Redemption (Covenant Book 3)

by John Everson

  “And if not?”

  “I’ll leave you to sit here until one of your kind comes looking for you. That might be awhile, here in the back of the mission. Maybe days. Maybe never. I don’t think they can hear you up front in the chapel even if you scream. Especially if I tie you up and gag you.”

  “And if I help you?” the demon asked.

  “I release you as soon as you help me talk to Alex.”

  “You realize that your friend may be dead. I can’t promise that I can find her for you.”

  Joe nodded. “I understand. But you can promise that you will try.”

  “Sure, whatever you want. Let’s leave the circle.”

  “First things first. What is your name?” Joe asked.

  “Moloch,” the demon said.

  “Will you, Moloch, enter into a covenant with me?” Joe asked. “Will you try to reach out to your world to find my friend Alex, and if you find her, help us to talk. And, will you help her to find a passage back to his world? And finally, will you agree not to speak to the other Curburide in the mission about our presence here? In exchange, I will set you free to wander this earth as you like, with no restriction.”

  “I do so agree,” the demon said.

  Joe nodded. “Then the deal is struck. Fulfill the bargain, Moloch.”

  Joe began to walk out of the circle, but something smashed into the back of his head. He almost fell, but instead turned to protect himself. He was met with a fist to the gut.

  “Ugh,” Joe gulped as he doubled over. It felt as if his guts were going to boil up out of his mouth. But before that could happen, another punch connected with the side of his face. Joe fell sideways to the ground. The demon didn’t relent. He aimed a foot at Joe’s side and kicked. Hard.

  The pain was immediate. Joe yelped and curled into a ball to try to protect as much of himself as he could. The demon was pissed. Joe tried to roll away and escape the next attack, but instead of another punch or kick, he suddenly heard a fleshy thud and a gasp of breath. And a curse.

  His ribs and belly felt on fire, but Joe pushed himself to a crouch, exposing himself to another attack. But he saw that there wasn’t going to be one. Not for a little while anyway.

  Cheyenne had tackled the man, and currently was lying on the ground behind him; one arm crooked around his neck and squeezing hard. As the demon struggled to get free, she screamed in his ear. “Don’t move or I will really hurt you. And I know how!”

  Joe noticed that the arm that wasn’t around his neck had disappeared between his legs. And the demon answered her with something that resembled a pig squeal.

  He crawled over to crouch in front of the demon.

  “I don’t think beating the shit out of me fulfills our covenant,” he said.

  Moloch’s lips spread into a nasty grin. “No,” he wheezed. “But we didn’t agree that I couldn’t, either.”

  Joe shook his head. “Agree that you will not hurt me or Cheyenne, or I’ll leave you here and walk away.” He hesitated a minute, and then added. “In fact, I may make a new demon trap circle down that hill and drop you there, where nobody will ever see or hear you. You will simply bake to a husk in the midday desert sun. And until someone finds and disturbs the body, you will never be able to leave. Want to risk that?”

  The demon didn’t answer, but Joe saw Cheyenne’s elbow jerk as her arm did something between his legs.

  Moloch shrieked. “Agreed,” he screamed after a moment.

  “Good,” Joe said. “I will try not to take too much of your time!”

  Cheyenne looked up from her chokehold and grinned. “Good, cuz he’s got B.O.”

  “Nice,” Joe said. He stared hard at the elusive blue of the demon’s eyes and asked, “Are you ready to do what you promised?”

  The demon nodded. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” Cheyenne murmured, while still keeping her headlock tight.

  “You can let go of me now,” Moloch said.

  Cheyenne met Joe’s eyes, and he nodded. This either worked now, or it didn’t.

  Moloch, or the body he inhabited, rolled out of her grasp, and stood up, unencumbered. He rubbed his neck and stretched, wrinkling his brow at some vestigial pain. Joe and Cheyenne walked backwards, until they were both safely outside the circle.

  “Her name is Alex,” Joe said. “I need to find her, I know she’s alive. Look into my memories and see her, maybe that will help.”

  Moloch nodded. “I’ve seen her already in your mind. I don’t know if she is there to find, but time moves slower in our realm than yours. She might be. I can’t fully leave this world as long as you have me bound here, but I can reach out to other Curburide beyond the door.”

  “Then do,” Joe said softly.

  CHAPTER 47

  ALEX CRIED IN SILENCE. Tears ran in hot streams down her cheeks to drip from her chin and she longed to wail, to truly let go. But she did not.

  Could not.

  Would not give the demon the pleasure. So she held back the screams and cries, but she could not hold back the tears. The horror of his defilement would not leave her mind. And the blood he’d left behind remained in sticky trails down the inside of her legs. That pain was nothing compared to what she had to face again tonight.

  Alex had been chained and abused before; she had a lifetime with her father to draw on for strength in that regard. She could handle humiliation. And pain. But she had never felt any pain like the raw, nerves-on-fire scalding hurt of having your skin – all of it – peeled off. It wasn’t the sort of thing she had ever imagined you could live through. Yet here she was, still alive. The worst part was, she would rather die than go through that again. And apparently there were many nights ahead that promised more of the same. She couldn’t do it again. She just couldn’t.

  This was hell. She had killed her parents and now she was paying the price in hell.

  Part of her wanted to wallow in that thought, but the part that had made her strong enough to pick up an axe to take back her freedom once before did not lie down easily now. Even in hell, Alex still had hope. But not simply hope; hope was easy. Hope didn’t break you out of prison, it just meant you had a more pliable attitude while you were being tortured. No, Alex had more than hope; she had a determination in her spirit that refused to accept being chained down. She looked at her bonds through blurry eyes and vowed that she would not just hang here as they took her skin each night.

  But she also knew that she couldn’t call on her friends this time. They were not coming again.

  Somehow, she had to find her way out on her own.

  Alex looked at the chains that wrapped around her wrists. They hooked onto large metal rings embedded in the wood of the cross. She pulled and twisted her arm, trying to gain a little play by cupping her hand, to make it as close in size to her wrist as possible.

  But there was not going to be any release that way. She could feel her skin bruising as she tried to drag it through the too-small opening.

  “Malachai,” she whispered with her inner voice. “Can you help?”

  The demon did not immediately answer, but she felt what she could only describe as a “shifting” in the back of her mind. Presently, she heard him whisper.

  “What would you have me do?” he asked.

  “Can you help me get out of the chains?”

  “I can’t make you smaller than you are,” he said.

  Alex grit her teeth. “I didn’t ask you to make me smaller,” she said silently. “I asked you to get me out of these chains.”

  “I can’t remove the chains,” he answered in a faint whisper. “I can only work from inside you…”

  “Can you give me the power to stop them tonight? Can you give me strength?”

  “Some. Perhaps. But I must remain invisible.”

  “I kno
w,” she said. “But if you can give me anything…”

  She thought a minute. “Can you make it so I don’t feel the pain?”

  “I can. But what do you plan to do?”

  “I’m not completely sure yet. I’ve been asking myself, ‘What would Ariana do?’ This is her realm. And I might have an idea…”

  CHAPTER 48

  WHEN THE SCREAMS died down from the cross a few yards away, they came for her.

  Alex was ready.

  “Time to get undressed for bed,” the taller of the two demons said. It was Melter, she remembered, the same demon who had worked on her last night. His partner, Dorado, smirked behind him.

  “But I’m not ready to go to sleep yet,” Alex answered. She plumped up her bottom lip in a little girl pout.

  Melter laughed, a dark, dangerous sound. “Very funny,” he said. “But little girls need their rest.”

  “Well, I’m a bigger girl than you think,” Alex said. “And I really need something before I sleep.”

  “We’re here to give you something,” Dorado said. He clicked two finger-knives together. “And once we do, you’ll be praying for sleep to take you.”

  “I was hoping you might give me something else first,” Alex said. She swiveled her hips suggestively.

  Melter laughed again. This time there was true amusement in his voice. “Nice try,” he said. “But stalling won’t stop what we have to do.”

  Alex nodded. “I know that. But the last demon I stayed with, well, every night before bed, he would have his way with me. And now, I wish I hadn’t run away. I have been tied up here all day thinking about how good it would be to have a demon inside me again, filling me, the way he did.” She closed her eyes and moaned slightly, to add to the impact of her words.

  Dorado took a step towards her, a grin on his face, but Melter put an arm out to stop him.

  “You lie,” he said. “A demon cock in a human girl gives no pleasure to her. It only tears her up inside.”

  Alex nodded. “But only for a few hours. Then we heal here. I miss it so much. That feeling of him in my mouth, pressing to the back of my throat and then sticking, giving me pain and pleasure at the same time. I loved to hear him as he reached his moment, and then…”

  “I don’t know what your game is,” Melter said. “But you won’t stop us from taking your skin.”

  “I’m not trying,” she said. “But I just thought, if it was that good when one demon took me, what would it be like if I had two – both of you together. One in front, one in back...” She put a tongue to the front of her lips, the way she’d seen the slutty girls do at school when they talked about giving blowjobs after the Friday night football game. “…oh my…”

  She rolled her eyes and grinned with convincing desire. She couldn’t help but notice as she looked down that Dorado’s gnarled member was responding to her suggestions.

  “It wouldn’t take long, but we’d all feel better before you have to do what you came here to do,” she added.

  “We do have plenty of time,” Dorado said to Melter. In her mind, Alex raised a victory fist. She’d convinced them.

  Melter grinned, and put one hand on his own growing erection. “We do. And I have plenty of pain to give her. Happy to give her more if she wants it.”

  He walked across the room out of her sight, and when he returned, he was carrying a wooden box. He placed it in front of her and stepped up on it, so that his face was just a little higher than her own. With one hand, he teased himself into the delta of her thighs, but before he made any true progress, Alex said, “Wait!”

  “Ha!” Melter said. “Second thoughts already? Too late.”

  “No, not at all,” she said with an easy calm. “But what I was really hoping for was to take you in my mouth, while your friend takes my other end.”

  “You are a crazy bitch,” Melter said. His voice betrayed a grudging admiration. After a second, he grinned and shrugged. “But I like the way you think. Though I promise, you will regret this fantasy of yours.”

  With that, he reached up and undid the bonds on her hands. “Get her feet,” he instructed Dorado. When she was free of the cross, he lifted her like a ragdoll and stepped down from the box. Then he deposited her on the floor in front of him.

  “Give me a rope,” he said.

  Dorado turned away and returned seconds later with a long hoop of thick white rope. With a couple flips of his hands, he shaped and pulled a circle over her head. He cinched the knot and then yanked on the loose end until it was tight. She looked up at him, her neck held chokingly tight in his quickly fashioned leash.

  “I grant you your perverse desire,” he said. “But if make any move to try to get away, I will strangle you until you pass out.”

  “I understand,” Alex said. “I don’t want you to take my skin, I totally admit that. But all I really want right now is to feel both of you inside me. Both at the same time, pressuring me, expanding to grip me…”

  She felt Dorado grip her by the hips, and kneel with his knees on the floor between her thighs. “You still look like a girl to me,” he said from behind her. One of his long hands reached beneath her pinch and rub a nipple. The sensation made her whole body jump. “But we will take care of that.”

  “Yes,” Melter agreed. He held his erection with one hand, and bent the enormous dark head to touch her lips. “We will take care of that.”

  “Malachai,” Alex called silently.

  “You are crazy,” came the whispered answer. “They will rip you in half.”

  “Just make it not hurt,” she said. “That’s all I ask.”

  As she did, the demons entered her almost as one. Her eyes bugged as she nearly choked on the foul thing that suddenly filled her throat. At the same time, she felt something rip between her legs. But the pain disappeared as soon as it began. Her whole body went numb. Malachai was doing his job. Now she had to do hers.

  Alex struggled to moan in a way that would imply that she was enjoying the invasion. It was difficult when she was having a hard time finding a way to take a breath. The thing that invaded her mouth was huge.

  “Mmmmmm-gh,” she telegraphed. The vibration only stimulated her gag reflex and she pulled back from Melter, struggling not to let anything pass her throat. The noose tightened around her neck as she did. Her left hip slapped against the leg of the table where the demons kept their tools. The knives that would soon be carving her skin off, if her plan didn’t work.

  The sounds of her distress only made the demons increase their pace. Something changed inside her mouth, however. Back at the base of her tongue, something pinched her flesh. Where Melter was dragging and driving his member into the back of her throat, something suddenly bit into her flesh. Hooked her. She felt as if she had just swallowed a burr, or as if she were some kind of fish, caught fast. Melter’s member was no longer shifting and moving inside her. It stuck in place, blocking all access to her throat.

  A similar sensation occurred deep inside the entrance to her womb. The demons no longer slipped as they rocked and moved within her. Instead, between the two of them, they threatened to rip her apart, each hooked in and pulling in the opposite direction.

  Alex would have been screaming in agony if she could have felt it. But instead, she felt only the faintest, numb tingling.

  “Thank you, Malachai,” she whispered in her mind.

  As if in answer, for the faintest second, the numbness faded away, and she felt her most tender flesh shredding as if on fish hooks. Her mouth somehow opened wider than it was already forced, as she involuntarily moved to scream, but just as fast as the agony came, it disappeared.

  “Mmmmmm,” she said instead.

  “This girl’s… a… crazy one,” Melter moaned, as he rocked towards his moment.

  “Crazy good,” Dorado gasped.

  Almost as one, the two dem
ons began to howl and Alex felt the bitter warmth of their orgasm begin to surge inside her.

  “You’re out of time,” Malachai whispered.

  Alex answered the orgasmic moans of the demons with strangled cries of her own. She matched her sounds to their rhythm, since she actually felt nothing at all, thanks to Malachai. When the veil lifted, she knew she would be screaming for real. But now, she pretended to feel pain and pleasure at what seemed to be the final moments of the demons’ penetration. And then the motion from both demons stopped. In seconds, she no longer felt quite so “filled.”

  When Melter pulled out of her mouth, she could see his demonhood had deflated like a popped balloon. So that’s how they got past the whole barbed tip thing, she thought. Their cocks simply deflated after orgasm, allowing them to slip away from their ravaged mate.

  As she thought that, she felt the pressure ease as Dorado pulled away from her behind.

  Both demons lay back on the floor, breathing heavy and staring up at the ceiling. Alex reached one hand up on the tool table next to her, and carefully felt around until she found the thing she wanted. The knife. The blade was at least six inches long but only a half-inch wide. It was like a razor thin, narrow spike with a sinuous curve to the blade.

  With a quick pull, she drew the edge across the rope and severed Melter’s hold on her. Now to take care of the demons before they realized their danger. Alex was no expert with a knife but she knew one thing. She couldn’t count on “stabbing a demon to death.”

  Did they die at all? She had to disable both of them for long enough to allow her to escape. That’s all she could hope for, and all she needed to focus on.

  Melter still gazed at the ceiling as he savored the moment, but she only had seconds to act. He obviously hadn’t felt the rope grow slack. But he was the one who would likely give her the most trouble, so he was target number one.

  Alex dropped to a crouch and in a single fluid motion jabbed hard with the knife and pulled back. The blade drew along the back of Melter’s leg, right behind his knee. She had read once that the best way to disable someone was to sever their hamstring, and if she couldn’t kill a demon, she needed to keep them here long enough for her to make an escape.