by Paul Neuhaus
The deamhan roared again. It was about fifty yards away and it kicked up a cloud of white powder in its wake.
When the monster had closed the distance by half, Henaghan let loose. As the energy left her body, another twinge. Another calming wave from Molly.
A lance of white fire shot across the space between Quinn and the monster. Mhalbog exploded, his limbs and his torso and his head all going in different directions. Blackened, steaming chunks of barbs and hooks rained down upon the crunchy terrain.
Then the white rock beneath the two women’s feet cracked at its equator and half of it—the half the deamhan had come from—burst like a snowball against brick. Tiny crystals caught the ambient light and glittered as they hung in the void.
Triumphant joy shot through the redhead. She spun, grabbed Molly by the waist and kissed her. The two of them remained locked in that way for a long moment. “God, that was incredible!” Quinn said. “That was more than I can do on my own! With you, I’m unstoppable!”
The brunette scowled and adjusted the covering in front of her eye. “Yeah, it’s a shame after this you’re hanging up your wizard hat.”
Henaghan regained her decorum and adjusted Isaac’s duster. “Right. Yes. I got carried away.”
Molly squinted as she looked at the floating particles in the air. “What is that?” she said.
“I dunno,” Quinn replied. “Meteor dust?”
Blank squatted and ran two fingers along the ground, then she dabbed the fingers on her tongue. “Sugar,” she said. “Josie turned the rocks into giant sugar cubes.” She stood again, wiping her hands together.
The younger woman looked off into the far distance along the trajectory they’d been following. There were no more sugar meteors within sight. Quinn sighed. “Nisha must’ve gotten wise. She sent her bodyguard to smash up the rocks and wait for us.”
“Should we’ve kept him alive? Interrogated him?”
“Mmm. He wasn’t the talkative type.”
“Can you sense the trail of sugar leading back through space?”
“I’m a Channeler,” Henaghan said. “Not a microscope.”
“There’s no wind in here—or current. The clouds of sugar should be concentrated around the points where they were still solid…”
“You never told me you were a physics nerd.”
“Can you reach out and solidify the floating sugar again? You wouldn’t even have to reconstitute the whole rock. As long as you can make—I dunno—a frisbee-sized chunk, we should still be able to follow the trail.”
Quinn looked at Molly then reached out her hand and concentrated. The sugar jittered in the air then slammed together forming an irregular lump that in no way resembled the hemisphere of meteor it’d once been.
Blank pointed and shouted, “Yes! Like that! That’ll work!”
“Okay,” the redhead said, still uncertain. “Get behind me again.”
Molly complied, Quinn replaced the force bubble around them and rose up off the meteor on which they stood.
Their progress was slow at first with Quinn forcing grains of sugar to come together into whatever shape was visible from a short distance. Soon, she caught the rhythm and they were flying at their original speed through the pocket dimension.
In time, there were no more sugar particles—only a circular white light. Only when they got closer did the two women realize that it was not a ball but rather a hole. Quinn poked in her head and smiled. “Okay,” she said. “This is good.” The hole was just big enough for them to fly through and they flew through it, into the Womb of the World.
Molly was seeing the place for the first time, but it hadn’t changed. A raised platform with a slit. The slit gave off vapor and the vapor was lit by light from the slit. Behind the slit was an altar made of two pylons and a crossbeam. On the altar was Josie. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed. Her hands were folded on her chest like she was staged for viewing at a mortuary.
Standing behind the altar was Nisha. The Deva was in worse shape than Quinn expected. She was still in her form as a woman made of light, but she was marked here and there by horrid burns that looked like rock superheated by lava then rapidly cooled. She leaned involuntarily to her side and one of her arms was shrunken and held tightly to her torso.
Molly and Quinn landed on the ground and walked toward Nisha. Nisha raised her good arm. In her hand was a large hypodermic needle full of luminous blue fluid.
Caress.
Enraged, Henaghan shouted across the distance, “Don’t you dare touch her!”
Nisha brought up her damaged hand and flicked the syringe. She stared at its contents to make sure there were no bubbles.
Quinn ran toward the Deva like a maddened animal. Molly had no choice but to follow.
The wounded Deva lowered her hand and jabbed the needle in the direction of Josie’s bare arm. She raised her head and gave a face-melting screech.
Caught in the waves of that terrifying scream, Molly and Quinn fell away from one another and out of the reality of the pocket dimension.
Molly awoke with a shock. She gasped for air and her eyes popped open. A voice to her right shouted at her, “Quiet, sea cow!” Blank was disoriented but she recognized the voice. It was Barry Faber. She was back in the room beneath his house. She was nude and, despite the sweat covering her body, she was cold. It was the metal morgue table beneath her. Thick leather straps held her down. Thick leather straps with big buckles.
Blank had been drugged. Her head was still full of cotton. She smacked her lips and turned her head to her right. On the table next to hers was Quinn Henaghan, her new lover. She too was strapped down. She was unconscious. Or was she? Was she unconscious or was she—? Faber hovered over her, looking back and forth between the redhead’s prone body and the tray to the right of Quinn’s table. He picked up a couple of instruments one at a time and regarded them. Molly could tell from his demeanor he regarded himself as an artist. “Rosebud,” Molly said aloud.
“Peekaboo.” Faber seemed amused by her sudden realization. “You’ve been out for a while. I must’ve drugged you good and hard. You’re a tough one, though. I can tell just looking at you. I’m a good judge of woman-flesh. My stock-in-trade.”
“Quinn?” Blank said, again turning her head.
“She’s… quiet now,” Faber said.
Molly struggled against her bonds. There’d be no breaking them. “Don’t cut her,” she said. “Don’t cut her.”
Faber laughed. “Cut her? You mean down there?” He laughed again. “When I started this, I never thought I’d have a gimmick. It’s so hackneyed. But it’s also so much fun. People say, ‘My God, that’s so fucked-up’, and I get to say, ‘I know, right?’” He finished arranging his equipment. He reached around behind Quinn’s head and undid the straps of the harness holding her head in place. He then forced her head to the left and re-locked the straps. Henaghan was facing Molly but she was still unconscious. “That’s for you,” Faber said. “She may not wake up during this. I don’t know. She may not grace us with her screams. Maybe she’ll whimper some.”
Blank fixed her eyes on Henaghan’s placid face. If Quinn did wake up, Molly was determined to support her in whatever way she could. It was a silly thought, but maybe seeing Molly would ease Quinn’s pain. “How many women have you had down here?” she said to Faber.
“Not including you two? Eight. Anyway, with you guys, I’ll hit the decade mark. Isn’t that cool?”
“Verbic wants you to kill Quinn,” the brunette said.
“It’s true,” Faber replied. “And I get you thrown in as well. It’s a gala day.”
Faber picked up a scalpel and leaned in toward Quinn. He was going to start at the inside of her hip and work his way up. As soon as the blade drew blood, Henaghan woke up and screamed. She didn’t even notice she was lying next to Molly. The pain was too shocking. Quinn inhaled, clamped her eyes shut, and screamed again. The sound echoed in the concrete chamber. When she ran out of br
eath, Henaghan gulped and screamed again.
Faber intervened, testy. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Aaah, aaah, aaah!” He grabbed Quinn on either side of her face and squeezed. “Open your eyes.” She didn’t. “Open your eyes goddammit or I’ll put ‘em out!”
The girl did as she was told, her desperate eyes redirecting toward Blank. Her state was beyond panic. She was an animal.
It was Molly’s turn to scream, but it wasn’t a scream of terror. It was rage. Anger and fire welled up inside of her, pushing its way upward through her body. When it burst out, she screamed again. A predator’s scream. Her essence shot from her, leaping across the gap between her and Barry Faber. She entered him. Inside his head, his panicky psyche retreated from hers. He was stunned at the invasion. Faber was helpless on his own home turf and he knew it. Blank’s persona gave off flames and fury. She knew that she must look to Faber like a phoenix ready to burn and tear.
She enveloped Rosebud and destroyed him.
Quinn was floating in a featureless black void. She called out saying the word, “Ciara” only once. Ciara was there right away, hovering in front of her. The White Lady wore the same dress she always wore but it was more free-flowing and expansive. In fact, gigantic tendrils of cloth waved around it like the tentacles of an octopus. The tendrils moved with purpose because Ciara was directing them. They came toward Henaghan and enfolded her in their soft embrace. They stroked her face and caressed her body. All the hairs stood up on the redhead’s skin and she closed her eyes, surrendering herself to the sensual pleasure of the waving, purposeful cloth.
At first, she reacted with alarm as the woven limbs slid the clothing from her body and stroked her belly and breasts. Soon, she gave into the deep sensory delight. She even laid back and arched herself toward Ciara as one of the tentacles twisted into a hard rope and entered her. In and out it went, and Quinn moaned with ecstasy. Another tendril came down and vigorously rubbed Henaghan’s clitoris. She climaxed, but the arms of fabric continued in their lovemaking. She climaxed again. And again. Utterly swept away by the expert quality of Ciara’s virtual touch.
Then two of the fabric limbs grabbed her and flipped her over. She opened her eyes and saw that was now not one Ciara nearby but several, all of them with waving arms of fabric. One arm entered her from behind. Another jammed itself into her mouth and went down her throat. She gagged for air and panic set in. Whatever feelings of sexual arousal she had fled and were replaced with a fear of death. She wriggled and flopped in the air. More tentacles came in to restrain her arms and legs. The rope in her vagina pushed in so hard that pain set in. The rope going down her throat pushed down her esophagus and she knew that, soon, she would lose consciousness.
Another black space. This one inside of Henaghan’s mind. A gentle caress. A soothing voice. “Quinn,” it said. “Don’t lose yourself like this. Fight back. I’ll help you.”
The redhead stoked the fires in her belly, summoning maya to herself in unprecedented quantities. She unleashed it all at once and it spread through her, exciting every cell. Each of the limbs inside her caught fire and became a fuse, burning cloth progressively back to its source. In quick succession, the Ciaras around Quinn exploded and became glittering dust. The limb down Henaghan’s throat was the last to go. After it was gone, she gasped for air and drank it deeply.
When she was alone, she rolled herself over in the air and descended to the invisible ground. There she clung to herself and willed away the pain and shame. Inside her head, the soothing presence returned, and she realized something: the soothing presence didn’t come from without, it came from within.
The soothing presence was herself.
Quinn and Molly dropped out of the air simultaneously back in the Womb of the World. They arrived in time to see Nisha prick Josie’s skin with her needle and depress the plunger. The luminous blue fluid in the syringe went into the teenager’s body.
Neither Blank nor Henaghan spoke. Molly took her position behind Quinn and Quinn snapped a force bubble around both of them. They rose into the air and the redhead began drawing power into herself.
Nisha wasn’t as dumb as Mhalbog. She wouldn’t stand around long enough for Quinn to get and then deliver staggering levels of power. She threw her needle aside and it shattered somewhere on the rock floor. She too rose into the air even as the small figure beneath her moaned and writhed from the effects of the Caress.
The first thought that came into Quinn’s mind was that she would send ropes of fire to violate Nisha’s body and to tear her apart from the inside. But, no. That would make her too much like Nisha and the memory would haunt her. However, she decided to kill the Deva, it would not mirror the Deva’s own perverse techniques.
Nisha turned into Ciara. Ciara smiled and said, “Daughter. Lover. You’ve returned. Submit yourself to me again.”
Molly could feel the waves of power suffuse her girlfriend’s body. She entered Quinn herself and bypassed the space where, in the past, she would reason with Henaghan and comfort her. She plunged into the redhead’s bloodstream and dove to deeper and deeper levels. She urged herself to go faster and faster. She was in a race, and she knew it. A race against Nisha’s Command. Further and Further she went and with ever-increasing speed. She was unaware of the processes of Quinn’s body. Everything around her was a blur. She had one mission and nothing else mattered. At last she came to an empty space. The Command had not yet arrived. Molly had been fast enough. Now to act. In the empty space, a double helix of DNA hung. One gene stood out. The Aja gene. Nisha’s backdoor into Quinn’s psyche and will. Blank’s powers were not the same as Henaghan’s. Hers were metaphorical. She could not use whatever energies she had to snap a bubble of force around the gene. Instead she summoned a bubble made of love and protection. She hoped Nisha’s invading Command would not know the difference. She did not have long to find out. The Deva’s corrosive force flooded in from all sides, sweeping harmlessly (yet distastefully) over Molly in its drive toward the gene.
Blank’s bubble held. Nisha’s Command washed over it and dissolved.
Molly snapped back into her own head in time to see Quinn launch her first assault. A twisting pinwheel of fireballs, all with the homing instinct, the intelligence to seek Nisha wherever she moved and slam into her. The Deva was buffeted all around the chamber and she screamed with each impact. The screams were not of fear or pain but rather rage. Finally, giving off smoke and sparks, the light-woman, back in her own form, settled into a hover. “You can’t defeat me, you stupid bitch. I’m a Deva.”
Henaghan pushed slowly toward her enemy, drawing Molly along behind her. “You were a Deva,” she said. “Look at you now. A battered joke, covered with scars, eaten up by millennia of zealotry and a lust for revenge. You’re hollow now. Useless.”
“Words. You like words. Here are two more: blasphemy and abomination.” A shaft of fire sliced outward and impacted on Quinn’s shield. The momentum drove Henaghan and Molly backward. Cracks appeared in the bubble, making it look like glass more than magic. The redhead scrambled to weld the cracks shut and a spasm shot through her. Molly was right there to regulate her energies and she sent a healing wave over the inside of the shield. The bubble became whole even as the last of Nisha’s fire dissipated on its surface. “Am I going to have to separate you two?” the Deva said, annoyed.
“You already tried that.” Quinn launched herself through the air. Pulled along, Molly thought how like a theme park ride helping Henaghan had turned out to be. In mid-flight, the redhead lit her fists on fire as Sam had done at the reclamation plant. She wasn’t as big or powerful as Verbic’s offspring, but she was just as determined. She battered Nisha’s face and head until the Deva finally raised her own hands and grabbed Quinn by her wrists. In the brief instant the two of them hung together like that, Nisha turned into Josie’s friend Lailah and smiled a sweet smile.
A battering ram of force struck Quinn on her right side and knocked she and Molly in the opposite direction. The shield held, b
ut Henaghan had no idea what hit her as she spun within her protective field. A mass of multicolored phantasms drove her away from Nisha. Beyond them, the redhead could see a wild-eyed Josie with her hands raised commanding the Vidyaadhara to do her bidding. As the two women slammed into the curved wall of the chamber, Quinn realized she was now fighting two enemies instead of one. The Deva and her niece. She started to raise her hands to destroy the phantasms when she heard a sudden cacophony from the chamber’s center. From out of the slit, a cloud of blue sprang. Henaghan had to squint to see this cloud was not itself vapor but thousands of tiny blue birds with bright red heads. They rose from the hole then turned at a right angle and swarmed the Vidyaadhara. The phantasms were taken unawares but then they pivoted to defend against the attack.
With the phantasms occupied, the redhead turned her attention back to Nisha. In that moment, she felt Molly’s absence. Blank’s body was still behind her within the force bubble, but her mind had fled. Was this some trick of the Deva’s? Had she harmed Molly across the distance between them?
Henaghan got her answer when she looked again at Josie and saw sudden calm descend upon the young girl.
Molly could feel the Caress burning through Josie’s system. As she fought to help Taft regain control of herself, she came to better understand the drug. Not only did Caress have narcotic effects, not only did it act as a mystical digestive agent, it also promoted ecstatic worship and suggestibility. Nisha’s very physiology was geared to keep her followers subservient. The Deva were built to be goddesses.
Blank insinuated herself into Josie’s consciousness between the girl’s own persona and the corruptive outside influences. She whispered to Taft, “Josie, honey, come back to us. What you’re feeling right now, it isn’t real. It won’t clothe you, it won’t feed you, it won’t comfort you when you’re sad. It’s eating you and, when you’re eaten, it’ll find someone else to eat. It doesn’t care about you. To it, you’re just food.”