Next came the bra, then the shoes and socks, followed by the jeans and panties. When at last Jane stood naked before her, the slave went to the armoire and pulled out a floor-length black silk robe with intricate red embroidery around the belt. She put it on Jane, fastening the belt securely, then motioned for her to be seated at the table. She laid out a feast of breakfast food including sausages and eggs, toast and jam, and coffee with a small glass of tomato juice thrown in for good measure.
“Thank you,” Jane said as the girl gathered her dirty clothes and the tray and headed for the door. “Wait,” she said, and the girl stopped with her hand on the knob. “Do you know where Vasan is?”
The slave’s body went rigid and she shook her head no quite furiously before disappearing through the door, shutting it softly behind her. “Well, how do you like that,” Jane muttered as she dug into the meal. Truth was she was ravenous. But she wondered at how she’d gotten to his palace, and what exactly to expect now. After witnessing the deaths of both Vasan’s parents, and the particularly odd red eyes Vasan had shown after killing his father, she felt just enough unease in the pit of her stomach to make her uncomfortable; but certainly not enough to decrease her appetite.
She dug into the food with even more gusto. Her mind worked through everything and suddenly the fork stopped halfway to her mouth. Something wasn’t right about this – any of it. After seeing Vasan kill his father, she hadn’t found herself in the Void. The forkful of eggs clattered to the plate as she rose to her feet. Jane moved quickly to the bedroom door and opened it. There was no one about at first; then she saw a man coming up a wide staircase and soon at a nearby door appeared the object of her thoughts.
The man crossed the large hall to stand in front of him. “She has arrived, Master.”
Vasan smiled faintly. He then strode directly to Jane and looked into her eyes. To her amazement, she could suddenly read his every thought. They poured into and out of her mind like a clear radio station. The time had come. He lived for this ritual, for the pleasure it brought him each cycle, for the chance to once more unite with his beloved Jal’gonnoth.
Jane looked him up and down. Jal’gonnoth? Who was that? Ritual? Time had come for what? His legs were clad in black cloth that clung tightly to their chiseled form. His arms, chest and abdomen were bare, showing well-formed muscles. His strong, square jaw set firmly, Vasan left her and walked down the hall, plush carpet swathing every barefooted step. She followed, pulling the robe tighter around her body, stumbling a few times as the intensity of his emotions battered her mind.
This was a man used to being in control at all times. Control of his actions, control of his thoughts, control of his emotions and control of his mind. He was in control of his destiny. Yet these matings with the demon, they were rare times when he allowed himself to lose that control.
She gasped quietly as she followed him down the steps. Mating with a demon? That was it! His red eyes, it all suddenly clicked into place. He had killed his father and then his eyes had glowed red. He stopped at the bottom of the staircase so quickly she very nearly ran into him. Nodding once as if in answer to her silent observation, he said, “Witness now what my life became.”
She found her chest heaving partially from fright and partially from excitement. His own thought processes picked up as she followed him through a maze of halls.
Were he to be honest with himself, he would admit there was no allowance to it. Once Jal’gonnoth entered his body, Jal’gonnoth owned him...body, mind and soul. Only Xyza, the Shadow, high priestess of those who dwelt like prisoners in the light of darkness, could control Jal’gonnoth and those lesser demons that would come for others this night.
Xyza! Jane blanched at the name she’d first heard from Vincent’s lips. What would the woman who’d helped the Tanners get her to remember her childhood, be doing here in Vasan’s palace?
The heat and humidity so typical of a night deep within the Malaysian jungle seemed to disappear as they entered a large, cavernous room. Torches lit the way, and already they could hear Xyza’s low, hypnotic voice as her prayers began. A chill permeated the air. He neared his destination, a chamber at the far side of the great first-floor hall. He gave nary a thought to the dais hidden behind a beaded curtain to his left. Great bronze and golden statues seemed to draw no interest. His sights were set on one thing and one thing only. And that lay only a few more steps ahead.
Jane was in awe of everything she saw but dared not lose Vasan. Whatever was about to happen, she realized it was yet another thing she was meant to witness like the two before. Now was not the time for gawking at baubles.
The chamber in which they stood, rectangular in shape and more dimly lit than the rest of the palace, was also about twenty degrees colder. A light breeze picked up as he entered, but he knew it was not just the wind. It caressed him almost lovingly, as though greeting an old friend after a long separation. Smaller torches lined the walls of this dark place, this center of Hell when the cycle permitted. Eight naked men and women knelt before Xyza at the head of the room. Their voices joined hers both in word and in pitch.
This sacred chant, this summons to Jal’gonnoth and her children, it was a sound rivaled by nothing in the man’s world. For he knew that soon she would arrive. Her children were here, swirling through the air, wisps of smoke to most...harbingers of exquisite pleasure to him. He strode confidently to the front of the room, but remained behind the line of exposed flesh that prayed to the demons with their priestess.
Jane backed away, flattening herself against a nearby wall. She was close enough to see, hear and smell but wouldn’t be in the way. At least, she hoped she wouldn’t.
In spite of the icy cold surrounding him, the man began to feel the soft touch of heat, first upon his left shoulder and arm, then circling around his back to his right shoulder and arm. It moved to his chest and slithered upwards until it coiled around his neck. He closed his eyes, a wicked smile forming upon his face. For Jal’gonnoth had come.
Trembling in anticipation, he allowed his mind free of its confines, inviting her to unite with him once more. He took a deep breath and the smell of jasmine mixed with a myriad of other spices and flowers filtered through him, filling him with sweet desire. He could faintly hear delicate chimes tinkling from beyond the chamber as flickering light and shadows played across his smooth, bald head. Mouth curled into what seemed a grimace, he allowed his own bass tones to join the song of his brethren.
He was beckoning her, calling her, his forsaken soul opening wide to seduce her, to charm Jal’gonnoth into his mind, and into his magnificent body. He kept himself as a palace to her and her alone. She was here, and she was his...if only for this moment.
The voices rose in pitch, and then erupted into shrieks and wails. The man knew Jal’gonnoth’s children had taken the others. Xyza’s voice remained a steady beat in his mind, lulling him into that twilight region halfway between sleep and wake, between dark and light, between here and beyond. He felt her as he felt his own pulse; heart racing in anticipation of what he knew was soon to be forthcoming. His body cried out for the fiend and his voice followed, urgently begging her to take him.
Suddenly she entered him, the force of possession sending him staggering backward. Jolts of energy seared through his body, piercing every organ, every system, every cell with the dark energy that was her. He welcomed her, welcomed the pain, embraced her as he would a long-lost lover. A damned man, cursed to spend all of eternity roaming the bowels of Hell with her by his side, stood here and now entranced, taken by something so hideously beautiful, so forbidden in its erotic sensuality.
Jane gasped as the sensations coursed through her own body as though she were in him, experiencing exactly what he was feeling. She slid down to the ground, unable to keep her legs beneath her.
Every nerve was alive, every pore erupted fire. His vision blurred, and he closed his eyelids over dark, glittering onyx eyes that looked now beyond the world in which his earthly bo
dy dwelt, beyond the confines of time and space into the Great Void, a place where he could exist within and without.
Conscious thought had fled, subconscious thought barely able to record the experience as he felt her moving through his body, like fingers massaging every cell, every artery and capillary, filling empty space with her spirit, her madness, her call to obscurity. For when she possessed him, the man ceased to exist. He was no more. Now he belonged to her. He became her.
He could hear her calling to him in his mind and he responded, his sweat-soaked body swaying as the heat generated within his head poured down through his neck, down into his chest, radiating out into his arms, to the tips of his fingers. It drew further down, twisting and churning his gut in agonizing foreshadowing of that which he would forever feel when at last this plane of existence came to its shattered end.
Writhing in inexplicable ecstasy, the man moaned as silky soft air swirled around his legs. His body thus invaded, nearly ready to explode, he reached that place experienced by no one yet dreamed of by all. A blinding light flashed before his eyes as a jab of pain shot through his head. Somewhere deep within his body, an explosion occurred the likes of which felt as though it may tear him apart, bursting him from the inside out. Orgasm after orgasm swept over him like so many tidal waves in a mere handful of seconds, leaving him unable to even think. His body shuddered helplessly as sweat poured down his head, running rivers over flawless skin.
Before he knew what was happening, the cold began to creep back to him, and he shivered as it touched the dampness of his skin. Every ounce of his seed spent, lapped up by Evil. He felt her pulling away, and realized Xyza’s hand was upon his pate, ordering Jal’gonnoth to take her leave. Every cell of his being cried out. He did not want her to depart; he yearned for her to remain, but to do so would mean certain death. If she did not leave him now she would kill him, for she had the strength and will to do it, and surely would see it made so.
With a great cry, the Mistress Demon escaped, raising the man off his feet into the air, where he levitated for mere seconds before dropping to the floor in a heap of bones and flesh, his knees, hands and head resting on its cool stone surface. Her departure left him weak and dazed, confused and alone. In his vulnerability his body shook with such force he could not bring his limbs to function, or his mind to process thought. In this moment, this one moment in time where his guarded soul lay bare to all, the leftover one-time human being who lay buried hopelessly trapped within the steely exterior known by every living creature he encountered, could be seen at last.
For as cold and evil as he appeared in existence upon this plane, so now did he find himself at a loss to hide the viscera of his blackened soul from those who would see, torn between dimensions, struggling for dominance over the weakness he hated yet welcomed each time Jal’gonnoth filled him with her essence. Beneath it all, hidden away from reality, there existed a man. A man no one ever would...ever could...see.
But Jane was seeing it. And she was feeling it. She crawled across the cold, hard floor to his side, her black robe slipping open to reveal the majority of her naked body beneath. He looked up at her as she approached. When she reached him, he laid a hand upon hers.
“Why?” she asked.
The tiniest of smiles formed on his lips. “She came from my father,” he whispered.
He removed his hand from hers and closed his eyes, willing his control back in place. Jane struggled to her feet, closing the robe back around her and tying its belt tightly. As his breathing returned to normal, his eyes opened to find the chamber deserted except for the one human being who’d ever been allowed to witness him this way.
Chest heaving, he rose unsteadily to his feet, a glow of satisfaction exuding from his eyes. The walls began building themselves up, ready to shove the shriveled remains of his humanity back into the recesses of who he’d come to be. His mind contained only one thought as the doors snapped back into place with almost audible clicks. The strength he drew from this union would, one day, win the battle he had fought for so long...the battle to destroy his cousin, and the Tanners.
“No,” Jane softly said. “Don’t close me out, Vasan.” He turned to her. “Not now.”
His face was a mask of steel as she felt the last bit of his thoughts slip away. Then a sharp pain shot through her head like someone had taken an ice pick to it. She felt the darkness creep in around her but kept her eyes focused on Vasan’s. She felt her body sway and without warning fall forward.
Strong arms caught her. The smell of sweat and sex overpowered her senses. He turned her slightly and lifted her into his arms. Her own limbs were once again useless. What she had seen, what she had felt…what she had learned. Vasan had been possessed by a demon. If that was what he really and truly was on the inside, she knew it would spell the end for the Tanners at some point.
Yet the way it had made her feel was more than she had ever imagined physical pleasure to be. No sexual experience at any time in her life had compared to this. Now he cradled her in his arms so gently; almost lovingly, that she began to forget who and what he was and just let herself melt into his body, allowing his strength to wrap itself around her mind and body as her vision faded away.
“Yes, putri saya,” he whispered into her ear. “Now you see.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Once again she was awake and in the Void. Jane saw nothing, but within seconds felt a hand on her shoulder. “Vasan?” she whispered, what she had seen still fresh in her mind.
“Jane,” he replied equally softly.
“I’m not quite sure I understand what I witnessed.”
“I think you understand more than you realize.”
She could see nothing. She couldn’t tell if she was reclining, sitting or standing. There was no time, no form, and the only thing of substance was his body, his heat and his hand upon her shoulder. She closed her eyes, or at least felt like she was closing her eyes, and thought back to what she had seen, what she had felt, but mostly Vasan’s own feelings and thoughts during the experience.
“When you killed your father, a demon entered you.”
“Yes.”
“It was a demon which had possessed your father, and death forced it out and into the nearest person. That was you.”
“Yes.”
She thought a few moments more. “But she doesn’t always possess you. Otherwise, no reason for the ritual I just witnessed.”
“No, she does not always possess me. I am able to function as any man, but I have abilities other men don’t have.”
“There’s something else,” she said, picking up on the slight hesitation in his voice. “There’s something more you’re not telling me.”
“There is.”
“What, Vasan? Tell me!”
“I cannot die.”
She grabbed his hand and was able to use it and his arm to guide her movement. Turning to where she knew she had to be facing him, she said, “Make it light.”
“No.”
“I need to see your face,” she insisted. “I must see you, Vasan.”
A pale glow appeared somewhere overhead. It didn’t provide very much in the way of visibility, but it was enough for her eyes to look into his. He didn’t look at all like the Vasan who’d come to her in Darvon. He didn’t look like the Vasan who’d held the Tanners hostage in her home. His features were the same, but there was a sadness to the droop of his mouth, and he would not look her straight in the eye.
But she had to know for certain he was telling her the truth, and she knew only one way to verify it. Placing one hand on each side of his face, she forced his head still and so close she could feel his rapid breaths upon her. At last his eyes rose to meet hers and her heart leapt to her throat at the same time it felt like someone had punched her in the gut.
“You’re telling me the truth,” she said in wonder. “You are incapable of experiencing death.”
“As long as she is with me, I will remain living. Life after life,�
�� he confirmed. “Year after year.”
“And is there no way to stop this?” she asked. “No way at all?”
“Two ways. One you have already seen.”
“What was the weapon you used to kill your father?”
“A keris. It is a weapon native to my country. If a keris is pure and blessed, and the one who wields it is pure of heart, and if the keris is plunged into the possessed man’s heart, the demon will be forced to leave.”
“And what is the other way to rid yourself of Jal’gonnoth?”
He brought his hands up to her biceps, then slowly ran them down over the length of her arms until he had reached her fingers. Taking them, he pulled them away from his face, kissing the back of each. A thrill ran through her, hands tingling at his touch; heart racing at the extreme tenderness with which he imparted the gesture.
“I cannot speak of it, putri saya.”
“Putri saya. You have called me this more than once but I don’t know these words.”
He let go of her hands and turned away with a sigh. “My princess,” he said quietly.
“Vasan, don’t turn away from me. There must be some reason all this is happening. You didn’t plan it, did you?”
“No,” he replied, but didn’t turn around.
“Then what’s going on? Why am I experiencing all of this? You say things to me during the experiences, usually at the very end. It seems as if you know why I’m there; why I’ve become witness to the events.”
“I do not understand it any more than you do—”
But his words were cut short by the appearance of something next to them. Something that was very familiar to both.
“Vasan! A portal!”
They both whipped around to face it. It looked like any other portal they’d seen with the odd silvery liquid, only the portal was somewhat smaller than they were used to. It would require diving through rather than walking.
Dimensions Page 17
