Chloe got out of her car and popped a stick of gum in her mouth. She’d passed her detective exam five days ago and quit smoking two days later. As she surveyed the scene in front of her, she was suddenly regretting both those decisions. She tugged at her jacket, still not comfortable wearing street clothes while on duty. The white starched shirt gave her a sense of comfort but the jeans felt wrong on her. On the other hand, the cold, misty night was kept at bay a lot better with a leather jacket then the standard issue police shirt and vest.

She closed the door to her new Tesla. It was a little gift to herself, purchased in celebration of passing her exam and getting her promotion. She loved it already. She told people it was because going electric was better for the planet. Deep down she knew that was only half the reason. The other 50% was because it was just so damn cool. The sleek lines. The near silent acceleration. She’d fallen in love with the car when her last boyfriend had bought his. That had been a year ago. A long, lonely year. She shivered at the thought of Ray’s touch, thinking about how much she’d missed it. Ray had disappeared mysteriously. Just taken off though Chloe was convinced it was worse. She’d thrown herself at the case despite the warnings she’d gotten from her bosses. His disappearance had provided the kick in the ass she’d needed to finally buckle down and go for detective. It was good that it had provided some motivation even if the case had brought no satisfaction to her. He was gone from her life just as mysteriously as he’d come in. Everyone said she should have seen it coming but she refused to accept that he’d just up and left.

That was in the past. Chloe forced herself to focus on the current situation, surveying the scene before her. Blue and red lights were everywhere and it seemed that half the force was here. The 10-53, person down, had changed to a 10-55 as she was driving in. That meant there was a coroner on the way and a body to be examined. None of that explained why 20 cops were here and seemed to be arresting the entire fraternity. Delta Omega Mu’s had always been a problem. Loud house parties, drunken revelry. But the one thing they’d actually been good at is weeding out the underclassmen. It was kind of a running joke at the college and among the local police that busting their parties never lead to citations for underage drinking. Given that, Chloe couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about over a girl that, reports indicated, had fallen over a balcony.

Chloe made a beeline to the officer in charge, Gerald Bentley. She liked Gerald partly for his unusual history and partly because he wasn’t a jock like a lot of the other guys. He tipped his hat to Chloe as she approached. Two weeks ago, he’d been her superior. Now he was answering to her. The other detectives had warned her that was the hardest part of the transition. All the more reason she was grateful Gerald was the one in charge here. He was finishing a call with Dispatch as Chloe approached. She caught the tail end of the discussion about a search of the campus.

“Hey there, Gerry. What’s with all the arrests? Do we not think this was an accident anymore?” Chloe’s smile faded as she saw the older man’s expression. Gerald had come over on a liaison program from the UK. He’d liked LA so much that he’d asked to stay permanently and eventually joined the force officially. The guys joked that it was because he just enjoyed carrying a gun. But in reality, he loved the weather and, inexplicably to most, the people of Los Angeles. Like a lot of British men, Gerald kept his emotions close to his vest, which is why his nearly ashen face stopped Chloe cold.

“You need to see this,” he said and gestured for her to follow.

“What’s up?” Chloe asked. When Gerald didn’t respond, Chloe reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “Seriously… Gerald… what the hell?”

Gerald gestured to the pavement where a woman’s body was being examined by the ME’s assistant. The woman’s head was busted open and blood was everywhere. It was a horrible, unfortunate sight but it wasn’t anything that they hadn’t seen a dozen times before. “Name’s Addison Jiminez. She’s a sister at Sigma Upsilon Beta. Got drunk, came over the railing and died on impact.”

Chloe looked, watching as Beverly was examining the body. Beverly had only been with the ME’s office for a couple months. Why was she doing the examination? Where was the Medical Examiner? Before she could ask, Chloe noticed the dark woods behind the building. There must have been half a dozen flashlights flicking through the woods. Gerald kept walking, going right past the dead body as if it wasn’t the reason they were there. “The girl that called it in is a pledge for the sorority,” he said as he glanced to his right.

A scantily clad blonde was being tended to by a couple cops. She looked cold and terrified. What the hell had happened here?

“A pledge? Not like the Delta’s to let an underclassmen in. Not a good reason to arrest everyone though, Gerry.” Chloe studied the shaken girl, she didn’t look like a freshmen.

“She’s not. She’s actually a senior, over here on exchange from Oslo. She thought it would be fun to pledge a sorority and she chose the Sigma’s.”

“Sure… tall, blonde, athletic Swede sounds like their type.” That was essentially the opposite description of Chloe who barely topped 5’4″, had dark brown hair and was very top heavy. In a different line of work, those might have been assets, but not for police work. Not that she had a chip on her shoulder or anything.

“Norway, Detective,” Gerald said, correcting her with a shrug. “She called in freaking out. The 911 operator didn’t get much from her.” Gerald led Chloe into the woods, towards the flashlights.

“When we got here, everything seemed fine but our guys noticed that a bunch of the frat members were rummaging in the woods. The brothers tried to distract them, focusing on the dead girl but one of the rooks got curious. Thank God he did I guess, but Jesus what a thing to find.”

Before Chloe could ask, her still forming questioned was answered by her own eyes. The scene was macabre. Body parts were strewn across a small clearing. Multiple arms and legs formed a rough circle. “Holy fuck,” Chloe breathed out, “How… how many?”

“ME’s trying to figure that out. My rough guess is 10 but we won’t know for awhile. Maybe never. Decomp looks pretty bad on some.”

Chloe looked around. She was confused, appalled and horrified all at once. “We think the Deltas did this?” she asked turning back to the Sergeant.

He nodded, “Yeah. Looks like it, love.” It was a testament to how disconcerted Gerald was that he called her that while on duty. He called all the women he worked with that but never while wearing the uniform. Normally he was all business but tonight had really shaken him. Chloe could understand why. She turned her eye towards the grisly scene, trying to figure out what in the world had happened. Gerry continued from behind, “When Jacob, the rookie who found this, called out, the brothers all tried to take off. Our guys tased a couple and there happened to be two units next door breaking up another party. They caught a bunch of other runners. We started rounding up the ones that were too drunk to run and that’s what you see. I figure about 15 took off and I got central to pull every patrol unit in the area to start knocking on doors and searching campus.”

Chloe nodded her head. She couldn’t worry about that right now. She walked over to the ME, a nice, middle aged man named Bob. Chloe had dealt with Bob several times. Every time she’d been left with the impression that he might be the world’s most average person. Average height, average build. Brown hair. Brown Eyes. If you drew a generic white guy, Bob would be what you got. “Sorry this is your night, Bob,” Chloe said as she walked up, “Anything you can tell me?”

“Not much. I heard Gerald say he thought there might be 10 bodies. I think that’s probably right. I’ll know better later but it’s a fair guess right now,” he stood up and gestured around the clearing. “The limbs form an oval around here,” he said indicating the area in front of them, “and they’re in a variety of states of decomp. This one,” he said pointing at a nearly skeletal leg at their feet, “I couldn’t even guess the age of. But the next one over,” he said, pointing now to an arm. It was severed at the shoulder, blood and sinew dangling out. There wasn’t much sign of decay, just some dirt smudges.

“Looks like it’s from today?” Chloe said, aghast.

“I thought so too but it’s definitely not. Too much rigor and the blood has been rain smeared and it hasn’t rained since Tuesday.”

“So… what… it’s three days old?”

“And it’s been sitting here that whole time. See how the leaves underneath it are stained with the runoff of the blood?” he asked as he knelt down again.

“No way. Animals would be all over it,” Chloe protested.

“I don’t know what to tell you. It’s all very ritualistic. Alternate leg, arm, left, right the whole way around. Maybe they had someone out here keeping the animals away.”

“Or maybe something else kept them away. Ghosts or demons maybe?” came a voice from behind her. Chloe stiffened. She knew the mocking tone of her ex-partner. Brett was a real piece of work. A womanizer par-excellence. He was a perfect example of the kind of asshole jock that pervaded the LAPD.

Chloe forced her expression to remain neutral and turned to see the tall, well built man that walked towards her. It would have been easier if he wasn’t so damn good looking. Unfortunately, he knew it. His cocky grin was awfully sexy despite his utter lack of humanity underneath. “Hello, Brett. Hey, weren’t you in Delta Omega Mu?”

Brett actually looked a little surprised but recovered quickly and flashed that annoying smirk, “Yeah. Didn’t realize you were paying so much attention to me, Detective.” He said the last word with all the condescension a person could muster.

“Don’t get your hopes up, Brett. You’ll have to enjoy the scenery from afar from now on,” Chloe said, hands on her hips. Brett had been annoyed when he found out she had made detective before he did. Chloe wasn’t exactly heartbroken.

Brett just smiled and walked away, searching for… “Where’s the rest of the bodies?”

Bob looked solemn, “We haven’t found the torsos. That’s what they’re looking for now.”

“And the heads?” Chloe asked, knowing already that she was going to hate the answer.

Bob simply pointed up. Chloe’s dread heightened as she raised her eyes. Ten feet above her was a skull dangling from a vine. Chloe shrieked and jumped away, “What the fuck, guys?”

Brett’s laugh echoed through the darkness from wherever he’d wandered off to. Even Gerald chuckled behind her. “We all had the same reaction. Only thing about tonight that’s making this bearable,” he said. Gallows humor was one thing. Letting people stand underneath decapitated heads was something else entirely.

Chloe looked up and examined the skull. It was twisting around slightly in the night’s breeze and as it rotated around in her direction, she could see the mouth agape. She also saw that it’s teeth were missing. “The teeth are gone,” she said. She turned and saw Bob’s gaze as tracked to the center of the infernal oval. There was a pile of teeth right in the middle. “What the hell was going on here? Some sort of ritualized murder sight?”

“That’s our guess,” Bob said as he handed Chloe a pair of booties. “Wear these if you’re going to go look,” he said.

Chloe put on the booties and strode over to the pile of mandibles, canines and incisors shining in the dark. As she got close, it only got worse. The teeth weren’t just teeth. They all had little bits of flesh and blood on them and she quickly realized these must have been wrenched from the person’s mouth.

“Anything inside the pile?”

Bob shrugged.

“You already got pictures right?” Chloe asked as she took out a pen from her jacket pocket. The pile was only six inches tall. Hopefully she could check without actually touching anything. Bob flashed her a thumbs up and she poked the pen into the pile. The plastic tip made a slight “clink” sound as it hit something hard.

Suddenly the world seemed to slow around her. A strange, purple haze rose out of the pile of teeth. Chloe tried to jump back but the smoky wisps flew at her before she could even move. Terrified, she tried to scream but no sounds came out. The mist swirled around her, penetrating her clothing and wrapping her. Invading her. That’s when she heard the voice.

-Chloe-

“What? Who?,” she mumbled. Her eyes flicked around and she saw Bob still standing there with his thumb out, unmoving. Gerald was to his left, one foot frozen in the air mid stride. The panic that had previously washed over Chloe rose several notches.

-Chloe-

The voice came again, seemingly from everywhere and yet nowhere. She realized she wasn’t hearing it but rather feeling it. She also realized that she was, despite all common sense, feeling aroused.

-Call my name, Complete the ritual-

“Who are you?” she said. The mist shifted under her clothes, touching her like no lover had ever done. It was like being teased by the world’s most dextrous and delicate fingers.

-You know me, Say my name-

“I don’t know you. What do you want?” she screamed at the thing invading her.

-Power. Submission. Dominance. Lust.-

The voice’s response sent a shudder down Chloe’s spine. The voice’s touch sent a bolt of lightning to her clit. “I’m sorry. I don’t know you,” Chloe said. She was trying to sound strong but it came out of her mouth like a whimper. Despite her assertion of a lack of knowledge, in the back of her mind she could feel something. Some bit of knowledge seemed to tickle at the something buried deep and long forgotten.

-Yes Chloe. I see the words in your mind. You know my name. Say it and we can complete the bonding-

The touch on her was relentless. She could feel the pleasure affecting her mind. She could feel the… the thing working on her body and soul. Her willpower being drained and replaced with pleasurable supplication.

“B… Bonding?” she asked, focused on the terrifying word. But something deep inside of her wasn’t terrified. That realization made her shiver, but not in fear. The mist seemed to solidify slightly and slip inside of her. Filling her cunt first and then her ass. The invasion should have alarmed her. It should have made her run away in fear. But the sensation was too good. Too perfect. Despite everything telling her to get away, her body’s response was simply to thrust her hips into the air, seeking more.

-Yes Chloe. I know what you like. I can give it to you. I can give it all to you. Say my name. Repeat the pledge and you’ll have all this and more.-

Chloe’s resistance was fading. She tried to hold on to a tiny little spark of anger and fear at her core. She held on for dear life. But as she did that, her subconscious mind was providing the answer she needed. Somewhere deep in the recesses of her brain was a name. A name she’d heard from her grandmother. Or maybe she’d read it in a book? Or a movi?. She didn’t know the source. All she knew was that the voice was right. She did know its name. And she knew that saying it would end her.

-No Chloe Not end Beginning. I see your soul and I will not change it. This is my pledge.-

Chloe gritted her teeth, trying to block out the pleasure that was growing inside of her. It was far beyond anything anyone had ever done to her. It was perfect. Better than perfect. It was heavenly.

The voice seemed to chuckle

-Not heavenly Chloe. But perfect yes. Say my name, Chloe. Say it-

Chloe felt the mist begin to move within her and her resistance crumbled as her first orgasm crashed into her. The mist withdrew instantly, ruining the orgasm and leaving her gasping, “No!” she cried out at the sheer misery of the sudden emptiness. “No… Please… Please.”

-Say my name and I will give you what you crave-

There was no fight left in her after that. “KyriarchoúnDoúlos,” Chloe whispered.

-Yesssss-

The voice was exultant and the mist returned to Chloe, along with the pleasure. It was even better than before, thrusting into her, teasing her no longer. It touched her in ways more perfect than she thought possible. She felt another orgasm coming and she knew it would be life changing.

-Repeat the pledge Chloe-

Chloe gritted her teeth as the waves of pleasure drove through her. It felt like each one wiped a little bit more of her mind. Each one eroded another bit of willpower. She wanted this orgasm more than she wanted her next breath.

-I will seek pleasure-

Of course she would. That was easy. “I will seek pleasure,” Chloe breathed out. She was rewarded with a new wave of pleasure somehow better than the rest. It took her breath away and she desperately craved more. Flashes of erotic images rifled through her mind’s eye. Of her masturbating. Of her riding a faceless man. Of her having her pussy eaten by a slutty blonde. Of her taking a room full of men one after another. The images made her cunt flood.

-I will dominate all women–

Chloe liked to be in charge and had no problem with women. Another easy one. “I will dominate all women,” Chloe said, this time louder. Despite expecting the pleasure wave this time, it still left her panting. Now the images were of her on top of women. Kissing them. Holding them down. Tying them up. Spanking them. Leading them on leashes. Each image growing more and more depraved and yet more and more pleasurable.

-I will submit to all men-

Something in the back of her mind rebelled. Why should she submit to anyone? But the voice had said it and the pleasure would be so good if she just said it. “I will… I will…”

-You WILL submit to men-

The voice was pressing in on her and she saw sparks fly. She started again, almost involuntarily, “I will submit… to…” But again her mind held together just enough. She could feel the wrongness of the words.

-Chloe, if you want my power you must say the words. You must submit to men. It will be pleasurable. I promise-

She had the horrible, fleeting image of a spiky, demonic mouth licking its teeth with a long, purple tongue. The image repulsed her but a part of her didn’t mind. The part of her that longed for the pleasure and submission.

-I will submit to all men. Say it Chloe-

“I will… I will…,” Chloe’s resolve was crumbling and she knew she wouldn’t last longer. She hung onto that part of her sanity that was repulsed a moment ago. A moment of strength for her? Or a moment of weakness for the demon invading her? It didn’t matter. It was a lifeline.

-Yessssss. Say it, Chloe-

“I will submit to…,” her mind flailed around for an escape. A solution. Or… a loophole? “I will submit to… some men,” she said. Pleasure flooded through her and the response from the voice was instant.

-Noooooooooo-

But the words had worked. She got her reward. The orgasm overtook her and seemed to last forever. The horrible images this time were dark and depraved. Her tied up. Her violated and humiliated. Her on her knees begging for worse and worse abuse. Each one more and more arousing to her, however.

-You dumb bitch. You don’t know what you’ve done-

Chloe barely heard the words. She was too busy gasping on her knees. She felt like she’d just run a marathon. Uphill. Through a jungle. Her lungs burned and she didn’t even notice that the purple mist that had swirled around her was part of what she was breathing in. The mist entered her through every hole, in fact. Suffusing her body with its essence. She felt stronger. More… alive. And she felt more aroused. Not like she had been before. Not the overwhelming, mind destroying pleasure. Just a low grade arousal that was intoxicating.

The world started up around her with a whoosh. Nobody seemed to have noticed the erotic fight that she’d just won. But had she won?