Esoterica 1: Liam's Awakening: A Lovecraftian Fantasy Harem Adventure (Esoterica Chronicles)

by Virgil Knightley

  “What did I say?” she shrugged. “Same difference.”

  “I still haven’t tasted it,” Dahlia said, glaring at her jealously. “Seems pretty unfair to me, if I’m being honest. I’m his original soulmate, after all.” She twisted her lips into a crooked frown.

  Soon, we were outside the door to my room. “I’ll tell you what. When we finish this mission, I promise that before we make any dangerous moves, I will ravage each of you until your heart’s content,” I growled, gripping their firm, supple asses.

  Carmilla purred as she buried her face in my neck, melting at my touch and my erotic promise. Dahlia, though, had a different reaction. She cleared her throat and raised her voice slightly. “And that might include you, too, Memento, if you play nice and be a good girl!”

  I heard a little “Eep!” from behind Memento’s door and the soft pitter-pattering of feet as she retreated deeper into her room when she realized her eavesdropping had been found out. Dahlia knew things. The perks of being a Divination sorceress, I guess.

  Carmilla broke from me and walked up to the outside of Memento’s room. “Memento,” she said, her lips inches from the door. “Please let Dahlia be right about you. This is me giving you a chance. Please.” She paused. “Liam needs you.” I was more than a little shocked to hear such sincerity from Carmilla being directed toward her, but it was a relief and a damn good sign.

  “Yep, be a good girl, Mimi, and you’ll be rewarded!” I said, cupping my hand to my face for volume. I couldn’t resist. Even as I said it, my stomach twisted with the beginnings of cold regret.

  “Yes, Daddy,” I heard her little voice say faintly from the other side of the door. Both of my women flashed me an alarmed look. Dahlia’s was a look that said, “Oh no! Danger!” Carmilla’s seemed to say something quite different.

  “Liam. You didn’t,” Carmilla said, fangs out, pinning me up against the wall.

  I threw my hands up innocently. “Whoa, whoa!” I said, “I most definitely did not.”

  “Explain, then,” Dahlia replied, crossing her arms, clearly on Carmilla’s side all of a sudden.

  Goddammit, Liam, I scolded myself, you couldn’t have kept that one locked down a bit longer?

  Chapter 27

  Cabin in the Woods

  The four of us—Dahlia, Carmilla, Memento, and me—stood outside what appeared to be a simple but dilapidated log cabin in the middle of a gloomy thicket. There was little shrubbery on the ground, but mushrooms were almost everywhere, and brownish-red dried pine needles took the place of grass. The soil was cracked and parched, and the sky was… well, it was hard to say. The forest was dark and dense, and the canopy was so high and overpowering that I couldn’t even guess at the time of day, but a little light shone on the cabin, the one spot where the trees weren’t so dense, so I figured it couldn’t be night here yet.

  “What’s the mission again?” Memento asked.

  I looked at her with an eyebrow cocked. “Didn’t you read the brief?” I asked. “I slipped a copy under your door last night.”

  “I saw it,” she said.

  “You didn’t read it?” Carmilla asked, bemused. She cocked her head sideways and flashed a judgmental look at the pink-haired goth. “Seriously?”

  Dahlia remained unphased, though. “At random intervals throughout the night, strange things have happened in this forest,” she said. “This cabin seems to be the source of these supernatural activities.”

  “So we have to investigate the source,” I said. “And it’s likely to be some phat loot that we can convert to mana.”

  Dahlia nodded without breaking her fixed staring contest with the cabin. “Correct. And something else, more specifically useful to us,” she teased knowingly. “According to the Headmistress, that is.”

  “So our mission is to, like, spend the night in a creepy haunted cabin?” Memento asked, clearly unimpressed by the proposition. She looked at us all expectantly. “Do you not see how this sounds like a bad idea?”

  “Well, in the movies, it’s usually a jock, a stoner, a virgin, and a slut,” I said. “Not four badass mages.”

  She giggled. “Point taken.”

  Dahlia blinked as she finally glanced back at us. “I have literally no idea what you’re talking about.”

  We walked up to the front porch. The steps creaked beneath our feet as eerily as you’d expect. The cabin looked old, decades-old at least. The wood was dried out, cracked, and faded to the point where it was hard to be sure if it was ever painted at all or if the builders just threw some unfinished wood together and said, “Yep, here’s a cabin.”

  The door hung open on its hinges, gaping wide enough for us to squeeze through already. I reached for it nonetheless, pulling it open for the ladies to walk through easily.

  “Thank you,” Memento winked, whispering. “…Daddy.” I gulped a bit, smiled weakly, and tried to think about baseball and cold showers. The three women passed into the cabin, leaving me to walk in last.

  There were only three rooms on the main floor of the structure, but a cellar door was chained shut and blended into the floorboards, not unlike ones I’d seen in many horror movies. It was clearly visible from the door.

  All of the furniture in the cabin was wood. The craftsmanship seemed to vary, though, with the chairs being rather impressive and the coffee table in front of them feeling rather slapped together—just a long box with a wider plank resting atop it.

  The glass on all the windows had long since been broken by the look of it—I couldn’t even find any shards on the floor. What I did find, however, was a hell of a lot of dust and dirt.

  The door to the right of the cramped living room was a makeshift bedroom with a surprisingly large bed—queen-sized at least by my estimate. The covers looked filthy, though, like they’d been wet, molded, dried and then gone through that cycle again and again until we finally showed up. There were hinges on the door frame outside the bedroom, but the door itself had apparently been removed at one point or another and never replaced.

  As the ladies began casting spells to clean up all the dust, mold, and filth scattered around the cabin, starting with the bed and the bedroom, I checked out the last unexplored room on the main floor. It was a sort of kitchen with an icebox and a wood-burning stove that connected to a chimney. An entirely wooden kitchen seemed like a pretty bad idea, but I followed it to its end and reached another door leading outside—a backdoor. When I opened it up, I realized it led to a secluded area where there was a latrine, marked clearly by a crescent on the door.

  “Good to know,” I muttered to myself.

  I slipped my hands into my pockets and walked back in to find the gals had made their way into the kitchen as well. They quickly removed all the dust and grime with a few incantations. This place looked good as new, minus a fresh paint job and a missing door, anyway.

  “You three should start a cleaning service,” I teased.

  “Why didn’t you help, asshole?” Memento said through gritted teeth.

  Carmilla laughed. “He’s a bit of a one-trick pony when it comes to schools of magic,” she explained. Memento’s expression betrayed the fact that she didn’t quite get what the raven-haired vampire meant by her remark.

  “He can’t use any magic except for necromancy,” Dahlia tried to clarify. “But his potential for that school of magic is at least three times higher than an average Affinity.”

  I shrugged. “It sounds cool, but it kind of sucks sometimes,” I admitted.

  Dahlia stretched as she finished her task. It was a nice little blessing upon my day, as she jutted out her sizable bosom, and she certainly didn’t seem to mind my staring. In fact, when I got caught, she only seemed to pose more seductively, arching her back and flashing me a wink. “Let’s let our familiars out for a stretch, too,” she suggested. “Oscar, are you there?”

  The little skull-faced gecko climbed out of her cloak, onto her shoulder, and she nuzzled him gently.

  “Never been so jealous
of a gecko,” I said.

  “If you want it, come and get it,” she coaxed.

  “Sheridan, come out!” Carmilla said, and the little vampire squirrel appeared at the window, but I couldn’t help but notice that something seemed different about him. It wasn’t lost on Carmilla either. “Sheridan, are your eyes… different?” she asked. It was true; they were a rare shade of foggy blue, the same cloudy look and color I now associated with my own eyes.

  “He’s cute!” Memento said. “Shadrack, looks like you can come out, too!” A tiny black drake flew through the broken glass of one of the other windows and landed on Memento’s shoulder, nuzzling its long neck against her face. She whispered something to the drake while maintaining seductive eye contact with me.

  “That’s a pretty cool familiar,” I said with a grin.

  “He’s the best!” she agreed.

  “Summon Uther,” Dahlia prodded me. “I haven’t seen him in ages.”

  I scratched my head awkwardly. “Uh, he’d feel a bit cramped in here, I think.” The girls stared at me suspiciously. “We’d better go back outside.”

  When we were outside, I called out for Uther. “Uther!” I started, “Come on, you little shit, show yourself.”

  A tree shook in the distance, and Uther, the bear-sized arctic fox, appeared before us, looking ferocious as hell. And there was something else about him, actually.

  “Uther!” Dahlia gushed, adorably kicking a leg up behind her, “You’ve gotten so big!”

  Memento looked like she might pee herself, but Carmilla stared in shock for a moment before she whipped her body toward me and leaped into my arms, with me seeing her move in just enough time that I managed to catch her. She kissed me deeply, and I could taste her sweet lips and cold voracious tongue. After a moment, she pulled herself back, beaming at me, and made plain the reason for her outburst.

  “He has my fangs!” she squealed, hugging me tightly.

  It was true. Somewhere along the way, Uther had grown long pointed vampire fangs akin to Carmilla’s. It must have just happened, because I didn’t remember them showing up on the mission the other day.

  “And he has your eyes, Dahlia!” Memento announced like it was news to anyone but her. “That’s so wild!”

  “It’s because we’re linked,” Dahlia said, kissing me on the cheek, even as Carmilla ravaged my lips with her own. “Soulmates.”

  Memento’s face plainly showed that she’d just realized she was in way over her head with us. Before long, though, the excitement had died down, and we found ourselves back inside, sitting in the chairs in the living room, unsure as to what to do next.

  “I mean, we just wait, right?” I said.

  “I have a feeling whatever we’re here for is down there,” Memento said, pointing at the cellar door. I tended to agree. I could almost feel something calling to me from down in those depths.

  Carmilla looked more cautious, though. “I have to admit,” she said, “You’re probably right. But it’s locked, and this has been going on for years, so if it were as easy as walking into the cellar and grabbing some shit, I think someone would have done it by now.”

  Dahlia echoed the sentiment with an affirmative grunt. “She’s right. I’m not saying we shouldn’t go down there, but let’s take our time. We have all night. Besides, I don’t feel anything from it in particular relevant to this mission, and I’m the divination sorceress, after all.”

  That surprised me, but I wasn’t going to doubt her. “Alright,” I agreed. “Let’s see what happens first. Dahlia, you use your magic when something weird starts going on, and maybe we’ll be able to confirm the source or at least something about it.”

  “Good idea,” she agreed.

  “What do we do in the meantime?” Carmilla asked, looking around the group for any suggestions. I remained silent. I guess I forgot to pack a deck of cards. Dahlia wasn’t much more forthcoming with ideas either.

  Memento looked at me and then at the two other women and our pensive faces with a look of utter befuddlement. “I mean, we will absolutely fuck, right? Am I crazy? I totally thought we're going to fuck.”

  Carmilla glared at her. “You haven’t earned that just yet,” she said through gritted fangs, and her eyes went black and red and shone with a sinister light. Memento squealed in terror and shrank back into the chair in a fetal position.

  Dahlia patted Carmilla on the back to calm her down and then sighed. “So, it’s still like this,” she said, exasperated. “You are exhausting sometimes, Carmilla Tepes.”

  There was a long night ahead of us, and just as I was about to despair over my boredom, it happened. The first event. A crack of lightning, out of nowhere, struck somewhere outside, and rain started pouring down from the sky, only it wasn’t normal rain. No, it already smelled unusual, coppery, and the sound it made as it hit the ground was lighter, thinner than normal rain drops of a similar size, despite that absolute deluge.

  We went outside to have a better look, and I knew exactly what it was when I saw Carmilla’s eyes light up once again, this time in excitement. Like a kid experiencing her first snowfall of the year, she stood under the precipitation and stuck out her tongue, catching as many drops as she could, and rubbing each drop that fell onto her skin all over her body.

  “It’s heaven!” Carmilla shouted orgasmically. “We’re in heaven!”

  It wasn’t heaven. It was blood.

  Chapter 28

  Blood Rain

  The rain of blood painted us red. Dahlia shrieked and ran back inside before I could even properly react, but Memento’s face bore a look of intrigue and wonder as much as Carmilla’s showed lust and hunger. I shrank back to the doorway myself, beckoning for Memento to follow me, but my call went unheeded.

  “Oh, what, we’re scared of a little blood now?” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “Easy for you to say,” Dahlia whined. “I’m wearing all white. You’re wearing bl—”

  Her words trailed off as Carmilla stripped her red dress to the ground, topless then but still wearing a pair of lacy red-ribboned G-string panties that admittedly left little to the imagination. The continuous bloody downpour of rain made her moan and rub her body in feverish ecstasy.

  “Wow, okay, so—” Memento began, but she was cut short by Carmilla as the vampire grabbed her by the neck and pulled her in for a forceful kiss. To my surprise, Memento wasted almost no time in getting into it. Their hands clawed at each other, and soon Memento’s top was pulled off and at rest on the forest floor.

  “This is escalating really quickly,” I noted to Dahlia, who smirked smugly at the erotic display. I was a bit disturbed by the growing bulge in my pants. I really hoped this Bloody Mary shit didn’t awaken something in me.

  “Well, you two have fun,” Dahlia uttered with a belabored sigh. “I guess I’ll get to work on divining the source.”

  I followed her inside just as Carmilla thrust Memento, whose impressive breasts and pierced nipples were now fully on display as her back was pressed up against a tree and their frantic kissing continued. It was hard to break my stare away from that, but I knew that there’d be time for fun later—if we made it out of here.

  “Remarkable restraint you’ve shown so far,” Dahlia noted as she pulled a crystal ball out of a black satchel that rested on her chair. It glowed a faint blue as her hand waved delicately over its surface. I noticed that the palm under the ball wasn’t really making contact either. It was floating.

  “I have literally the worst case of blue balls,” I said, nodding in solemn agreement.

  Her hand rested on my thigh, and I melted at her powerful touch. “I promise I’ll take care of that as soon as we’re done here,” she said, leaning in to give me a kiss on the cheek that did little to stymie my urges. Her starlit eyes narrowed as she pulled back from the kiss, and I could tell she was having a similar internal struggle.

  “Wow, so Carmilla and Memento, huh?” I noted, craning my head to try to catch another glimpse through t
he open door. They were the last two I expected to hook up. I mostly expected it to be me with literally anyone and everyone else. I was a little bummed not to be getting action, but there was work to be done.

  Dahlia smirked and giggled in agreement. “I’ve known Carmilla and her aura long enough to know that’d happen eventually,” she admitted. “But the literal rain of blood sure helped things along.”

  I said nothing. Instead, I looked around the room, suddenly very aware of how useless I was at this point. Dahlia seemed to notice my sudden change of expression.

  “Lend me some of your power,” she said. “It’ll speed things up.”

  I grunted my willingness. “How do I do that?”

  “Just hold my hands as I cast the spell.”

  I nodded, doing as she said. I took both of her hands in mine, and the ball remained suspended in the air perfectly between us. There was the electricity that I always felt when I touched her, but beyond that, it was hard to tell if I was helping or not. She offered no additional instructions, so I decided to remain silent and wait.

  Dahlia’s lips shuddered the last words of her spell, that ugly alien tongue we all had to speak, and I could see an image take shape within the crystal sphere.

  “The latrine?” I asked. “The source is there?”

  Dahlia’s eyes were closed, but her head tilted, seeming to deny my interpretation. She said nothing, so I decided to remain silent, letting her focus. Soon enough, the crystal bore the image of some sort of underground tunnel. Dahlia’s eyes shot open, pitch-black now, rather than the starry celestial eyes I was used to.

  “Dahlia, are you okay?” I’d seen her like this before, and it wasn’t under the best circumstances.

  “Yes,” she said, her eyes returning to normal. “There’s something underground.”

  “Must be the cellar,” I said. “I’ll get the lock. I stood up to walk over to it, but she cut me off.

  “No, the wards are beyond us. I checked,” she said. “But somewhere, I sense another way into the earth.”