by Jack Porter
Of the women I was closest to, Sandy was probably the one who was most likely to want to leave me. Not because of any relationship issue, but because of the very danger she had mentioned.
That she would express a desire to get involved with that indicated the strength of her commitment.
I’d been deliberately ignoring Azrael since he had dropped his bombshell last night. But at Sandy’s words, I sent him a thought. “Azrael?” I asked.
“Attribute enhancements, the same as for Rachel and Piper. Done,” he said.
With that, I turned to grinned at the blond woman. “Let’s see what you’ve got,” I said.
23
We found Rachel and Piper exactly where Sandy said they would be. Out by the pool, sparring once more. They had set a series of large rectangular rubber mats out to make a makeshift training room floor.
When last I’d watched Rachel and Piper spar, it had been clear that Piper was stronger, faster, and better in every conceivable way. But now, they looked to be much more evenly matched. Both girls were puffing and panting, not holding back, and were a blur of motion when they came together.
It was almost like a dance, with both parties knowing the moves and playing their part perfectly.
Piper threw a punch, which Rachel dodged cleanly, throwing a counter. Quickly, Piper caught Rachel’s extended arm and went into a turn designed to force the taller woman off balance. But Rachel stepped into the move, ripping her arm free while dropping low and sweeping the smaller woman’s leg.
It was so quick and smooth that all Piper could do was dance out of the way, which she did with aplomb. But then she was back on the attack once again, throwing a series of strikes, all of which Rachel locked, slipped, and ducked, stepping backward under the assault, but not in panic, not particularly hurried at all.
Then Rachel stopped evading, and instead blocked a sidekick with her forearms, spun with surprising speed to build momentum, and delivered a stunning backhanded blow toward Piper’s head.
The smaller woman was almost not quick enough. Almost, Rachel managed to connect. But at the last possible instant, Piper ducked beneath the blow, and struck out again, landing a solid punch to Rachel’s left kidney.
Rachel cried out in pain. And Sandy drew in a sharp breath and brought a hand to her mouth.
But moments later, it seemed that the dark-haired Goth woman was fine. Her expression had become one of irritation instead of pain.
“I nearly got you then,” she said.
Piper was grinning broadly. The assassin had kept back, giving Rachel her space, and it was clear that the current bout was over.
“You did, almost,” Piper responded. “But in the field, almost doesn’t count. You put too much into that strike. You wanted to end the match then and there. Which would have been fine with a lesser opponent, but what if you face someone like me in real life?”
The Goth woman smiled, seemingly more energized than usual. It was as if she enjoyed the sessions much more than she had expected.
“There aren’t any opponents like you,” she quipped, and Piper just laughed.
Then the pair of them turned to Sandy and me, and in that same unexpectedly light tone, Rachel spoke again. “Well? Are you going to just stand there and watch? Or do you want to join in?”
I grinned. “Funny you should ask. Sandy was just expressing an interest in doing just exactly that.”
“Is that so?” Piper asked.
I half-expected Sandy to back down now that it had become real. But despite her obvious uncertainty, she didn’t. “Yes,” she said. “I want to learn.”
Piper shot a glance at me and Rachel before returning her focus to Sandy. “I thought you had that medallion? The one Simon took from Dario,” she said.
Sandy nodded. She took out the demonic artifact to show her. “But what if it isn’t enough? What if I need to take a more active role?”
It was Piper’s turn to grin, but hers was harder, the grin of a true killer. “Then you’d better know how to defend yourself,” she said. She gestured for Sandy to join her on the mat, and Rachel stepped aside to give them both space.
“Okay,” Piper said. “Let’s see what you’ve got. Attack me with everything you have.”
Sandy stood looking at her like a deer caught in headlights. She didn’t move. Instead, she shot a glance toward me, as if asking permission, so I nodded encouragingly. But still she just stood there.
“Azrael gave me the same attribute improvements he’s given you and Rachel,” Sandy said to Piper.
The assassin nodded but didn’t seem unduly concerned. “I’m not sure it will make much of a difference,” she said. “Come on.”
That was all Sandy needed. Without another word, she launched herself at Piper, attacking with plenty of enthusiasm but little in the way of skill. Instead of throwing punches or kicks, or anything substantive, she basically chased Piper about, trying to smack her, or slap her, or something.
It was almost funny to watch Piper duck, weave, and step out of Sandy’s reach, but I dared not laugh out loud to avoid discouraging Sandy before she’d even begun.
Instead, Rachel and I moved off the practice mat and rearranged a couple of Dario’s deck chairs so we could watch.
After the first flurry, during which Sandy completely failed to connect, Piper tried to stifle a grin. “Well, it’s a start,” she said. “At least you don’t have any bad habits that you have to unlearn.”
With that, she started showing Sandy the basics, and in a very short time, the blond was making actual fists and throwing her first proper punches.
For several minutes, Rachel and I just watched in silence as Piper and Sandy worked. Then Rachel turned to look at me.
“You were in a bit of a state last night,” she said.
I knew what she meant, and she wasn’t talking about the amount I had drunk. I didn’t say anything, but just kept watching Sandy and Piper.
“Sandy suggested it was simply that your plan didn’t work. That Bianca Gambetti was able to resist your approach.”
Silence, during which neither of us spoke.
Finally, the Goth woman continued. “But I’m not so sure,” she said. “We all knew it was a long shot. Not that you would have trouble seducing a woman like her. Not anymore. It was just that she is the head of a crime Syndicate. She would have known what she had to lose. So if it wasn’t that, then it had to be something else,” Rachel finished.
I had been watching Piper and Sandy, not even looking Rachel’s way. And yet, I had to smile. She had always been perceptive. She had understood what I needed, to the point where, on the night we’d first met, she had lain down beside me on the pavement where I’d landed after having been thrown out of the bar.
And she was showing that perception again.
In essence, she was asking me the same thing Sandy had asked over breakfast, but the way she did it required an answer.
So I drew a deep breath and told her what Azrael had told me about his core, and his limitations.
She listened and drew her own conclusions. “So, you are wondering what it might mean for your future. For our future.”
I nodded.
“You think you have a choice to make, where none of the options are great. You can either accept Azrael has limitations and modify your ambitions accordingly, or you have to go down into Hell itself to get back what Lucifer stole.”
I smiled once again and glanced over at her. “That’s about the size of it,” I said.
Rachel didn’t say anything for some moments, and I wondered if she simply didn’t know what to say.
Perhaps that was it. Or perhaps she was simply organizing her thoughts.
“You might remember when you broke Piper out of that BDA lockup?” she said.
Of course I remembered.
“It seems to me that you were wrestling with this exact question,” she added.
I frowned, turning to her. “What do you mean?”
“Well,
it is, isn’t it? You were wondering if it wouldn’t be better to run and hide, and hope for all this to blow over. You were wondering how far we were willing to go. You even asked if any of us wanted to bow out,” Rachel said. And she was right. I had asked them exactly that.
“Well, the way I see it,” she continued, “nothing has changed.”
I admit I didn’t understand what she meant. And my puzzlement must have shown on my face.
She looked at me seriously, her glasses still slightly fogged up from her earlier exertion.
“You were told that we would follow you anywhere. Do you think that has changed? Do you think if you had to go to Hell to achieve your goals, that we wouldn’t be there with you?”
I gaped at her. I hadn’t even thought to check if the girls would be up for such a mission or not. I’d simply assumed it would be me against all the demons of Hell.
Not that I wished to put them in even more danger than before, but suddenly, the idea of going into Hell to retrieve part of Azrael’s core didn’t quite seem so impossible.
Rachel’s simple words had made it a real option.
It was an astonishing thought, and I didn’t know what to say.
Rachel grinned at me and patted me condescendingly on the head. “You might want to close that if you don’t want to catch flies,” she quipped.
Then, before I could answer, she turned back to Sandy and Piper on the mat. “And besides, from what you said, it doesn’t sound like we have to pack our bags right away. Didn’t you say that Azrael said he was strong enough to at least help us take over the Syndicate? How about we do that first, and put all the other questions aside until we need to?”
My life had changed for the better, in general, when I had bonded with Azrael. But in that moment, I thought that was secondary to another key instant that had changed everything.
Meeting Rachel was far and away the greatest thing that had ever happened to me.
24
Piper worked Sandy until the blond woman was dripping with sweat. They hadn’t sparred, not exactly, likely because Sandy wasn’t really ready for it. But Azrael’s enhancements made a difference. By the end of the session, and I could see real improvements in Sandy’s form, the way she moved, even the intensity she put into her strikes. I knew that it wouldn’t be long before Sandy was as formidable as Rachel, and could stand up to pretty much anything that came her way.
It was a good development, mainly because I didn’t see our future being what might be called relaxed.
When it became clear that Piper and Sandy were done for the first session, Rachel grabbed my hand and pulled me up off the deck chair.
“You interrupted my sparring session,” she said. “Come on, I want to see what you have got.”
The idea of sparring with Rachel, even if I was dressed in no more than a bath robe, appealed on some primal level I couldn’t explain. So I bowed to the inevitable and let the Goth woman draw me onto the practice mats.
Rachel favored me with a quiet, knowing smile, and raised one eyebrow. “Are you ready?” she asked.
I took my place opposite her and nodded. But in truth, I had no idea how this would go. I had dumped more points into my own attributes than anyone else’s. I had effectively maxed out my strength, speed, and coordination. In addition, I had spent the past several weeks engaged in a crash course in hand-to-hand combat, in how to kill and avoid being killed at the same time.
Much of my knowledge had been picked up out in the field, just me doing what was necessary, but Piper had helped as well, offering pointers, and just being her.
If it weren’t for Azrael’s upgrades, Piper would probably have killed me the first time we met. Of the two of us, if we were to fight for real, I had no clue who would come out on top.
Well, I would, of course. Piper was loyal to me, and even if she wasn’t, I could transform into a demon, and that would be it.
That all said, we had never actually sparred. Not really, not like she was doing with Rachel and Sandy. I was, in a way, comparatively untrained, and I thought it would be an interesting test to see how I might measure up.
Then again, I didn’t see any point in following the rules as Rachel seemed to view them. Because what was the fun in that?
When she launched herself at me, aiming a solid kick at my face, I knew that if she was fighting Piper, the assassin would counter with a dodge, or maybe a block. Either way, with momentum on her side, Rachel would still have the advantage, and would still be on attack.
So instead, I ignored the kick entirely, stepping forward into the danger zone and in one quick movement caught Rachel by the throat.
If she had been a true enemy, I would have done my best to crush the life out of her before doing anything else. But Rachel was not an enemy. So I held her just tight enough to lift her off the mat, ignored the feeble connection as her shin caught me a wobbly blow, stepped forward again, and slammed her onto her back.
I tried to be gentle, but even so, Rachel let out a gasp of shock mixed with surprise. But I knew I hadn’t hurt her. I’d dumped nearly as many points into her durability and resilience as I had into my own.
I grinned at her as I let her go and stepped back.
“No fair,” she grumbled, and got back to her feet.
“What do you mean, no fair?” I asked.
“You’re stronger. And faster, too. You shouldn’t be allowed to use that in a sparring match.”
“Do you think an opponent in the real world will avoid using an advantage just because it’s not fair?” I asked.
“Well, no,” Rachel grumbled. “But you’re you. And I’m me.”
I raised an eyebrow and gave her a half grin. “And?” I said.
She returned the smile. “And I thought you would let me win!” With that, as if she thought to catch me by surprise, she launched another attack, this time keeping her center of balance low and aiming a hard, straight punch that looked like the start of a sequence, right at my groin.
It was all I could do to jump back out of her way, and barked a laugh in response. “Is that how it is?” I asked her.
Rachel had chosen not to follow me, but instead stood in place in the middle of the mat. “Piper told me about you,” Rachel said, grinning broadly. “That you don’t care about finesse, that you just want to get the job done. She said you’ve got great instincts, better than you should have, better than just about anyone she’s ever met. But she said, if I ever wanted to beat you, I had to be just as direct.”
Interesting, I thought. I hadn’t realized Piper thought so highly of what I could do. For no reason other than I wanted to keep Rachel off balance, I moved around to my right.
“And what did she mean by being direct?” I asked Rachel, even though Piper was still there, within earshot, watching with Sandy.
Still grinning, Rachel moved to keep me in front of her. “She said I would have to use everything I have,” she replied. And with that, she put the words into action.
But she didn’t launch at me. Didn’t try to kick me in the balls or jam a finger into my eyes. Instead, she transformed herself into her full demon form, and I found myself facing not the Rachel I knew, but a full succubus, complete with tail, wings and horns, a monstrous creature more than eight feet tall.
Of course, her clothing couldn’t handle the transition, which left me ogling Rachel’s divine curves like a schoolboy at his first strip show.
Spectacular wasn’t the word. She was perfection. Still recognizably Rachel, but on a gargantuan scale. It was the first time I had seen her transform since the BDA had attacked. Then, I had felt an almost irresistible lust for her, and I was pleased to note that the lust hadn’t gone away.
I was also very aware that the bathrobe I was wearing did nothing to conceal the enormous erection that came out of nowhere.
Yet Rachel wasn’t done. Her transformation was just the first step. She hurled herself toward me as if intending to end our sparring match then and there.
&nbs
p; And in truth, it very nearly worked. I was distracted by the way her divine breasts started to bounce in much the same way that ancient Greek heroes were distracted by Medusa’s snake-like hair. What the Goth-turned-succubus might have done if she reached me, I didn’t know.
But I did know that two could play that game.
I didn’t have time to shrug out of my robe. Instead, I transformed, ripping it into shreds as I did, and caught Rachel in my arms as she came to me.
She was a creature of power and strength, fiery to the touch, a gorgeous woman with a demon inside her to match my own.
Instead of continuing to spar, to attack me with claws and fangs, and maybe even the horns on her head, she simply clung to my more powerful form and began kissing and biting my chest.
I knew then that the powerful lust I felt at the mere sight of her in her succubus form was mirrored by the lust she felt for me. Already, she was breathing hard, panting almost, as she pressed herself against me in real need.
I reached for her face, tilted her chin up towards me, and kissed her passionately on the lips. Then somehow we were lying on the practice mats, with me on top, my heartbeat thundering in my ears, and my need undeniable.
For a fraction of an instant, I considered carrying Rachel into the bedroom, but both of us were too large for any of the beds in Dario’s place. So instead, I decided that outside next to the pool with Sandy and Piper watching was just about perfect.
I wanted to devour Rachel. Wanted to absorb her into myself. To wrap myself in and around her until we were one.
If my need had been obvious to all in my human form, then it was even more so as a demon, my thick, throbbing dick as big as an arm.
There was just one thing I needed to check, one thing I needed to make sure of. Because I didn’t want to risk accidentally killing Rachel before we were done.
