The truth of the situation became apparent. I decided to go for broke.
“You would have already escaped if you could,” I said. “You would not be desperate enough to kill your host unless you were trapped. You’ve overestimated your talents and underestimated the strength of your own gene pool. Miriam’s cellular resonance is too much like your own.” I would have smiled if my lips weren’t swollen into a grimace. “You’ve stayed so long in her body that you’ve nearly fused with her and now you don’t have the strength to leave. Her death is your only escape—and you would put it on me. Selfish bitch.”
I had gleaned the truth. Now, I needed to make her actively angry with me—at me—so that she would keep the princess alive a little longer while I sorted out this mess.
She stayed too calm for my liking. “Perhaps you’re right, pretty boy. Maybe I should end this before the authorities get involved.” She moved her hands so that the fingers of both were in her mouth—one poised to hold her lower jaw in place so that the other might rip the top of her head free. She began to dislocate the woman’s face.
Blood-tinged sweat poured off my body and pinked the mattress. My skin flinched like the hide of a fly-bitten horse. I blinked the sting of salt from my eyes. “I’ll make you a deal.”
My inner truth morphed to accept a new reality. I do not gamble but now that the specter was beyond desperation, I played my last card. The gamble was real.
Her eyes narrowed. She did not change her threatening posture. Her jaw audibly creaked as the muscles in her arms bunched to finish the game.
“A deal like no other,” I promised. “The chance of a lifetime.”
Chapter Twelve
The Demon’s Name
“Like this?” the demon asked.
“Mmmph,” I replied.
“What did you say?” She lifted her bottom and craned her head to look back at me.
I took in a deep breath that had been denied me for nearly a minute. “Yes, like that, only don’t rest her full weight on my face. I need to breathe while I work.”
The creature rolled Miriam’s eyes but she wiggled her hips and settled down again, with less pressure. “I don’t see how this position is going to accomplish what you promised.”
I slipped my arms through her legs and around her thighs to cup her ass with my hands. I licked her sex from front to back before I responded. “Her body needs to be prepared.”
“Her body needs your prick up her twat, is what it needs.”
I responded by opening my mouth wide and taking a soft bite of her genitals. My teeth scraped the pink flesh and my tongue dove deep. Her clit nestled in the cleft of my shadowed chin. She gasped in pleasure.
“Ah- well- oh- a body needs what it needs, I suppose,” she relented. “Ah- that is nice.”
Without prompting, she leaned forward and wrapped her hands around my cock. She took me into her mouth. I felt her lips stretch around my girth. Suction formed at the back of her throat. I lifted my hips, pressing deep. She held her head steady and allowed the length of me to slip smoothly down her neck. I pulled back and her hands moved from my cock to my hips and then wrapped around my buttocks, lifting me up to meet her again. While she worked my cock, my tongue sought her clit and grabbed the bundle between the tips, rolling it as I suckled her folds.
Our feast was long and noisy. Our bodies began to respond like the animals they were, inspired to carnality by the stimulation of all senses. When her responses to my urging became less controlled and more instinctive in manner, I knew we were close to the final moment.
I allowed my own animal to take over and, with a growl that bordered on a roar, I rose up and flipped her onto her back. I pinned her down and buried my head between her legs, gnawing her pussy with my teeth, spreading her soft inner thighs with my hands. She melted as the heat of my ministrations worked up her abdomen and flushed her belly and breasts.
“Spread her legs,” I ordered. “Wider.”
She obeyed without question and splayed her legs wide, presenting her glistening sex between two platters of creamy thigh. Her lips sought my cock and her teeth scraped my skin. I rammed my cock down her wide-open throat as I sucked and gulped, my lips pressed to hers. At the urgent buck of her hips, I lifted from her body.
“I need to fuck her,” I said. I pushed up and braced myself above the princess. I was surprised when she scampered beneath my body without hesitation and moved into position so that we might fuck like missionaries. I had expected a more animalistic coupling. The vanilla-style was one I had not experienced in such a long while that I hesitated. She looked up at me with wide, glittering eyes. A tear rolled down her cheek. The princess was crying.
“What are you waiting for?” The phantasm demanded through the tears. “Let’s make a baby.”
I lowered my body until our skin touched along our full lengths. With one hand, I covered her eyes and turned her head to the side. My cock nudged her entrance. The kiss was wet.
I whispered into her ear, “What is your name?”
She shook her head.
I eased my hips forward, pressing my knob through the door. “Tell me your name, creature or I will not give you satisfaction.”
The sound was more growl than word. “Ragnarsson.”
“Thank you.” I kissed their cheek. “I’m so sorry.”
I apologized to the souls within the battered body—Miriam, for what I was about to do, and Ragnarsson for what would be done later. I apologized to the babe we might create.
“Shut up, the both of you,” she hissed.
The phantasm lifted Miriam’s knees and opened her legs to receive me. I flexed my hips and slid in. Her internal length was so slick and hot that, at first, I felt nothing but warm bliss. Then her body clenched me with ringed muscles.
I pulled back and plunged in again. I felt the eyes of both souls on me as I fucked the stolen body so I buried my face in the crook of her neck. Shame burned in my chest. I had promised the creature the possibility of a new home—a new life within the body. This ruse would not fail but I mourned the loss of this child, should she be conceived.
I groaned and pressed deeper still, pushing so hard that she moved up the bed. Her eyes closed and she moaned in ecstasy, lifting her hips to meet my thrusts.
“Come, dead man.” Her voice was strained and she raised her arms to brace against the wooden headboard. “Fill the bitch up.”
I had informed the creature that she could inhabit the new life before any other soul. She would own my babe fully, without question. She would be bound to the flesh as though it were her own and—because she could slip into the body fully conscious—she would bring with her all of the knowledge of her millennia. She could be born a true royal with lifetimes of experience.
“Fu- fuck her harder,” she growled. “Fuck her fucking harder. Bitch.”
The last word was not directed at me. The woman’s body was writhing with pleasure but it was also racked with deep sobs. There was an internal battle being waged while we mated. I grit my teeth and fucked her relentlessly. My strokes were short and hard. I repeatedly slammed her cervix at the apex of my thrusts but the pain did not cool her liquid heat within.
I had advised the entity that she could not win but I had not told her why.
The entity assumed she could influence the mother from the womb, avoiding possible self-harm and evading medical abortions.
I had not mentioned that a child of my seed could not survive to full-term. The babe would die and the demon would be flushed from Miriam’s body by miscarriage before the woman’s first missed menses. The creature would be forced to die a natural death.
Her orgasm approached and, before the swell crested, I slowed my strokes to wait until the waves retreated. She whimpered and wriggled her hips, bucking to urge me on again. I pressed deep and did not move.
I hushed her with a kiss. “Let your power build.” I nuzzled her warm neck.
I took her to the edge several times. The creatur
e was helpless against the ebb and flow of the body’s autonomic nervous system. The mundane position—our chests pressed together, our hearts beating in rhythm, our breaths united, her legs wrapped around me—was breaking my heart. The position was too intimate. I longed to love a woman enough to hold her face-to-face, to experience passion and not battle.
And then she whispered, “The door is opening.”
I stilled my movements, pulled back my head, and looked down into her face. Her green eyes were clear. Miriam Flack looked up but she did not see me.
She breathed in deep. “Mikael,” she whispered.
I wanted to push away and leap off of her body—to let her be free of this torment and me—but the task was not yet complete. The demon still crouched within. Whatever the princess was witnessing in the depths of her mind was a metaphor for the battle raging around and within and for her body.
I began thrusting again, forcing her to respond, moving the orgasm forward. There would be no stopping either of us now. I reached down and found her clit. I circled my fingers over the flesh as I angled my cock to stroke her internal cluster of nerves, double-teaming her system.
“The door is open,” the princess said. “I’m walking towards the door.”
“Stay with me, princess.” I did not know what metaphor her nightmares had allowed for the situation, but I urged her to continue. “Hold the door open but don’t go through it. This door is not for you.”
She needed to force the phantasm out first and then slam the door between them. I braced myself on one arm and lifted her knee to widen her legs, deepening her channel. I rose and then slammed into her body. The path was slick.
Then I felt the transition from body to spirit. Every joint grew warm. I became light-headed, weightless, as though my body was made of nothing but air even as our flesh slammed together.
My soul was ready to join with another. I had the chance to let go—to become one with her.
She flailed as her pleasure overwhelmed her senses. She twisted and her feet kicked my back and buttocks. She screamed and the scream was human. I gripped tighter, pinning her on my cock. I tried to keep thrusting but her movements were wild, beyond my control. She writhed herself to climax on my cock while I clung to her legs for dear life.
Her back arched and her scream became a howl. “You deceived me!”
I fell on top of her body and pushed her into the mattress. I grabbed her face and said, “Kick the bastard out, Miriam.”
I kissed her lips and forced my tongue past her teeth. The connection was complete. I cried out into her mouth as I finally let go. My hot seed spewed forth and sewed her womb without mercy. The massive overflow spilled out of her body and was hot between us. I clung tight to her so the connection between the wet points of our flesh would not be broken.
The phantasm churned and howled within her body as the princess reclaimed every cell. The ectoplasm was chased from the flesh and coalesced in the hollows of her guts. Thwarted from its goal of entering a child by the repelling assault of my power, it turned tail and roared towards the exit of her mouth, expecting freedom.
Instead, it flowed from her and into me.
I swallowed Ragnarsson down.
The edges of my vision blackened as the beast’s magnetic field battled with my body’s charge. I pulled free of the princess and fell to the side. Miriam’s frame tensed until she was like a bow, with only her head and toes touching the mattress; a keening sound escaped her lips. Then she collapsed like a dead thing. I touched her neck and found a strong, pounding pulse.
I tried to get up but my limbs were weak. My last waking thought was one of self-pity. I mourned my utter loneliness as darkness overtook me.
Chapter Thirteen
A Hero, A Whore
The warm pink of a sunbeam pressed against my face. Morning. I opened my swollen eyes and blinked against the light. I was on the bed, curled into the fetal position. My throat tasted of sulfur, my lungs burned, and my neck screamed in agony. I took a deep, ragged breath and began to cough. The fit urged me onto my back. My cramped and dehydrated muscles protested the movement. The ectoplasm in my stomach heaved and rippled the surface of my abdomen but the phantasm’s strength was, for the most part, spent.
I swung my feet to the floor and sat up. My broken toes sent fierce heat up my shins and dizziness overwhelmed me. I rested my forearms on my thighs and let my head drop while the spell passed and the pounding in my lower extremities eased to a tolerable throb. I spat bile. Something clicked against my teeth. I spat again. The Belle’s porcelain fang dropped to the floor and broke on the stone. It was good to be reminded of the world outside of this particular hell. My issues with the Belle were frivolous in comparison to my primary vocation.
I raised my head and looked around. The princess was nowhere to be seen.
I stood and all seemed well until I took one step forward and my abdomen cramped. I curled around the pain and dropped to all fours. Knots of ectoplasm worked their way up from my depths. My back bent and arced as I heaved. Globs of silver drooled from my tongue and nostrils. The ‘plasm was inert—mere remnants of the spirit’s interaction with human form—but I despised the battery-licking sensation. The sight of the quicksilver substance slithering along the cracks in the stones made me nauseated.
“Your Highness,” I gasped, when my nausea had passed. There was no response. My voice was ragged and harsh, more the croak of a dead thing than a man. I worked my tongue around the inside of my mouth, trying to separate my lips from my teeth. The taste was vile. “Your Highness?”
There came a whimper from beneath the bed. The length of chain draped loose from the wall, wrapped once around a bedpost, and disappeared into the shadows. I crawled forward and craned my sore neck to peer into the muted light. The chain rattled as she scuttled away from my approach.
“Your Highness,” I said. “It is done.”
There was no need to drag Miriam out from that safe place and torment her any longer. My role here was finished and I preferred that she not know me beyond our brief interaction. I was an integral part of her nightmarish subjugation and that relationship would interfere with the usual social niceties. It was best to leave the comforting to her loved ones.
My abdomen writhed again as the specter sought to escape the darkness of my stomach. I belched a puff of smoke. I needed to get moving before the cramping weakened my ability to keep the spirit contained. My discomfort eased somewhat when I remembered the speed of the helicopter. The Geneva cloister had a large manicured lawn upon which we could land. When I arrived, the creature within my body would be safely processed.
I rose to my feet and sought the pile of my clothes. I was loath to dress in the battered formal attire but decorum prevailed. I belted my pants, sans briefs, over my bloated stomach and slipped my arms through the sleeves of the wrinkled shirt. My flesh was raw. I hissed as the fabric settled against the scratches and welts on my shoulders and back. I didn’t bother to close the surviving buttons. I shoved the odds and ends of my remaining clothes into the large pockets of my greatcoat. I carried my shoes, preferring to keep a connection with the stones of the earth beneath my bare and broken feet.
“You need to leave now.” Miriam’s voice was faint. “The contract is null and void.” She did not emerge from her safe place beneath the bed.
I paused dressing to listen.
“I quit,” she said again, her voice still soft but now firm. “And you have no say in the matter.”
“As you wish, Your Highness,” I said. I did not press for more information; whatever horrors she had experienced during the exorcism were none of my business. She had been trapped in the depths of her subconscious mind, living an even more horrific version of the events. The sooner I left her alone in the care of her loved ones, the better. My body and my voice had become part of her nightmares, and I had no desire to frighten her further.
I slung the coat over my shoulder and moved to open the door. As I lifted the iron bars
from their firm brackets, I heard the grind of tumblers turning in the depths of the ancient lock. The heavy door swung away from me.
The prince had woken and he looked refreshed, although the color in his cheeks might have been inspired more by rage than rest.
“Where is she?” His Highness barely registered my presence before he pushed me aside and barreled into the room. His wild eyes searched high and low. When he did not see his wife, he turned to me, his lips white with rage. “What have you done with her, fiend?”
His reaction was not entirely unexpected. I had, after all, spent a day and a night fucking his wife. I assumed that only the intervention of Lady Olofsdotter had stopped him from ordering his guardsman to shoot the wood from the frame before the exorcism was complete.
“She is under the bed, Your Highness.”
I was exhausted. Pain that had once inspired was now a hindrance and I needed to purge the entity in a controlled environment as soon as possible. I longed for the healing waters of the cloister. I limped into the antechamber. The room was empty. I winced my way down the stairs and stepped into the lower storage area. The Lady Olofsdotter waited by the exit.
“Professor,” she said. Her hat had been removed and her long blonde hair was down and disheveled. The muscles along her cheeks and jaw sagged with exhaustion; I could see traces of the woman she would be in forty years. Her beauty was timeless.
“Your Grace,” I said. I imagined softness in her eyes.
I considered the Lady and, for a brief moment, I imagined calling on her in a more courtly fashion. Seldom did I meet a woman who was not a professional peer or a paying client. The fact that the Lady had met me at an exorcism meant that I would not have to hide my calling. I imagined holding her hand; my cock lay dormant but my heart swelled.
My brief and inappropriate personal interest must have been apparent in my expression because she flinched with disgust and stepped backwards. A flush of emotion burned in my chest and I took a deep breath to cool the heat of it. They call on us when all hope is lost and then consider us criminals if we fail and whores when we succeed. My loneliness whined like an injured dog; I kicked it in the ribs.
The Sexorcism of Miriam Flack (The Reluctant Exorcist) Page 8
