CORRUPTION 2

Mist filled the valley, winding and ribboning through the woods and caressing the buildings of the village, dank with the river’s breath. It shivered as it slipped through the gaps under the doors, filled with barely-seen shapes and a faint murmuring, heard by infants and the very old. It swirled along the roads, hurried along by unfelt breezes that were tinged, now and then, with the sharp bite of brimstone.

xxxxx

In the simple room above the inn, Webster turned over in his bed, teeth clenching as he listened unwillingly to the sounds from the next bed, the roughly woven linen curtain drawn between them blocking nothing of the moans and grunts of his partner’s nocturnal activities.

He was far from a eunuch or lover of men, he thought, back arching involuntarily as he heard the woman’s shaken groan behind the curtain, his partner’s low laugh. He acknowledged the edge of sour humour that was almost undoing his desperate attempt to keep his increasing arousal locked in his throat. Gage knew he would hear. He sometimes wondered if the hunter deliberately drew the loud responses from his women to ensure that he’d hear.

It wasn’t that he’d taken vows as the monks and priests did either. His hand slid down the long muscle of his thigh, almost without volition. He merely thought that their quests would be served and aided by the higher powers if they didn’t cavort in the muck and chaos of being so … animalistic.

Shivering as his fingers ran along his length, his eyes screwed shut, his imagination feeding him an image of the blonde, leaning over him, her fingers stroking him. Heat uncoiled deep in his groin, his shaft thickening as another long, low moan behind the curtain was accompanied by the faint squeaks of the bed being rocked. In his mind’s eye, he saw the blonde’s face slack with pleasure and her big breasts shuddering with every hard thrust.

His chest hitched slightly as he forced himself to breathe slowly, evenly. His hand curled around the base and he squeezed slightly, trembling as he drew it up slowly, his body rigid as he tried to keep the sounds that the sensation generated held down behind his teeth. Liquid dribbled from the head and he smoothed it down the length, speeding up a little, the gasps and cries of the blonde woman fueling his imagination and hardening him unbearably.

“Oh, sweet, fucking vixen,” Gage’s deep baritone voice rumbled from behind the curtain. “Dear god, yes!”

Mother of mercy, what was he doing to her – or she to him, Webster wondered, his body trembling as his grip tightened and he quickened, pulsing waves of pleasure beginning to wash through him, in involuntary rhythm with the noises across the room.

He couldn’t help the low groan, thigh and back muscles contracting sharply as his balls filled and stretched and lifted and his cock throbbed against the fierce grip of his hand, hearing Gage’s low laugh with a barely registered flash of anger that dissolved in the shuddering burst of incoherent pleasure, his seed spilling over his fingers and his hips jerking upward helplessly, driving himself hard into his hand.

xxxxx

All Hallows Convent

Father Martin walked around the girl, his eyes narrowed and considering as his stare raked every inch of her bared body.

She was lovely, in the manner of some mortal beings, delicate and fine-boned, her womanly curves neither lush nor lacking, but proportionate in the manner of good breeding.

High, firm round breasts, the nipples standing out with cold or embarrassment right now, the aureoles a dusky rose that matched the color of her lips. Her hips, still with a girl’s narrow curves, were pleasingly wider than the slender waist and she was soft yet slim, with the coltish aspect of youth. His imagination too easily furnished an image of those long, straight limbs wrapped around him, those slim hips driving against his. Her hair, freed from the confines of wimple and coif, was long and silky with a curl that became more pronounced at the ends, a shade something between ripe wheat and redder hues of barley. Her skin was pale as milk, smooth and unlined, unmarked by a single blemish or line that he could see. His fingers twitched, impatient to touch it, and he closed his hands into fists.

“Patience, go to the desk and lie back on it,” he told her, his voice calm and even.

To his delight, she obeyed instantly this time, turning and walking to the broad, mahogany desk, climbing onto it and lying on her back, her legs pressed close together, her hands held rigidly by her sides and her hair spread like late-afternoon sunshine over the edge behind her.

He followed her slowly, letting his eyes feast on her. “Open your legs, child,” he said quietly, stopping in front of her knees. “To be suitable as a bride of God, all must be pleasing in form and function.”

“Father, I –”

He leaned on the edge of the desk, looming over her. “Do not presume to understand the necessary requirements for the life you have chosen, Patience. You will not question what I must do, nor will you question your feelings of such things. With meditation and prayer, you will come to understand all of this, and that understanding will furnish the depth of commitment that must be in your heart when the time comes to give yourself over to your Lord.”

His fingertips brushed her knees, trailing from outside to inside with little more pressure than a cobweb’s brush and she trembled under them, easing her legs apart slightly, then a little more as Father Martin moved to stand between them.

“More, please,” he said softly, his eyes on hers as he moved that ghostly touch higher, and her shivering increased. “What use is renunciation when one knows not one is renouncing, Patience? Chastity is the gift of women to their God, but a true vow takes a deep knowledge of the sacrifice being offered.”

xxxxx

Patience closed her eyes, feeling the lids screwing tightly shut as the priest’s feather-light touch slid up her thighs. Her body was shaking, with fear, with shame, with the unknown sensations that were drawn from her skin, transmitted through nerve endings to what felt like the center of her being, building a heat and a craving there that seemed to be spreading like sun-warmed honey through her limbs and organs.

“God has given us a mighty gift,” the priest was saying, although she could hardly hear him above the pounding of her blood in her ears and she could hardly make sense of his words through the ever-deepening ripples of tormenting pleasure that felt as if she was being liquefied inside.

“The ability to create new life, to procreate,” Father Martin mused, brushing the deep honey-colored curls of her sex aside. “For most creatures it is a mechanical act, driven by instinct. Not so for us, my dear child.”

She froze, her muscles becoming completely rigid as he slid a finger along the folds of her sex, and the liquid feeling inside of her shook and spilled, letting his slow exploration of her glide across her heated flesh. She could feel the moisture trickling down her folds, could smell now a faint odor, tinted with musk. Was that coming from her, she wondered incoherently? She didn’t dare open her eyes, look up at the man who was generating those reactions.

“For his chosen Creations, God gave us the most exquisite pleasure to enhance the process of reproduction,” the priest said. “Arousal of the flesh produces the lubrication, sweet as tears, to enable easy penetration –”

She gasped as she felt his finger circle around the base of her folds and slip, incrementally, into her. The muscles of her back and the back of her legs tightened at the intimacy of that delicate probing, lifting her hips toward him momentarily, and pushing his intrusion in deeper.

“Yes, you can feel the need, can’t you, my dear?” the priest’s voice crooned, deeper than she’d heard it before, and his finger slid inside her a little more. “That is normal, that you would want to be filled, your body is ripe, and though you may never bear a child, the urge to make one is one we all share.”

“Father, I –” she whispered, her thighs trembling as he inserted his finger further, crooking and turning against the soft, wetness of her.

“Ssshhh, Patience,” he said, a smile in his voice. “This is but the first of your lessons, child, and you have done well, you have pleased me immensely with your obedience.”

She felt a touch over her breasts, and couldn’t contain the soft moan that the feel of his fingers, curving around the swell of it, brought to her throat. Opening her eyes slightly, she watched in dazed confusion as he caught the rock-hard nipple between finger and thumb, rolling it slightly and pulling and a sharp flush of pleasure swept from her breast through her stomach and down to her groin, her hips arching up higher against the press of his finger.

“To give up the pleasure that God has bestowed, that is a worthy sacrifice,” Father Martin said, smiling down at her, his finger twisting slightly against the swollen lips of her sex. “To know that pleasure, in every detail, is required before the offer becomes meaningful.”

“Yes, Father,” she breathed, her eyelids dropping again. “I understand.”

“Of course you do,” he said, tugging again on her breast, his hand cupping and squeezing it. “Lie still and feel God’s gift, Patience.”

She couldn’t have moved if fire had broken out all around her, she thought, her breath catching in her throat. She couldn’t move at all, hypnotized by the sensations that slid under her skin and arrowed through her body. She felt a warm exhale over her breast and then the silken, moist touch of his tongue, and it pulled a response from deep inside her, that lapping on the sensitized skin, it was burning her up with a need for something she couldn’t know, couldn’t even imagine.

He pulled the nipple deep inside his mouth, sucking on it and she cried out, hands curling tightly by her sides, not hearing the soft laughter that seemed to play all around the room, in the corners where the shadows thickened. His mouth moved from one puckered nipple to the other and fire raced down her through, more liquid spilling down her thighs and bottom as her hips lifted involuntarily.

This was God’s gift, she wondered, lost in the sensations that ricocheted from groin to collarbones and back again. Father Martin’s finger had withdrawn from her, and ran up and down the folds of flesh, pausing at the small, throbbing nub at the top of them, circling lazily there for a too-brief moment before sliding down again. The repeated fondling was building a vortex inside of her, a whirlwind of ache and tension and need and every time he moved his hand, she couldn’t help the upward thrust her body made, attempting to regain those caresses.

“Very good, Patience,” the priest said, and he was gone, her nipples aching, her breasts swollen and heavy, her sex throbbing between her legs, bereft as he stepped back and stood looking at her, hands now held behind his back.

“You may rise and dress yourself,” he continued, gesturing shortly toward the pile of her clothing. “Go and meditate on what you have felt, and I will see you again tomorrow, at the same hour, to continue your lessons.”

For a second, she lay still, her body and mind a mass of conflicting and torturous demands, then she struggled to sit, ducking her head and sliding from the desk’s top. She hurried to her clothes, picking up the shift and pulling it over her head, her face burning with emotions that were too complex and too diffuse to name.

“Patience,” Father Martin said, as she stepped into her habit and drew it quickly up.

She looked up at him, her nervousness increasing as she saw him smile. It was not the smile she was used to, open and kind. There was a sly glee behind the smile on the priest’s face now, although his eyes had returned to their bright blue.

“It is a new experience for you, I understand that, dear,” he said, his voice the tenor she knew, and very gentle. “It is also an essential part of understanding what your offering will be. Be of good heart, child, you have succeeded today beyond my expectations. You will do well.”

“Yes, Father,” she murmured, dropping her gaze as she wound her hair at the nape of her neck and held it in place as she tugged on the coif. “I will pray and meditate.”

“Good girl,” he said dismissively, turning back to the desk. “You may not touch yourself, even if you perceive it will relieve what you are feeling, child. You will not allow any other to touch you or tell any other of what has happened here this night. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Father.”

Patience left the room, her belt and wimple held tight against her aching breasts, her body throbbing as she ran down the long stone hallway for her quarters. She was flushed and hot, and the burning fever that seemed to fill her was not quelled by the cold air that filled the novice rooms, even when she let her habit fall and curled herself onto her narrow straw pallet, eschewing the warmth of the blankets that lay folded at its foot.

Tension crawled through her body with a touch like a spider’s as her mind threw up memories, memories of touch and sound and sight, memories that burned as deeply in her skin as the touches had themselves. Father Martin had been right, she thought, twisting around on the comfortless pad. She felt a need to be filled, to have something – someone – touch her and ease the torment of the yearning that seemed, at once, a physical agony, a mental torture and an emotional starvation, although how that could be, she didn’t know. She moaned softly as she squeezed her legs more tightly together, her hands curled into fists and pressed hard against her chest to stop herself from reaching between her legs in an attempt to recreate what the priest had done.

xxxxx

The morning sun had trouble piercing the interior of the inn, through the smoke-grimed, thick glass of the two small windows. The inn was empty, the fire rekindled on the great stone hearth slow to warm the long room.

“Four dead, torn apart in their homes,” Donato said, slamming his hand down on the heavy plank table at which the two hunters were seated, their breakfasts finished and the empty plates pushed aside. “Eight missing.”

“Anyone see anything?” Gage rubbed a hand over his face. He could’ve used more sleep, he thought.

“A mist,” the ex-hunter told him. “Old Mary said she heard voices in it.”

“So there are already cracks opening,” Webster said, pushing his empty plate to one side.

“Aye,” Donato said, turning as the inn door opened and the tall, slender red-haired girl came inside. “What word, Rose?”

“Succubi,” Rose said crisply. “They found the body of Tomas Halley, in the lane that leads to the convent,” she continued, glancing briefly at the two men at the table. “He was … torn apart … by his own hands.”

Gage felt a momentary surprise at hearing the demon classification from a woman’s lips. His attention sharpened on her and he started at the sudden pain in his ankle, delivered by the toe of his partner’s boot.

“Not your type, remember?” Webster hissed at him, sotto voce.

She wasn’t, he thought, looking back at her to find her cool gaze centered on him. He went after women who made their interest in him clear from the first moment. Chasing those who weren’t interested or who had to be wooed had never been in his repertoire.

“How many?”

“Rafe said at least two,” she answered her father. “He couldn’t be sure there weren’t more but the claw marks were different on Tomas’ legs to those on his arms.”

The succubi demons rarely possessed, preferring to either poison their victims or gather their own forms, from the energy of the air, the oldest texts claimed, drawn together by an act of will. He’d never seen one do that, in twenty years of hunting the unnatural and the hellspawn that somehow slithered their way out of Hell, but he’d seen plenty of poisonings. As fond as he was of the reproductive act, he still shuddered at the thought of being aroused to the point of madness and the subsequent actions the victims frequently took.

“What about the rest of the missing?” Webster asked, dividing his attention between the girl and her father.

“Still no sign of them,” Rose told them, after a deferential look at her father. “Most of them were from Lady Eloise’s estate.”

“Possible members of the coven,” Donato clarified. “Agnes Thoroughgood, Winston Brown, Cordelia Pettigrew, Davis Archer, Clarence Durrow and Beth Hillyard are still missing from their positions.”

“Can you show us the convent?” Gage asked the girl, and Donato’s brows drew together at the question. He stepped forward as Rose opened her mouth to answer.

“No need,” he interjected gruffly. “The lane on the east side of the village leads straight to it.”

The hunter grinned, getting to his feet. “I promise you, on my word of honor, that your daughter will be safe with us.”

“What makes you think that I cannot protect myself?” Rose asked, stepping out from behind her father and staring at him.

Ignoring her remark and before Gage could respond, Donato grunted and turned away, gesturing to Rose to precede him through the door to the kitchen, and saying over his shoulder, “You have no honor, Gage, so that promise would be about as accountable as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

“He’s right,” Webster added, unfolding himself from the wooden settle. “At least, when it comes to the fair sex.”

“Falsehoods and calumnies,” Gage muttered, turning for the front door. “In any event, we should see the villagers before we head for the convent.”

“I’m not arguing that point,” Webster said mildly. “What do you expect to find?”

“If the hellspawn are out and about, it won’t just be succubi,” Gage pointed out. “Some of them might be looking for something to wear.”

xxxxx

All Hallows Convent

Patience woke shivering on her pallet of straw, the heat long drawn from her body and stiff with the early morning’s chill. Her head was pounding and she felt slightly nauseated by the thought of food, rolling awkwardly onto her knees and reaching for her habit.

She would be late for Lauds, she thought, dragging the coarse wool over her head and fumbling at her waist for the soft cloth belt if she attempted to break her fast. The faint roiling in her middle decided for her, and she drew on the coif and wimple quickly, hurrying from her small room and down the stone stairs at the end of the hallway.

Slipping in at the back as the first notes rose to the high, arched ceiling, she bent her head quickly and closed her eyes, forcing the memories that had continued to assail her through the night and while she was dressing from her mind. Father Martin had said that a vow or sacrifice without knowing what was being renounced was a false piety, she thought, her hands clenching together beneath the sleeves of the habit. Perhaps he was right. She had been raised in a poor household, and had seen her mother become more and more grey and ill-used with each child she’d borne, from the hard work and from the endless grief when a child was lost, to sickness or malnourished or even before birth.

Had her mother felt those … indescribable sensations in the bed she shared with her father, she wondered? Was that why the little house had been overcrowded with children and her grief so deep at the ones lost?

Looking at her, Patience had not been able to understand her mother’s steadfast love for either the man who had failed to provide enough income to keep those he’d sired, nor for the rough and tumble madhouse the house was, with six children aged between infancy and ten years, all demanding of attention, all bright-eyed and dirty-faced. The siblings that would’ve been closer to her, those born in the four years between her and the next youngest, had all died, and what stood out in her memories of childhood was her mother’s face, worn and sad all the time. There had been another gap between Patience and her older siblings as well, not as pronounced but enough that they had been out of the little house and the bulk of the workload had fallen upon Patience when her mother continued to birth healthier children.