Satan’s Whore – Chapter 6

Daniel awoke in Kat’s bed. Her slender arm draped across his chest and her breath tickled the well between his neck and shoulder.

The events of the previous day came back to him in a rush. The memories were like pictures rather than movies, but then, memories were like that. Pictures of the perfection of Kat’s body, pictures of him entering her, pictures of Kat after it all, sleepy and relaxed and beautiful, and — though he couldn’t quite wrap his head around it — his. Daniel realized that he didn’t feel guilty. There was a slight sense of loss but a greater sense of relief.

He had given himself voluntarily to a succubus. He couldn’t believe it, but it felt right.

Kat stirred.

He took a deep breath, relishing the simple pleasure of having the warm body of a woman beside him. But she’s not a woman, he reminded himself, not really. He pushed the thought away. There would be time enough to come to terms with that.

“Good morning,” she mumbled sleepily.

“You’ve bewitched me,” he said.

Kat nestled into him. “No,” she said simply.

He believed her. They lay unmoving for several minutes. She was fully awake now. Her fingertips stroked his chest, drawing lazy figures there. He stroked her back. Neither of them, it seemed, wanted to break the spell.

“What now?” he asked finally.

Kat perched her head on her elbow and regarded him for a moment. “I have to ask, but do you submit to being bound to me?”

It was Daniel’s turn to hesitate. He tried to imagine what life would be like after uttering the word that played on the tip of his tongue. One night of sin was one thing, but a lifetime? What would be the consequences? Would he be forever damned? Was he willing to risk that for her?

“Yes.”

Kat was surprised at the tears that sprang to her eyes. Some demon, she thought. “Thank you.” She took his head in her hands and kissed him.

“Now’s the hard part. Daniel, I’ll try to protect you as much as I can from what I am and what I do, but you must never forget either of those things. It will be hard on you, harder than anything you’ve done.”

It might tear you apart, Kat almost said, but the look on Daniel’s face stilled her tongue.

“Can I try to forget for a little while longer?” he said as he reached for her.

“I’d like that.”

xxxxx

 

Both Kat and Daniel turned to the door at the sound of running feet in the hallway. The door burst open.

“Kat! Daniel’s….” Jean-Paul rushed into Kat’s room and then stopped in his tracks. He looked momentarily confused as he took in the scene before him. Then he smiled at the rumpled figures in the bed.

“Good morning, Jean-Paul,” said Kat.

“Good morning, I apologize for my intrusion.” Jean-Paul placed a wallet on the dresser. “I apologize as well for taking your wallet, Daniel. It was necessary. You’ll be reimbursed.”

“What?”

Kat thought that Jean-Paul had been avoiding her. God knew that enough animosity had arisen between them of late. Now she realized that he’d been several steps ahead of events.

“Jean-Paul has been to Spain,” explained Kat.

“With my wallet?”

“He’s been laying a false trail. Buying us some time.”

“Ah,” said Daniel.

Jean-Paul turned and made to exit the room. “My own enjoyment of Spain notwithstanding, I’m glad that my efforts were not in vain.”

He winked as he closed the door behind him.

xxxxx

 

The sun had set. Daniel had been returned to his room with instructions not to leave it. His door was no longer locked. He didn’t understand what was happening. Kat didn’t want him to know and he had enough sense not to press her.

Kat stood naked before the mirror and remembered what Isabel had told her a few hours earlier.

“You must feed. You must be strong for what is to come. You must sate yourself until you feel that you can absorb no more and then continue. When the city writhes and moans under the thrall of carnal dreams and lascivious thoughts, you know you will be ready.”

Kat thought Isabel’s description a bit exaggerated, but felt a little frisson of anxiety nonetheless.

She’d forgo the pleasure of materializing in physical form tonight; she didn’t have time. Tonight she would occupy dreams only. She would appropriate as many of them as possible and twist them to her purposes. She would be very busy. She would feed like never before.

With a deep breath, she shimmered and vanished from her bedroom.

She floated above the city and projected the promise of dark pleasures to it. The response came back almost immediately — feelings of desperation, hopeless yearning, and unsatisfied lust.

She picked the most ardent of these responses and willed herself there.

A middle-aged man — a life-long bachelor if Kat had to guess — writhed on the bed in a shabby one-bedroom flat. She approached him and spoke into his dream.

“Tonight I’m yours if you want me.”

Sadly, it was a line that he’d likely never heard before in real life and it got his attention. His movements on the bed stilled.

“You can do whatever you want,” she said.

She insinuated herself into his dreams as a raven-haired temptress and he responded. She straddled him. There was no time and little need for foreplay. He entered her. Years of unwanted abstinence spurred him. On the threshold of climax, she revealed herself as an old hag, a wrinkled old crone more dead than alive. Lust and dread combined and she drank it up.

The lonely man had satisfied her immediate appetite. She felt full and powerful, but she heeded Isabel’s words. She left him thrashing and whimpering on the bed with the ghost of his dream and projected once again to the city.

Her next target was a jail. An inmate awaiting trial dreamt of the girlfriend he’d beaten. He was sure that she wouldn’t testify. She loved him, after all, and feared him as well. The girlfriend came to him then, naked as he liked her. Her large breasts swayed and wobbled as she approached. He liked that too, the way her breasts hung on her. She knelt at his side and fished his cock out of his pants. She was learning. Spontaneity, that’s what it was all about. Nothing better than an unplanned blowjob. He liked surprises as much as anyone. Her technique was getting better too.

Hands and mouth, just like he’d told her. She’d overcome her fucking gag reflex too. About time. Who had to gag after taking in one lousy inch? She didn’t gag when she put a French fry in her mouth, for fuck’s sake. It was a lame excuse if he’d ever heard one. She’d gotten over that, he saw, big time. He loved the way her cheeks sucked in as she went down on him. And she moaned as though she loved it. Well, she ought to love it! Holy shit, she was right down on him! Her nose touched his abdomen and he could feel her tongue undulating along his entire length.

He couldn’t believe it! He felt that familiar tingling behind his balls as her head bobbed up and down on him. His homely girlfriend had become a fucking porn star. The pressure built. I’ve got something for you, baby. Oh, yeah! I’m gonna blow. Just before climax, he felt a searing pain from his nether regions. Leave it to the bitch to fuck it up at the last minute. He looked down. First, he noticed that the woman between his legs was no longer his girlfriend, but someone infinitely prettier. Then he noticed the blood that ran down her pretty little chin. He came, and saw a feeble spurt from the bloody stump where his cock had been.

The inmate awoke with a yelp, but not before Kat had drunk her fill from him. She watched as his hands reached for his groin, frantically grappling.

“Oh, fuck,” he whimpered. “Thank God.”

Satisfied that all was still intact, the inmate muttered something that Kat didn’t understand and rolled over.

In another house, she approached a father. She wore the guise of his daughter. Normally he would steal into her room. Not this time. This time, she visited him. She hitched up her nightie and straddled him. He was ready, by God.

“Daddy,” she whispered as she descended on him.

He could feel her warmth enveloping him and felt himself coming already. Damn it. They’d just started. He’d be better the next time.

“Daddy, you shouldn’t do these things,” she said as he came.

He knew. God, he knew, but he couldn’t help it.

“This is the last time. Good-bye.”

He felt a searing pain in his chest and his eyes sprang open. He half-expected to see the handle of a knife rising out of his chest, but there was nothing. He saw only his daughter, writhing upon him, dancing with such abandon that he almost didn’t recognize her.

“This is the last time, Daddy.” She held out her hand and appeared to clutch some invisible object. Her fingers tightened around it and that chest pain bloomed again.

He came as her grip on his heart tightened.

He awoke in a sweat. His daughter wasn’t there, but the pain in his chest still was.

Kat spent the whole night like this, flitting from one location to another, gorging herself until she felt as though she would spew it all over the unsuspecting city. And still she continued until her being positively thrummed with energy. She could scarcely contain it. Just when she thought she’d call it a night, she thought of Isabel’s words. Then she thought of Daniel for whom all of this was necessary. Then she’d project once more, select a target, and begin the dance once again.

***

The police in and around Heidelberg reported an inexplicable spike in the numbers of rapes and assaults that night. The morning shift came to work to find the jails filled with many who were no strangers to state accommodation and an equal number who were. The citizens of the city returned to their offices and job sites complaining of exhaustion and strange dreams, though few revealed their nature. People opined that sunspots were to blame, some pointed to the weather, and others suggested some kind of environmental catastrophe that the state had no doubt covered up. Most remained silent, hoping that this blip was just that and that life would soon return to its predictable pattern.

Kat slept through the confusion and turmoil that she`d wrought.

xxxxx

 

Daniel stood alone in a bedroom in the basement. A heavy, wooden four-poster bed occupied the center of the room. Thick white candles seemed to grow out of ages of molten wax that hung like stalactites from tall iron holders. Their flickering light provided the room’s only illumination. In their glow, the figures on ancient wall hangings seemed to dance. Daniel walked around the room and examined them. He could discern Heidelberg Castle on one, before its partial destruction. In the foreground, dancing demons cavorted with naked peasants. There was violence and fornication and all manner of depravity.

It had been several hours since Isabel had summoned Daniel from his room. He knew that she, like Kat, was a succubus. He liked Isabel immediately and felt at ease in her presence. She explained some of what would happen tonight and reviewed with him the words she had asked him to memorize. Finally, she asked if he was still willing. He’d only nodded but she forced him to speak the word.

Satisfied that he was ready, she led him to a bedroom in the basement and asked him to undress and wait.

“What’s going to happen?” he’d asked.

“There’s little precedence for this, Daniel.” She’d kissed him then and closed the door behind her.

He felt more lonely now than at any point during his captivity. He thought of praying for strength, but realized that that particular avenue was now closed to him.

Daniel examined the room several times. The floor was made of rough stone. The light wasn’t good enough to see, but under his bare feet Daniel could feel symbols etched into it.

He grew tired and, having little else to do, lay on the bed. His anxiety about what was to come gradually waned until he fell into a fitful slumber.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep, but some subtle change in the atmosphere of the room roused him. He looked around for its source and soon noted a shimmering in a darkened corner of the room. The disturbance in the air resolved itself into the form of Kat. He`d never seen her do this before and gazed at her in amazement. Her skin bore an umber hue, seemingly lit from within. The air around her seemed charged.

She stepped into the faint light of one of the candles. Like him, she wore nothing. Her allure was at once breathtaking and unspeakably terrible. She took an unhurried step toward him, one muscular and shapely leg placed before the other. The ring between her legs glinted for a moment in the candlelight. He could see muscles flexing, coiling and uncoiling. He noted the elegance of her waist, the ripeness of her breasts. Her wings unfurled behind her with the sound of silk against skin. She observed him with those dark eyes that seemed ringed by embers and the corners of her mouth lifted in a tentative smile. Her horns, cold and white, rose above her head like a crown.

He’d seen her in her true form several times before, but always through the veil of sleep. He’d always appreciated her unearthly power, but had never felt it as he did now. Here was a creature forged for one thing and he could do nothing to withstand it. Here was the architect of his corruption and he wanted her.

“Kat,” he whispered.

She reached the bed and placed a trembling hand on his cheek. Daniel could feel her energy. The air around her almost popped with it. He took strength from her simple touch, knowing that whatever else might happen, it spoke louder than words.

“I’m scared,” Daniel said.

“Be brave,” said Kat, allowing her hands to fall and grasp his. Daniel couldn’t be sure, but he thought that he could detect a note of apprehension from her.

Kat sat on the edge of the bed and closed her eyes. She held his hands on the warmth of her lap. Into the silence she spoke the words that Daniel had been taught. In unison, they uttered the words that would begin the binding.

“I beseech you, dark spirit of the underworld and specters of hell, in the name of Lucifer, to witness the willing sacrifice of God’s lamb on the altar of your dread power. Come and inhabit this creature of God and displace from him the light, and through him work your dark designs upon the world.”

That was the first verse. The words tumbled off of his tongue like a foreign language and it was strange and frightening to hear his voice uttering them. Daniel opened his eyes and looked around the room, as if expecting the dark lord himself to have made an appearance. Nothing had changed. He was still on the bed, the candle light still flickered, and a heartbreakingly beautiful succubus still held his hands.

“That wasn’t so bad,” he whispered, half to himself.

His gaze rested finally on Kat. She only smiled as she pushed him back on the bed.

xxxxx

 

Such purity and innocence, thought Kat. She knew that he found her beautiful, but it was a beauty designed for one sole purpose. His beauty was all the more vital and rare for having been a quirk of fate. Moreover, it was a treasure and for the purity of the soul that matched it.

And tonight she would take half of what he was.

She traced the contours of his body with the lightest of touches, as if committing them to memory. Face, shoulders, chest, and abdomen. He lay still through it except for the occasional squirm when she tickled him.

Her heart thumped in her chest as she slid down his body, hugging it as a climber would a rock face, afraid that any loss of contact would prove fatal.

“With this embrace,” she whispered, “I bind you.”

His eyes sprang open and he stiffened at the words, as if surprised that it had begun. She gave him a look that was meant to reassure him. Part of him was ready for her. She grasped him in her hand. Tonight she would consume him. Tonight she would taste the essence of him that she’d denied herself until now.

Her lips parted and she ran the crown of his shaft against them and the tip of her tongue. Her other hand cradled the delicate weight of his testicles.

She opened herself to him, welcoming his agitation and lust. Though she’d never consciously sought nourishment from him, his taste was delectable and somehow familiar.

She licked the smooth contours of his head, already hard with arousal. His energy seeped into her. She didn’t think that she had room for more, but it swirled into her nonetheless.

Her lips closed around him and he moaned.

So hard and vital, she thought, this boy who chose to sacrifice himself for her.

She slid his entire length into her mouth.

“Oh, God,” he gasped.

She withdrew. “God is not in this place,” she said. She squeezed his balls. “I am.”

At another time, this statement might have sounded playful; at this moment though, it seemed to rise out of uncharted depths.

Daniel’s head fell back again. Kat could feel his body winding up, responding to her. She could also feel the humming of his agitated thoughts. This is good, thought Kat as her mouth embraced him again.

His breathing came in gasps now. He felt solid and ripe against her tongue and lips and throat. She fondled his balls and stroked his perineum. It was almost as though his flesh could no longer contain him.

With a moan that could have been ecstasy or anguish — she didn’t know which — his body convulsed and he jetted his hot seed into her throat. She moaned in counterpoint as the energy of his gift suffused her. Her mouth milked him and she savored each delectable drop.

xxxxx

 

She kissed him, a strangely tender gesture after she’d so voraciously consumed him.

“On your knees,” she whispered. His limbs felt like rubber. He concentrated and managed to coordinate his body enough to rise. He knelt before Kat and wrapped his arms around her waist. She pressed her chest to his. He could feel her heartbeat. Her wings swept forward and around, wrapping them both in a warm cocoon.

“Hearken…” said Kat.

Daniel had drifted in the comfort of Kat’s embrace. The beginning of the second verse brought him back. He concentrated, trying to remember the words, and continued the verse with Kat, speaking the words into her ear.

“Hearken therefore, and rejoice in the victory of darkness and renunciation of the light, you enemy of the faith, you champion of knowledge, you spirit of seduction, you instigator of sin, you author of venality, you fomenter of disquiet, you architect of corruption.”

Kat’s wings opened and released him. He sat on his haunches and watched as Kat reached both hands between her legs and pressed her fingers there. They glistened wetly when she removed them. She reached for his still erect member, anointing it with her juices.

With a slight smile, she turned and rested on her hands and knees before him.

Daniel shook his head at this impossible vision. The perfect hourglass figure from which extended two long, delicate, white wings. She arched her back and presented to him the fullness of her ass and the glistening pussy. He approached her and placed his hands on her hips. His cock touched the ring that pierced her clitoris. He wanted to plow into her. He wanted to claim her. He wanted to fuck her.

He felt her fingers on him and she moved away a little. She lifted him and positioned him at the unyielding button of her anus.

“There?” He recoiled at this aberrant practice, this dirty thing, this sin. Part of him wanted to pull away but another part kept him in place. Welcome to Sodom, he thought to himself.

In answer, she pressed against him. Instead of retreating, he found himself meeting her. Her hands grasped her cheeks and spread them. She bore more firmly against him and it felt as though she would never yield. He slipped against her and she returned him to the desired spot. It was painful, it was electrifying. Finally, he breached the resistance and his head entered her. The embrace she offered was delirious in its pressure.

She said, “With this embrace I bind you.”

This first taste was invitation enough. He worked his cock in and out of this forbidden place that stretched impossibly to accommodate him. With every thrust he buried himself more deeply within her. Each thrust yielded a gasp from her, which only emboldened him. Her fingers clenched the bed sheets as he plowed into her ass, groaning in pleasure at the incredible constriction she offered. He abused himself within the confines of her, burying himself until he could go no further and then withdrawing.

“Fuck me,” she cried.

He reached forward and grasped her horns. With a violence that hardly registered, he pulled her head back and plunged into her. Her back arched and she shrieked, whether in pain or pleasure he didn’t know. Nor did he care. He pulled on her horns as he pushed with his pelvis, seeking penetration where there could be no more. Her hands found his ass and pulled him to her. Her fingernails scrabbled against him and raked his flesh, digging angry furrows.

She met his fury with her own, grinding against him and gripping him painfully. His hands left her horns and wrapped around her torso, holding her back to his chest as he pressed. He pressed his mouth to her neck and bit her there, hardly aware that he was doing so.

His body obeyed no rules that he recognized. He occupied her forbidden places and he thrilled at it. He tasted her blood and it was good. He caused her pain and reveled in it. All the while, he felt himself being drawn into her in ways more than physical and blossomed in that space she provided.

He realized then that he was coming.

His hands grasped her breasts and pulled her to him.

He came as though his body sought to empty itself within her.

xxxxx

 

He collapsed on her back, completely spent.

“Daniel.”

Kat flipped him off her back and he landed heavily on the bed.

“One more, Daniel. Just one more.”

He couldn’t respond beyond shaking his head.

Kat’s eyes blazed with renewed intensity. The room seemed to hum with her energy. She was terrible to behold at that moment, feral and predatory, but he was beyond fear.

“You must,” she growled.

When he didn’t respond, she grabbed him by the waist and lifted him off the bed. He dimly registered her strength but could do little to help her.

She carried him across the room and leaned him against the wall. He managed to stay upright. The air was thick with the smell of sweat and lust.

With an angry jerk, she pulled one of the tapestries from the wall, revealing a dark alcove in which stood a construction made of rough, dark timber. It was shaped like the letter T. Leather straps hung from the three points. She maneuvered him to the construction and tied his wrists and ankles to it.

He managed to stand and feebly tested the restraints. He was baby-weak and limp. His head hung down and he regarded his cock with dim amazement. He could have laughed. He could barely bear his own weight yet his cock stood out proud and erect.

She kissed him again. “Last one, Daniel. Please stay with me. Please.”

It sounded to Daniel that she was begging. His head lolled on his shoulders and he giggled.

“We’re almost there. Come on, say it with me. ‘Know that…”

Daniel couldn’t remember the words. They seemed far away, illegible in the distance.

“Daniel. Daniel! Repeat after me.”

Kat seemed genuinely desperate and concerned. There was a trickle of blood running down her neck. How had that happened? Her eyes were wide and she was shaking. No, that wasn’t right. She wasn’t shaking. He was. She was shaking him. She was very pretty, he realized, as though for the first time. Shame about the horns though. The wings were kind of weird but pretty too in their own way.

She was yelling at him. He didn’t like yelling, particularly if it was directed at him. “Huh?”

“Daniel, remember the words you learned?”

“Know that?”

“Yes, those. Can you repeat them with me?”

Sure, he thought. If it’ll stop the yelling. And so he repeated the words that she wanted to hear. She had a pretty voice.

“Know that this soul willingly submits to be bound, and that with the completion of the third embrace shall it be bound, until death and beyond, to you and to your servant, for ever and ever.”

Daniel hung from the frame, pondering the third embrace. He could barely move his arms, so how could he embrace anything? Then he remembered that he’d been tied up.

Kat stood before him now. She looked taller; then Daniel realized that he was sagging, hanging from his arms. He thought of standing up again, but then felt something delightful and warm against his chafed and erect cock. That was good. He liked that.

“With this embrace I bind you.”

He could barely feel it as she plunged upon him.

The last station of that unholy trinity — he thought as he drifted away — mouth and ass and molten cunt.

xxxxx

 

Kat plunged upon him. She knew that she didn’t have a lot of time but was nonetheless surprised when she felt a gradual slackening in Daniel. No, she cried to herself, not now!

She grasped his shoulders and dug her nails into his flesh. Too soon.

Blood trickled from his shoulders and down his chest. Her preparations hadn’t included what would happen if the ritual could not be completed, but she knew that it wouldn’t be good.

“Please, Daniel, stay with me.”

She hugged him to her and allowed some of her energy to flow to him. Just a trickle. It was too soon for more.

He moaned then, a faraway sound that grew louder with each desperate thrust. A gasp announced the third and final ejaculation. She felt it and rejoiced.

xxxxx

 

He dimly felt the pressure of her against around his cock. He felt the leather that bound his wrists and ankles. He felt himself coming, but it really didn’t mean anything.

He drifted. It was like falling asleep, but different. He was awake and sleeping, if that was possible. In fact, he felt pretty alert. More alert than before.

He looked around. He couldn’t see the room anymore and Kat wasn’t around. It was just black and quiet and kind of peaceful except for that noise in the distance. It sounded like a whistle on a kettle. He was surprised. It was pretty faint but getting louder.

Who would have a kettle going in this darkness?

The whistle got louder and was starting to irritate him.

Then the strands of the whistling kind of untangled and became separate noises, separate whistles, and each one got louder.

They sounded like shrieks — long, sustained shrieks.

It felt like his head was going to explode.

It got louder still and then he realized that he had added his voice to this unearthly choir.

His shriek rose in pitch.

xxxxx

 

Daniel hung limp from the straps that held him. His head lolled and spittle hung from his lips.

Kat grasped both sides of his head. He wasn’t breathing.

“Oh no,” she wailed.

All of the energy she’d stored in herself she now poured into the lifeless form of Daniel.

“Come back,” she whispered.

She clung to him as the last of his seed trickled down her leg.

“Come back.”

Her wings wrapped him to her ever more tightly and her fingernails dug into his lifeless flesh. Nothing.

“Come back, damn you!” she shrieked.

If she could have pulled him into her, she would have.

With one last surge, she sacrificed it all, heedless of the consequences. The last ounce of stored energy seeped into him, and then some of her own. She felt her own grip on him weakening.

She felt herself falling. She gazed up at Daniel from the floor.

With a shudder, Daniel inhaled. His chest rose and then fell.

For another moment, nothing happened. And then his chest rose again.

Kat wept. “You’re back.”

But beside the sound of his breathing, Daniel didn’t respond.

And Kat knew no more.

xxxxx

 

Kat sat on a bench. She’d been with Daniel since waking up with him the following morning. She’d found herself in bed with him and had stayed there in silent vigil for the better part of the week.

Kat relived that night countless times, trying to pinpoint where things had gone wrong. For the life of her she couldn’t, but then, there was no manual for what she had tried to do. Isabel scoured the informal network of demons in an attempt to discover a way of reversing Daniel’s condition, but to no avail.

Now as then, Daniel remained alive, but only his breathing and the beating of his heart suggested life. He was hers and he was alive, but he was merely a shell now.

Kat more than anyone should have known that there could be no deal with the devil. She could imagine the laughter in Hell at her predicament — leaving her the shell of a lover in exchange for his beautiful soul.

Finally Isabel had to push Kat out of the house.

“I’ll watch him. Go outside!”

An old man sat next to her on the bench.

“Things like this don’t come without a cost, Katarina.”

She started and turned to the man. Only this was no man, she realized with a gasp. “Asmodeus.”

“Would you like a mint?” asked Asmodeus, shaking a box of candies.

Kat didn’t understand.

“I’m trying to quit smoking,” said the king of the demons. “Terrible habit. Of course, now I’ll have to quit mints. Do you smoke?”

“Off and on. Depends on where I am.” She couldn’t believe this conversation.

“Ah,” said Asmodeus. “Just so.”

Kat was apprehensive. No one, mortal or demon, just chatted with Asmodeus.

“You look unwell,” he said. “Are you eating enough?”

She looked at him as though he were from another planet. “You fucking well know what’s going on,” she hissed.

“Of course. Your pet. Tragic.”

“Daniel is no pet.”

The old man raised his bushy eyebrows. “I detect some sorrow? Anger perhaps? I’d certainly be both sad and angry.”

Kat seethed and with some difficulty managed to stay silent and still.

“I imagine you’d like nothing more than to have him return to normal?”

“Of course I would.”

“There would be a cost.”

“There always is.”

“Quite so,” said Asmodeus. “We will be calling upon you to perform a special service.” The old man took a deep breath. “The pendulum is swinging back and we must move with it. If you accept the service, we will restore your… Daniel. If you do not…” The man shrugged.

“What is this service?”

Asmodeus placed a hand on her thigh, high enough that his pinkie brushed the crease between leg and pubis. “There’s time enough for that. We must wait for the right conditions. We need only know that you have agreed for this service.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Yes, but in the end, not really.”

“Very well. I agree.”

Asmodeus nodded and rose with an affected groan, befitting his aged disguise. “Goodbye, Katarina von Regensburg. I’ll be in touch. You’ll find that Daniel has quite recovered. Enjoy him while you can.”

Kat watched him totter down the path, tipping his hat to a pair of septuagenarian widows.

She was surprised at her reaction. Rather than fear or anger, she was calm, perhaps even a little happy. She’d been given a gift. Days, weeks, or months — it didn’t matter — during which she would have Daniel. Days, weeks, or months before payment was due.

She rose to return to the house.

It was a gift. She would make the most of it.

xxxxx

 

Kat entered the kitchen in a rush. Isabel sat at the kitchen table watching Daniel wolf down his breakfast. A wondering smile played on her lips.

“Kat!” exclaimed Daniel when he saw her.

Isabel shot Kat a questioning glance. Kat shrugged and said, “We’ll talk later.”

Isabel nodded and excused herself.

“What happened?” asked Daniel.

“You don’t remember?”

Daniel shook his head.

Perhaps just as well, thought Kat. “Are you okay?” He looked perhaps a little pale and drawn, but otherwise exuded strength and health.

“I don’t feel any different,” said Daniel, smiling shyly. “Except now it seems that I can do this without feeling guilty.” He stood and took her in his arms.

Kat laughed when they finally separated. “I’m glad for that.”

“What now?”

Good question, thought Kat. They were both in thoroughly uncharted territory. “I suppose we can get to know each other better,” she ventured.

“I think we’d better start then.”

“Oh?”

He grinned with something that looked like lasciviousness.

“Okay,” she said.

With that, he scooped her up and easily carried her up the stairs to her room. It wasn’t a threshold, she thought as she rested her head on his shoulder, but she could live with it.

THE END OF CHAPTER SIX