As they left, Colonel Everett turned to his corporal and gave the all-important instruction:
‘Ensure that these cellars are bricked up. Securely bricked up. We have to make sure that no-one ever comes down here again. Maybe we don’t have the occult power to destroy him, but we have finally managed to disable him. At last the world is safe from this evil.’
And he turned and walked away up the cellar steps.
Trapped and blinded in the heart of the suffocating crystal prison, the Master’s soul raged within his helpless, motionless body and would not be still:
‘I shall return.’ he vowed.
That night, Colonel Everett, his two magicians and his driver were mysteriously killed when their car crashed into a tree. It was never satisfactorily explained how their car could have run off the road on a clear, moonlit night.
Only the Master knew how.
13: The Joining
Andreas Hunt unlocked the door to his flat and tossed his hat inside, following it across the room and flopping down in his favourite armchair.
It had been a difficult day at work. Correction: it had been a difficult month. Ever since the Cheviot débâcle, the editor had regarded Hunt with suspicion – making sure he was the one sent out to cover all the crappy stories about cats up trees and crackpots who wanted to sail bathtubs across the Atlantic. No matter how hard he’d tried, he hadn’t been able to make his experiences in Whitby sound anything other than the deranged ravings of a halfwit who’d been hitting the magic mushrooms. When he’d tried to interview Cheviot at the House, he’d encountered a predictable wall of polite uncooperativeness. Even Opposition MPs proved suspiciously cagey about discussing Cheviot’s private life. It smelt mightily like a conspiracy.
But the editor wasn’t interested in his ‘fantasies’, and retaliated by sending him to Barrow-in-Furness, to cover a story about a three-headed donkey. Hunt, in short, was not the flavour of the month.
Not that this had changed his mind about Sir Anthony Cheviot. It just meant that, from now on, his enquiries would have to be a little more unofficial.
Hunt poured himself a double whisky and kicked off his shoes. He switched on the television news: the balance of payments was looking even dodgier than usual, the Channel Tunnel had run into financial problems just for a change, and some poor teenage girl from Staithes had been found stone-dead with a human bite-mark on her neck. Funny thing was, the body had disappeared . . .
Now, why did that make the hair rise on the back of Hunt’s imperturbable neck? Why? Because Staithes was a small fishing-village in North Yorkshire – in fact, in the constituency of a certain Sir Anthony Cheviot, MP . . .
The doorbell rang.
‘Drat.’ Hunt jabbed the ‘off’ button on his remote control and levered himself up out of the armchair. He supposed it must be that snooty French bitch from upstairs, come to register yet another complaint about the noises his plumbing made. He’d have taught her a thing or two about plumbing, if she hadn’t had starched knickers and a permanent smell under her nose. Whoever coined that old cliché about Frenchwomen all being raving nymphos must have been several bricks short of a load . . .
Hang on a minute, what was the matter with him? Hunt felt his prick rising to attention yet again, and was vaguely disturbed. These sudden sexual impulses were becoming more urgent, less infrequent. He hardly recognised himself any more.
The doorbell rang again, more insistently this time.
‘OK, OK, I’m coming,’ he grunted and padded in stockinged-feet to the front door. Didn’t bother squinting through the peephole, fumbled a little with the chain, drew back the bolt, and finally swung open the door.
‘Hello again, Mister Ace Reporter.’
He looked into the girl’s face and didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or get his kit off.
‘Do you still want me?’
Her words rolled off her pretty little tongue like honey off a cold silver teaspoon. Oh, how could she ask him a question like that, when for the last month he had been dreaming of feeling that tongue curling itself around his turgid prick?
Instead of answering her, he replied with a question of his own:
‘Why did you run away from me?’
‘I was afraid.’
‘Afraid of me? But why?’
‘No, not afraid of you. Not exactly. It’s hard for me to explain to a . . . cynic like yourself. I was afraid that someone . . . something . . . might be using you to get at me. It was just a feeling, but a very powerful one. Did you not feel it, too: that first time we met at the fortune-telling booth?’
Hunt hesitated. Had he not just spent several miserable weeks under suspicion of terminal nuttiness, for propounding similar off-the-wall theories?
‘I felt very strongly attracted to you, certainly,’ he replied, cagily.
‘But nothing else?’
He hesitated once again.
‘Nothing else.’
He wasn’t quite sure why he had lied, but he was immediately glad that he had, as he saw the wave of relief pass across Mara’s tired but oh-so-sexy face.
So maybe – just maybe – it really had all been a figment of her over-active imagination, a psychic hiccup? In that moment of relief, Mara decided to believe what she wanted to believe, and began to unbutton her coat.
‘It’s chilly out there – autumn in the air. I could use something to warm me up . . .’
‘A whisky?’ Hunt was all fingers and thumbs as he fumbled for the whisky bottle and knocked over his own empty glass.
Dear God, she was even sexier than he had remembered – and Lord knows, his every dream since that late August night had been filled with images of her. Images of the girl in all her miraculous nakedness, the glowing perfection of her tanned skin, her swelling breasts, her sinuous thighs that wrapped themselves around a man and took him prisoner for ever.
I surrender . . .
Mara smiled at his clumsiness.
‘A drink wasn’t quite what I had in mind,’ she murmured huskily, taking hold of the end of his tie and pulling him closer to her. She could smell the whisky on his breath, the stale odour of sweat on his shirt. He smelt like a real man. And that turned her on.
Slowly and seductively, she slid down the knot of his tie and used the two ends like a horse’s reins, steering his dumbstruck lips towards hers and crushing her mouth against his as though she wanted to suck the very soul out of him.
Her mouth opened slightly and her eager tongue darted out, teasing apart his lips and sliding between them, to do battle with his own coy tongue within the warm cavern of his mouth. The taste of whisky filled her mouth as she withdrew and allowed his tongue to chase hers back inside her shameless mouth. And they jousted for a long time, savouring the taste of their mingled saliva, the warm gusts of their synchronised breathing.
‘I want you,’ he breathed into her mouth. And tried to push her backwards on to the threadbare settee that lay along one wall of the apartment.
‘Not yet, not yet,’ she murmured in reply. ‘I want you to more than want me. I want you to need me: need me like oxygen. Watch me now: watch me but don’t touch. Or you’ll spoil the game.’
She pushed him gently away, and began to undress before him. Desperately, so desperately he wanted her as he watched her reveal those long-dreamed-of charms to his hungry eyes. Surely he could not want her any more than he wanted her at this moment?
But he was wrong.
The blouse had many tiny mother-of-pearl buttons which she lingered over, and which took an age to yield to her teasing fingers. One by one they slipped undone, revealing a little more of her exciting flesh to Hunt’s yearning eyes. At last the final button was undone, and the two sides of the tight blouse sprang apart, revealing a diaphanous black lace bra. She peeled the blouse from her shoulders, but to Hunt’s great chagrin made no move to remove the brassiere.
Now she moved her attentions to a lower sphere of activity: her long, fringed, peasant skirt. It, too, had button
s – a long row that extended right down the front from waist to hem. In agony now from his tortured prick, Hunt watched her begin at the hem and work slowly – agonisingly slowly – upwards. First a tanned calf, then a bronzed knee, and now a thigh . . . such perfect thighs, long and smooth and muscular. The thighs of a dancer or a beautiful athlete. She reached the waist of the skirt and unfastened the last button, allowing the skirt to slide down to the floor where it formed a colourful plinth for this breathtaking statuette.
She stood before him now, clad only in black lace bra and French knickers and Indian sandals. The sandals were easily kicked off, leaving only the tantalising barrier of bra and knickers. They were the perfect frame for her loveliness, setting off her bronzed skin to perfection. Her hips and buttocks swelled invitingly inside the lacy knickers, and her breasts bulged irresistibly upwards, defying gravity with their magnificent firmness and elasticity.
After what seemed an eternity, Mara walked towards Hunt and turned her back to him.
‘Unfasten my bra – but don’t touch my breasts,’ she commanded him.
Swallowing hard, he obeyed with trembling hands. The catch took ages to give way beneath his clumsy fingers and, when at last it did, he was very nearly unable to control the overwhelming desire to grab overflowing handfuls of those soft, yet beautifully firm, breasts.
‘Now the panties. Slide them down over my hips. Yes, that’s right – like that.’
He slid down the filmy black fabric, and Mara stepped daintily out of the French knickers. Her rounded backside brushed his hand as she bent down to pick them up.
‘No, don’t touch me. Not yet. Don’t spoil it.’
Almost sobbing with lust, he obeyed, though he was not entirely sure why. She was quite small compared to him; he could easily have imposed his will on her, and he was confident enough to believe that she wouldn’t have had any complaints. But something deep inside himself told him that she was right, that it would be even better this way. He had waited this long, so he could wait a bit longer.
She turned to face him, and he drew in breath sharply as he got the full benefit of her exceptional body. Long waves of glossy hair, so dark that it was almost black, fell in a tumbling profusion over smooth shoulders, swelling breasts with nipples that stiffened even as he gazed upon them, transfixed with lust. A taut belly and softly rounded hips flaring out into kissable buttocks supported on those perfect tawny thighs that made him gasp with pleasure to see them. And in between those thighs, the luxuriant glossy curls that gathered like some mysterious inflorescence, a floral celebration of the moist pink mysteries within.
She came towards him again.
‘No, don’t touch me. Let me touch you now . . .’
Reaching out, she began to finish the task of undressing him which she had begun with his tie. First the shirt, then a deft flick of the wrist had his belt undone. The zip yielded without a struggle, and within seconds Hunt found himself stepping dreamlike out of his shoes, socks and trousers, leaving him naked save for his underpants.
A wicked gentle small hand insinuated itself under the waistband of his boxer shorts and began to tease the flesh beneath, carefully skirting around the burstingly erect penis which was thrashing around frantically and helplessly on his belly. She knew how to tease and arouse without satisfying; knew how to provoke desire and not quench it until the moment was exactly right. The tip of his prick was oozing love-juice already, drooling for a taste of the flesh it so desperately craved.
Then, to his immense disappointment, she took her hand out of his underpants and moved it upwards, stroking the dense hair on his chest, soothing his flanks; sliding down again to stroke his legs and thighs; now moving upwards again and – oh joy! – wriggling butterfly fingers underneath the fabric of the gusset and into the hot moist groin, there to play with his most precious treasures.
His balls tensed with the immensity of the pleasure Hunt experienced as Mara’s knowing fingers tickled, teased and then encircled them. He held his breath as her gentle but insistent caress tormented him; letting out a deep sigh of satisfaction as she began to squeeze his balls, firmly but gently, so as to cause him only pleasure.
Slowly – and with as much enjoyment as he himself was experiencing – Mara took hold of the waistband of Hunt’s boxer shorts, and began to tug at it. They slid down readily, enthusiastically even, as Hunt wriggled his hips a little to hasten the process.
Now naked, his prick sprang out into the sudden freedom and twitched convulsively, searching for its target. Mara bent to kiss it and lick its head, but did not take it into her mouth.
She stepped back from Hunt a little way, sat down on the sofa and parted her thighs, so that he could see the pearly treasures within her far-trimmed casket. They were already glistening with their own secret moisture and – as Mara pulled apart her cunt-lips to give him a better view – Hunt saw the erect bud of her clitoris, still swelling and pulsating with eager life.
Mara began to play with herself, revelling in the sensations of finger on clit, finger in cunt, finger on nipple . . . Hunt looked on, wild with desire yet not wishing to spoil the moment by leaping on her and taking her before she wanted him to. His only means of revenge was clear: he slipped his left hand under his balls and, with his right, began to masturbate himself, very slowly and very tantalisingly.
Mara was beginning to pant with pleasure, feeling herself dangerously near to orgasm. Hunt, too, was afraid that he would misjudge his manipulations and shoot his spunk all over the carpet before he had even had time to bury his prick in the delectable woman he saw before him, wanking herself off and daring him to intervene.
He need not have worried. For at that moment Mara opened her arms and said:
‘Come to me. Take me. Unite with me.’
He needed no prompting. And he pushed her back on to the sofa, burying his prick inside her with one swift, smooth thrust that tore cries of pleasure from both of them.
‘Fuck me . . .!’ she breathed, thrusting forward her pelvis to take him deeper inside her. Her cunt was like an oiled machine, his prick the piston driving hard inside the cylinder: perfect precision, perfect harmony, perfect synchronicity.
Their fucking approached its crescendo and their movements quickened as they climbed towards perfect simultaneous orgasm: an ocean-swell of spunk met an outrushing tide of warm cunt-juice, and they fell back exhausted and dizzy with the pleasure of it.
Perfect sex. No more. No hint of the supernatural, of any unseen presence. No cold hand upon the shoulder, no evil eyes burning into the soul, no practical joker using their bodies for its own sport.
Maybe that was the end of it. The end of their troubles, just as this was the beginning of their life together, their joining.
Mara tried desperately to believe it. But at the back of her mind she could still hear the mocking laughter and the chilling words:
‘I will have you soon.’
They were days and nights of passion: the best days and nights of Andreas Hunt’s entire life. Days of arriving late at work with dark circles under his eyes, after nights spent in lovemaking with Mara. Lovemaking that was sometimes tender, sometimes frenzied, even violent; but always intense. And just when he thought she had drained him of every last drop of spunk, she would wriggle that pretty little tongue around his bollocks, or force his tired head between the soft hillocks of her breasts; and he would be rigid and ready for the fray once again.
It was one Saturday morning, just over a week after she had arrived, that Mara awoke Hunt with a delectable kiss on his penis, then turned to him and made him an unexpected proposition:
‘Are you willing to be joined to me?’
Hunt grinned, and made a grab for her pubic hair, twisting the curly strands around his index finger.
‘You know me: I’m always ready to be joined to you!’
To his extreme disappointment, Mara removed his hand and shook her head.
‘No. I didn’t mean that sort of joining.’
‘You don’t mean marriage, do you . . .?’
Hunt had always been petrified of marriage. Sure, he liked the girl. Heck, no: he liked her a helluva lot. He wanted her to stick around for a long, long time. But marriage? He wasn’t the conventional kind, and he was pretty sure she wasn’t, either.
‘Not marriage as you mean it, no. I mean a Wicca joining, the binding of our souls and bodies in a pagan rite. It is very natural, very . . . exciting. The ceremony would be performed before a group of pagan friends of mine, the members of my coven.’ She smiled at him and began to caress his genitals, which were already rising nobly to the occasion.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Hunt, doubtfully. Oh no, not more New Age weirdness, he groaned inwardly, and wondered if he was going to regret this intimate association with a real-life psychic. After all, he didn’t even believe in the supernatural, did he? Why should he get himself mixed up with a bunch of nutters? And even if she did claim to be a white witch, did he really want to get himself involved in any sort of witchcraft?
He opened his mouth to say no, and was extremely surprised to hear himself say:
‘OK . . . yes. Let’s do it.’
The look of delight on Mara’s face was almost sufficient reward in itself, for she immediately reached out and guided his hand once more to her pubic bush, inviting him to slide his fingers inside. She was already dripping wet and ready for him.
Maybe he wasn’t going to regret it, after all.
Sky-clad and trembling with the cold, Hunt and Mara were brought forward into the clearing, to stand before the High Priestess, the embodiment of the great huntress Diana.
There were eleven other witches, six male and five female, which with Mara made up the coven of thirteen. They were of varying ages, shapes and sizes: some young and beautiful, others old and ugly. But all were naked, and all were obviously already in a state of some excitement. The men’s penises were semi-erect and stiffening, and the women’s nipples noticeably puckered, not simply because of the cold.
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