
"Louisiana?"
"Fuck you!" I snapped.
He smiled, then began to change. His skin rippled like water. and he contracted, his fat disappearing, absorbed by his body. The limbs shrank, turning skinny, lithe. The stomach was completely flat now, the shoulders narrowed, and pleasant curves appeared at his hips. His sagging man-boobs perked up, transforming into a pair of perky breasts; the cock between his legs shrank, vanishing up inside his body along with the coarse pubic hair. And not just the pubic hair—all the body hair disappeared, growing back inside his skin. The age vanished from his face. The lines softened. The nose shrank. His hair grew honey-brown and lengthened. Spots of caramel blossomed on his skin, spreading like mold until his entire body was the same, rich brown.
Nate Kirkpatrick transformed into me.
I swallowed
My doppelganger swallowed, adopting my trembling pose. I moved my arm. It moved its arm. It was like looking into a mirror. I raised up my right arm, and so did Ziki. No, not a mirror; my image wasn't reversed. I licked my lips. Ziki licked hers. I breathed in. and so did she.
And then she walked to me, her hips swaying just the way I liked to sway them. I backed away from her, bumping into a stack of folding tables. She reached out, touched me with my fingers, sliding up my stomach between my breasts. She drew her finger across my tit and touched my hard nipple.
Pleasure tingled through me.
Her face moved closer, my eyes swam closer and closer, and then I was kissing myself—my doppelganger. My hands reached out and cupped Ziki's breasts. They felt just like mine, the same weight, the same feel. I gave the tit a squeeze—the same yielding firmness. Our passion grew as I kissed myself, made love to myself.
This was so wild.
We sank down to the floor, kissing, our hands exploring each other. I knew just where to touch her. And she knew just how to touch me. Never in my life had someone aroused me so thoroughly. The more we kissed, the more we touched, the closer we became. It was like we had one mind, one thought—to give each other as much pleasure as possible.
The concrete of the floor was cold on my back as my doppelganger straddled my face, my shaved pussy descending to my lips. I tasted my sweet, sour juices as I lapped through my cunt. Her tongue mirrored mine. Wherever I kissed her pussy, she kissed mine. I sucked her clit, as she sucked mine. I buried my face into her cunt, sucking and licking, moaning my pleasure as she vigorously ate me out.
She slipped a finger into my pussy. I copied her, pushing a finger into her cunt. She felt just the way I remembered. I curled my finger, searching for that special spot that would set off the explosion building in our pussies.
It was right where I expected to find it. I knew this pussy intimately.
We touched each other's G-spots at the same instant.
We came together, bucking into each other's cunts. All my thoughts, my memories, my experiences opened up. And she knew them, absorbed them like a sponge drinking in water. Everything. My secrets. Master's secrets. We were one creature for a split second, our souls wrapped tightly together, bound by pleasure.
And then the orgasm faded, and we were two.
I froze. My doppelganger stood up. Fear rippled through me. She knew everything. She stole the most important secret entrusted to me—Master and Mistress couldn't afford to kill Lilith. Not without causing the end of the world.
"No!" I shouted, lunging at myself. She couldn't leave with what she knew.
But she nimbly dodged away and slipped out of the room. The door slammed shut with a metallic thud. I grabbed the door, turned the knob, and wrenched it open. The leonine woman was there. She bared her teeth at me as she loomed over me. I stumbled back in fear.
I collapsed onto the floor and sobbed, "Oh, Gods, what have I done?"
We were in San Francisco for a week, spreading the Holy Word, when Wormwood erupted. Brian fell ill. A great fear clutched my heart. The hospitals were overwhelmed, and I could only sit next to my husband and Master as he died. I furiously prayed to our Living Gods over and over until my sex grew sore with the ferocity of my devotions. On the third night, the God appeared in a vision before me, glowing like the sun. He took me in the vision, pleasure suffusing my entire being. "All will be well, my slut," he proclaimed as my passion overcame me. "Your faith has been rewarded." The next morning, Brian's fever lifted.
-Second Missionaries 14:01-04
Mark Glassner - I Corp Headquarters, JBLM
The predator drone's footage was in black-and-white infrared. Every figure glowed brightly against the dark background. The last of my soldiers were holding out at the Washington State Convention Center as Lilith's monsters swarmed the massive building. A bomb went off on Pine Street, dropped from an A-10 giving air support, leaving a giant crater and the broken remains of dozens of her daughters.
But still they came.
A second A-10 banked into view, firing its massive cannon mounted on the front of the plane. It was a tank buster. A line of small craters marched up 8th Street, the plane's depleted uranium bullets blasting cars and monsters to ruins. A bright, white line lanced up from a group of monsters. The wing of the A-10 sheered off. The plane spun through the air and slammed into a building. Smoke and flames erupted. The building collapsed in a cloud of dust.
It was the third A-10 shot down. A strange flying monster had also brought down two F-22 Raptors. The pilots' frantic maydays reported a bullish woman with wings ripping their canopies off.
"Seattle is lost," General Brooks muttered. "It'll be costly to take the city back. I've mobilized the Legion still in the region at three staging points around Seattle. Three thousand men. The Air Force is sending more fighters and bombers. Luckily, the percentage of female pilots is higher than the 15% average of the rest of the military."
I glanced at Mary. She chewed her lower lip, her face haggard. I squeezed her hand, asking, "How long before you can launch a counterattack, General?"
"Five or six hours, my Lord."
"Do it," I commanded.
The General nodded, apprehension in his eyes. This would be a bloodbath. Lilith must have been breeding this army in Africa. Her daughters grew supernaturally fast. They spent longer in the womb, forty days, than it took them to mature. In three days, Lilith's daughters would grow from infancy to maturity. The only positive was that a human woman could only conceive with Lilith once. Most would bear a single child, but twins were not unheard of, and triplets might be a possibility. But no second pregnancies.
"My Lord," a lieutenant reported. "A Chantelle is calling. She claims to speak for Lilith."
"Put her through," Mary ordered, sitting up.
The lieutenant routed the call to a speaker phone that sat in the middle of a conference table. "I am High Priestess Chantelle Paquet-Holub. Who am I speaking to?"
"It's good to hear your voice," Mary answered, speaking to our wayward slut. "We've been searching for you and Lana for months. We miss you."
Chantelle laughed. "I do not miss being your slave, even if it was only for that one day."
I gritted my teeth. It was possible Chantelle was Lilith's slave and not a willing participant like Fiona and Thamina. It hurt to discover our former sluts plotting against us. We loved them and set them free, and they had the gall to side with Lilith.
Ungrateful bitches.
And what about Noel? Had she also sided with Lilith?
"What does Lilith want?" I asked.
"A ceasefire," Chantelle said. "And a prisoner exchange. We have Jessica and a dozen of your soldiers. We will trade them for Fiona."
"When and where?" Mary asked.
"Tomorrow, 7 AM. On I-5 at the Seattle City limits," Chantelle answered.
"We need to discuss this," I said.
"Fine," Chantelle answered. "I will call again in one hour." The phone clicked and hummed as the line went dead.
"What's there to discuss?" Mary asked. "We can get Jessica back."
"By delaying the attack and letting Lilith dig in," I pointed out.
"And what happens if..." She trailed off, staring at me intently. 'What happens if Lilith dies?' was what she wanted to ask. "The attack is risky."
"And after the exchange?"
Mary chewed her lip, worrying it so much I was afraid she was going to gnaw it off. Finally, she answered, "We attack."
Monday, November 18th, 2013 - Mary Glassner - Seattle, WA
The icy rain hammered the hood of the limo as we stopped three hundred yards short of the Seattle city limits. An entire armored column escorted us, twenty Strykers led by two M1 Abrams tanks. Orbiting overhead were Apache and Black Hawk helicopters. We were ready if Lilith tried to do anything during the prisoner exchange.
Fiona, gagged and restrained, sat between Mark and me. We treated the strawberry-blonde woman well during her week-long captivity in the Pierce County Jail. But she seemed eager to go back to Lilith.
Are you ready? Mark sent through our telepathic bond, his thoughts whispering in my mind.
I knew he didn't want me coming to the exchange, and it was sweet how he tried to protect me, but I just couldn't stand staying behind and waiting. I was protected by my enchanted stab vest and ready to cast whatever spells were necessary to protect us. Sam had dug up a paralyzing spell in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the only useful thing she had found so far in Israel. I checked to make sure my bronze dagger was in its sheath in case I needed to carve a portal to the Shadows if things went sideways.
Yes, let's get Jessica back, I sent back.
Freezing rain struck me when I climbed out, sending a shock through me. It fell heavily and plastered my hair to my head. It was still dark, the sun just starting to rise. At least I think it was. It was hard to tell with the angry clouds above. A wind whipped up, driving the rain sideways. Around us, soldiers disembarked from the Strykers, setting up their battle lines. I grabbed Fiona and marched her forward.
Six hundred yards down I-5, a mass of monsters waited, dark shapes in the driving rain. We agreed to meet in the center, bringing only fifteen guards apiece. Mark summoned his celestial gold armor and sword, and then he summoned our guard. A mist appeared, and fifteen figures coalesced about us. Chasity, Karen, and our thirteen dead bodyguards. They were clad in silver armor and clutched silver 9mms in their hands or wielded silver swords.
"Master, Mistress," Chasity smiled. She looked fierce, a warrior woman with blue eyes and blonde hair. A Valkyrie.
"It's good to see you all," I smiled back. "You are all missed."
"Are they going to try anything?" Mark asked Karen. We often summoned her for information.
"Not that I can divine, Master," Karen answered. I blinked, noticing the driving rain passing right through her ghostly body. It must be nice to control when you interact with the physical world. "They've shielded City Hall with spells that keep ghostly eyes out."
A group broke off from Lilith's forces, walking down the highway. I squinted, trying to make out the silver-haired demon among her guard, but they were all hulking and strong, shielding who they escorted.
I nudged Mark and he nodded, muttering, "Let's get this over with."
We marched down the highway, an army at our back to cover us if anything went wrong, and our ghosts formed up in a protective circle about us. My stomach fluttered with nerves as Lilith's group became more visible. She must have chosen the fifteen biggest daughters she had: two of the giantesses, nearly ten feet tall; three of the bullish, winged women; and two leonine women who, according to Mark, could spit poisoned spines. Lilith strode like a queen in the center. Chantelle walked beside her, marching Jessica before her.
Relief flooded me. Our slut looked fine. A hopeful look appeared in Jessica's eyes when she saw us. She looked proud, not willing to show weakness to her captors. Behind them marched a few of our captured soldiers.
Our groups stopped twenty yards apart, facing each other warily. My heart hammered my chest. I tried not to tremble. I saw what those monsters could do up close when we attacked the warehouse last week and, even with our ghostly guard, I wasn't sure the odds were even close to our favor.
"My Goddess wishes to speak to you two face to face!" Chantelle shouted. "She proposes that we leave our guards behind and meet in the middle to talk!"
"Talk about what?" I shouted back.
"A truce!"
I glanced at Mark. He grimaced, forehead furrowing. "You should stay here. I'll go by myself," he said to me. "It's too..."
I touched his lip with my finger. "I know, but we're in this together. My life is bound to yours."
"Fine," he said, words stiff. "Let's do this."
We strode forward as Lilith and Chantelle did likewise, leaving behind our guards. The demoness was as beautiful as I remembered, even drenched by the driving rain. In fact, the rain-soaked dress wetly clinging to her lush body only added to her sensuality. My eyes fell to Chantelle who, though clearly cold, still moved with a dancer's grace.
"Lilith," Mark growled.
The demoness ignored Mark, glancing at me. "Hello, Mary. Do you ever think about that cock I gave you?"
My cheeks warmed. Lilith's smile deepened. That bitch did tell me about the Magicks of the Witch of Endor just to tempt me into ruining my marriage by casting the spell to turn my clit into a dick. "We're not here to talk about that!" I snapped. "What do you want?"
"What happened to your species?" Lilith wondered. "Your kind used to live on ceremony. Now it's all rush, rush, rush. It's so... undignified."
"Cut the crap!" my husband growled. His right fist clenched, and his face grew flushed. He wanted to summon his sword and ram it through the bitch; consequences be damned. Part of me wanted to let him.
She killed Karen!
"What do you want!" Mark snarled.
"Seattle," Lilith answered. "It's my city, and I want you to formally acknowledge it."
Mark laughed. "Why would we do that? You can't fight my forces."
"No," she admitted. "But you don't want to kill me."
I didn't think I could feel colder in this driving rain, but her words turned to ice inside. Did she know the truth? They had captured Jessica...
"I'd love nothing more!" my husband growled.
"It is a shame this disease is spreading across the world," Lilith smiled like a serpent eyeing a mouse.
"We know you are responsible, Lilith!" I spat. "And you will pay for all those deaths!"
"Will I?" Lilith asked. "If something were to happen to me, I could only imagine what one of my daughters would do. They would be inconsolable, and in their grief, they could spread a new plague. One not so discriminating."
A weird relief flooded me. Lilith didn't know that we couldn't kill her. Now we had another reason why we had to spare the bitch. A public reason. The CDC had been quite clear: The disease was engineered to only affect men. That could be changed.
"Blackmail, Lilith?" Mark asked. "How disappointing."
"You have grown too powerful," Lilith sighed. "It is pointless for us to fight. We'll just destroy each other. Give me Seattle, and you can have the rest."
"Really?" I couldn't keep my derision out of my voice. Never trust a demon.
"It is better than going back to the Abyss," the demoness replied. "Whatever happens in Seattle is my affair, not yours. And whatever happens outside it is yours."
I don't think we have a choice, Mark, I sent. Even if she's bluffing on the disease, we're not ready to fight Lucifer. If we attack the city, Lilith could easily be killed by accident.
"What about the men in the city?" Mark demanded. "Will you let them go?"
"I will see that they are properly cared for." I shuddered at the venom in Lilith's tone. "But that is none of your concern. What are a few thousand men versus the world?"
I could see the frustration in Mark's face. His fists were balled tightly. "Fine, Seattle is yours. But if any of your 'daughters' set foot outside of Seattle, they will be hunted down and executed."
"More than reasonable," Lilith purred.
"And if there's another outbreak, I will reduce Seattle to rubble," Mark promised. "I have the U.S. nuclear arsenal under my control. The first hint, Lilith."
I saw concern, fear even, flash across her face for one instant, and then she was back to her sultry insolence. "Then we are agreed. I propose a yearly meeting right here on the anniversary of today in case there are any issues that need discussing."
"Fine," Mark spat.
"Then we have a pact." She gestured behind her. Our imprisoned soldiers marched towards us, freed. "As a gesture of goodwill," Lilith explained. "And now you send Fiona, and I'll send your little slut."
Fiona and Jessica both walked forward, Jessica's head held high, trying to ignore the freezing rain while Fiona walked hunched, hugging herself and shaking with more than the cold. I could feel Mark's tension tightening the air, his body coiled to act. At any second, Lilith could betray us. This could all be just a ruse to lure us into letting down our guard.
Jessica and Fiona passed.
Jessica glared daggers at Fiona. The former slut didn't even react. A smile broached our slut's caramel face as she neared. Fiona reached Lilith. The demoness turned and retreated to her guards, Chantelle and Fiona heeling her like dogs.
Jessica threw her arms around me, hugging me tightly. "Thank you, Mistress. Thank you, thank you, thank you."
"They didn't hurt you?" I asked her. "Or..."
"No, they just stuck me in the basement," she answered, shivering in my arms. She wasn't dressed for the rain. "They never touched me."
"C'mon, let's get you home," I told Jessica, wrapping my arm around her, throwing one last glance over my shoulder at Lilith. She reached her guards—the larger group—and then retreated to her forces. I sighed in relief. It wasn't a trap.
Noel Heinrich - Patriot's Headquarters, Montana
"They found a girl," Wyatt said as I stepped out of the portal from the Shadows. "A runaway. They stowed her in the small bedroom."
Wyatt, my second-in-command, was packing clay into the chicken wire frame of the golem. Seven more assembled golems—made of the local red clay and vaguely shaped into the forms of powerfully built men—loomed in the pasture before the ranch house that served as our headquarters. We were twenty-five miles south of Sanford, in the middle of nowhere, Montana. Our nearest neighbor was over five miles away.
The perfect place to plot the end of Mark Glassner and his Theocracy.
"Good," I nodded.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked. "It's not too late to let the girl go. Christ, Noel! It's evil!"
I ignored that, instead saying, "The golems are shaping up nicely. How long until they're all ready?"
"It's going a little faster than I estimated. Six months maybe." He fixed his brown eyes on me. "You avoided the question."
"We need the blade," I answered. "It's the only way to neutralize the ghosts protecting them. Mark thinks the Shadows are safe and will not expect an overwhelming attack from there."
He sighed, shaking his head. "This hate's going to destroy you, Noel."
"As long as I destroy the Tyrants in the process."
He turned back to the golems. "A lot of people are going to die if we unleash these monstrosities." He grimaced. "Innocent people."
More blood to feed the tree. Freeing mankind from that bastard's tyranny was worth any price. "We have six months to find a way to kill Mark without resorting to such extreme measures." I glanced at the house. "She's inside?"
"Yeah."
I strode towards the ranch house, nodding to the hulking Davin. He leaned next to the front door, smoking a cigarette. He nodded back, not saying a word. He was a good man and normally affable. He had a blank look on his dark face, his eyes troubled. Wyatt wasn't the only one uncomfortable with my plan.
"You'll never be the same if you do this, Noel," Wyatt persisted. "Please reconsider!"
I shook my head, pushing through the front door. "I have no compunctions about doing this. It has to be done!"
I reached for the door to the bedroom. He grabbed my arm. "Doesn't mean this won't change you, Noel."
I shook him off. "It's the only way to summon Asherah."
I opened the door. The sacrifice screamed in terror. But hate hardened my heart. I would see the Tyrants destroyed.