Lioness’ Legacy IV—Torment

by Valerie J. Long

  A butcher’s axe came down on my back and bounced off. I spun around, saw the baseball bat coming toward my face, raised my hand and just stopped it. Two claw-strikes later, they both wriggled on the asphalt, dying.

  The speaker was just getting up again. His gaze fell on the massacre around. He glanced at me, I shook my head, and he sank down into a sitting position.

  Chainsaw had reclaimed his weapon—he wasn’t smart enough to give up, and I was in no mood for discussions. I reached over the chain, squealing across my arm’s armor with a high pitch, closed my left hand around his right at the tool’s grip, my claws cutting into his fingers, pulled him close to me and cut his throat with my right.

  “Who—what are you?” the speaker uttered.

  “Velvet. Get lost!” I barked at him so fiercely that he jumped up and ran away as if hunted by a hundred hellhounds.

  Blood and blades must go.

  My nanos nicely absorbed my victims’ blood before I turned around and went to my knees before Helen and April.

  The wounds weren’t lethal, but neither were they superficial. The grains of shot had deeply penetrated their bodies, probably even hit inner organs, and both were heavily bleeding. April wheezed in pain, and Helen was quietly whimpering.

  I placed one hand on each one’s side and sent out my healing nano columns. They stopped bleedings, blocked pain signals, carried the foreign objects outside, repaired torn tissue, closed wounds, connected vessels, and then returned to me.

  The younger girls watched silently.

  The features of the two relaxed. April smiled at me. “You bring bright light to humanity’s darkest hour,” she softly declared.

  Chapter Forty

  Speaker’s chain stick served me for testing the gap in the barrier for traps, but the barrier wasn’t so sophisticated.

  Now the younger girls helped the two still-weak healed ones. Rebecca didn’t move from April’s side.

  With each step toward the bridge, their mood improved, as the day slowly became brighter around us. I still remained alert, looked back again and again, until we had passed through between the Madison Avenue Bridge’s steel beams.

  Mick waited for us on the other end. His head cocked, he watched our strange procession.

  “That’s Mick,” I told the girls. “Father sent him. He won’t do you any harm.”

  The four other Bones forgot their order to not see me.

  “What’s going on here?” one asked.

  “They are ours,” his neighbor noticed in amazement.

  “From the Bronx?”

  Mick made one step forward. “We heard shots. Is anyone injured?”

  “No more,” I replied and placed one hand on Fawn’s and Zoe’s shoulder each when the girls fearfully snuggled up to me. “The girls went through some. Can you call someone to care for them? Please, only women.”

  “Why—oh, sure.” He fetched his cell phone. “Father?”

  “Mick. Why do you call? Bad news of the white?”

  “She’s back.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “She brought seven of our girls back with her. All unhurt, including Velvet.”

  The other side remained mute.

  “Tell your Father, he was right. It’s bad in the Bronx.”

  “Mick?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “I’ll send you Mona for the girls. Then you’ll take Velvet where she wants. We have a debt of honor.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Together we watched the two Vans carrying the girls away to a quieter place.

  “Mona and Theresa will take care of the girls and notify their families,” Mick said. “Father will make sure they’re treated well.” He pointed at his head. “Such surely leaves traces.”

  “Very surely,” I agreed and thought of Dandy. “But if it doesn’t break them, it will make them stronger somehow. Even if it never lets them loose entirely.”

  “You know that?”

  “Worse.”

  “Worse than the Slicers?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Sorry.” Mick looked back to the bridge. “Luckily, they didn’t hit. Those shotguns have a terrible scatter—at least it sounded like a shotgun.”

  The girls would tell him anyway. “I’ve taken four full shots into my belly—luckily, so April and Helen only got the remainders. But nothing came through.”

  “How?”

  “That suit was expensive.”

  He looked at me questioningly. I grinned, and by and by a smile snuck on his face. “You’re prepared well.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. What can I do for you now? I’ll take you everywhere—except back to the Bronx.” He winked.

  I winked back. “Such a fight makes me terribly horny. Take me anywhere where I can find some big, hard cocks.”

  “Mmm—black cocks?”

  “Gladly.”

  “One isn’t enough for you?”

  I let my gaze rest on his crotch for a while. “No. At least a dozen—of guys who hadn’t had a woman for at least a week. I want it to spray. Big loads.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  First Mick’s eleven friends gave us somewhat indecisive glances. Mick appeared abashed.

  I shook the round table in the center of the dimly lit backroom. “Sturdy, that works. Place the chairs to the wall.”

  The table surface felt partially rough, partially sticky, partially greasy—a mixture of beer, cigarette ash, and human sweat, and all else that might stick to money and cards. Overall—it was dirty.

  The chairs were quickly removed, but the men still seemed to be unaware of what was expected from them. They needed a little encouragement. Fine. I jumped on the table and began to move around an imaginary pole.

  Good that I was so short—the ceiling wasn’t very high. It just sufficed to not hit my head against it as long as I didn’t tiptoe.

  I wanted to feel good—I let my hand wander from my shoulders across my boobs with spread fingers, then over waist and hip to my crotch. I placed my legs spread apart, went into a half-seated stance, bent forward, my butt stretched far back, my head held up. This favorably showed my female shape.

  I saw stressed trouser seams, smelled the musk, and felt the growing tension when my intentions dawned to the men.

  The nano suit ran down from my shoulders, bared my cleavage. In mocked shame, I opened my mouth to an O, placed the hands on my curves, pretended surprise when the material seemed to slip off my fingers and dropped to my hips. Oh, now my hands lay on my bare boobs! Yes, that felt gooood, and I began to stroke myself there with circling motions, pinched my hard nipples, and presented my tits to the men.

  With a cheeky sway of the hips I let the nano suit run further down. My bare ass enticed the first approving whistles, but when I bent back and let my fingers run down to my crotch to then spread my labia with both hands and bare the pink inside, they cheered.

  “Down with your pants,” I whispered. “I want to see your cocks!”

  They didn’t need to be told twice. But a few also began to massage their shafts.

  “Don’t waste your load! I want to sample your juice. No—I want it all. I’m starved, and nothing but your juice can satisfy my hunger!”

  I placed one hand over my eyes and let the outstretched other wander across the men—let it randomly stop at the man who seemed to be least able to restrain himself. “Come, ram your hard bone deep into my wet pussy! I want you to taste like me when I suck you dry to the last drop!”

  With widespread thighs, I sat down on the table edge and pulled my labia apart again. “Come and dive deep into my hot lust—and then let me taste your hardness!”

  He moaned when he penetrated deeply. Oh yes, Mick had chosen his friends well. His erection was huge!

  “Quick, pull it out!” I didn’t want him to come prematurely!

  “Next!” I called at his neighbor and pointed at my crotch. At the same time, I grabbed the first cock with my
other hand and pulled it to my lips. Ravenously, I sucked his wet shaft deep into me and licked, tasting me on his skin.

  Here it was no longer about length. I let him go a bit and sucked, licked and massaged the tip of his cock, felt his tension, and there he came with a loud moan! Twice, three times it shot out of him, and eagerly I received his gift.

  To his friends’ pleasure, I showed my booty, stuck my sperm-soaked tongue out before I joyously swallowed the load—only to then wring the rest out of his erection, to lick the last drops away.

  “So, guys. Now you know what I want. Come to me, shag me, then feed me! Come closer, I want to feel your stiff cocks!”

  Twelve men for me alone, twelve crisp asses, twelve hard, long bones, all of them eager to spill inside me—oh yes, this way I wanted it, to feel how alive I was!

  Chapter Forty-Two

  No, I wouldn’t want to have twelve limp noodles around me. “Come, and I’ll blow you up,” I teased. “I want more! Come, take me again, pump your load deep into my wet tunnel!”

  So far, I hadn’t allowed myself to come, hadn’t let my partners’ ecstasy tempt me—enjoyed the excitement and the tingle of denied relief, punished myself by non-fulfillment, no, I wasn’t allowed yet!

  But now they approached me again, their cocks proudly erect, and next, one of them penetrated my swollen lips—my tensed muscles fought back bitterly, let him fight for his conquest, then grabbed and held him firmly, massaging his pumping erection.

  “Oooh, darn, baby, you’re so tight!”

  Yes, I was tight! As tight as I wanted to be, and at the same time wet, I felt him drill deeper and deeper into me—how could so much man fit into so little woman?

  My hands clenched to the table edge to better hold my pelvis against his rhythmical pushing. My breasts, glistening with my sweat, were bobbing with the rhythm. My breath came heavily, mirrored the labor with which I answered my partner’s effort, forced him to maximum performance, and at the same rewarded him with the unprecedented intensity of our genital contact.

  If he’d thought he’d have to fight to reach a second orgasm, then I taught him better—he came soon, he came hard, he came amply, and I came with him. Finally! The relief of ecstasy—my body shook in the aftershock of fading lust, my contractions massaged my victim again, and then gave way, allowing him to slide out of me.

  While his juice ran out of my gaping cleft, I took several deep breaths. Then I smiled at the next erection.

  “More!”

  Each single act was an athletic top effort, and soon the muscles in my spread legs, my struggling arms, my clenching fingers protested. But of course, my pelvic floor muscles were the ones carrying the main burden, and suffering most from the permanent friction. After each third guy, I had to demand a quick healing from my nanos to not suffer from a bleeding crotch. It was a question of honor to give each guy the same performance, but that wasn’t the issue—after the first ultimate pleasure, I simply didn’t want to have any second-rate sex.

  I wanted to feel how alive I was, to exchange my mission’s adrenaline rush for a different, nicer inebriation, and I had achieved that.

  Now, after the second round, I felt inclined to exchange tenderness and kisses with my benefactors, to lick their greasy cocks clean and stroke their sweaty buttocks.

  “Thanks,” I whispered into Mick’s ear when it was his turn. “That’s helped me a lot.”

  “Is that your way to overcome the horror the girls had been subject to? Or the stress and fear of your fight?”

  “No, Mick. That’s my way to overcome the guilt of having killed ten people last night. No question that they didn’t deserve any better—but I still have to carry the burden of this deed, as plaintiff, judge, and executioner. That’s what comes hard to me.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  From the cover of some bushes, I watched the East River running peacefully under the Williamsburg Bridge, and on the opposite bank the industrial complex of Queens.

  After the events in the Bronx, I was somewhat afraid of another borough full of brutality and suffering. How much could I stand before breaking down? How tough was Velvet really—no, how tough was Johanna?

  It would be too easy to unload all the unpleasant experience onto the role and pretend Velvet was a different person—that would probably be the best route to a split personality. On the outside, toward others, the separation was okay. It was also good to play these roles consistently, so that I wouldn’t accidentally give myself away. In my head, however, I had to keep myself and my different faces together.

  If the proverb was true that food and drink kept body and soul together, then Mick’s hospitality had carried me quite some distance. Aside from the twelve big sperm loads, he had also served me a large breakfast and, after a restorative nap, an ample dinner on Father’s behalf. To his amazement, I had helped myself like a heavyweight wrestler and drunken coffee and beer with it accordingly.

  The battery was full, at least physically. My soul didn’t feel the same. I sighed. What would it help? Time ran away unstoppably, and I still had no real clue how to prevent the next sacrifice—except, perhaps, by stealing the designated victim? But then, they’d simply lead another poor bastard to the block.

  No, I had to go on, and part of it was my next appearance in Queens.

  I only had to swim across without being spotted by one of the numerous patrol boats.

  In the water before me, I felt a familiar presence. Then the surface split up, and a scaly head poked out. The water ran off, and the olive-brown surface was hard to recognize in the dark of night.

  “Hello, Mighty.”

  “Mistress.”

  “You arrived early.”

  “I have been regularly following your Signature. It seemed logical to expect you on this part of the banks today. The borough on the opposite bank will be the next you explore. Does that apply?”

  “Yes. I must take care to be less predictable.”

  “Do your opponents have the option of following your exact path, too?”

  “Only if I show up—but that’s exactly my plan.”

  “I do not understand. You came for exploration, Mistress.”

  “Right, Mighty. I had to change my plan. You remember our talk about the subjective perception of power by extrapolating demonstrated strength with regard to one’s own person?”

  “Yes.”

  “In this city, power is regularly demonstrated by an especially slow and agonizing killing of people.”

  “I do not understand, Mistress.”

  “There are people willing to die for a good cause—fighting, of course. But if you threaten them with a long period of pain—moreover without any chance to defend themselves—the deterrence is even greater.”

  “Including the extrapolation that the demonstrated methods are not the end yet?”

  “Yes, exactly. I’ve decided to not let another such demonstration happen.”

  “Do you have sufficient power to prevent it, Mistress?”

  “No. Not within the remaining timeframe, not alone.”

  “What will you do then?”

  “I’ll publicly demonstrate my power, thus destroying the opponent’s image of invincibility. Thereby, I also change the basis for the subjective extrapolation. As a result, the people in the city shall gather the necessary power to change their situation themselves.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “I don’t know. I must try.”

  “Is it advisable? You enter a high personal risk, which is opposed by a low benefit.”

  “Only the life of the next victim?”

  “You are valuable, Mistress. On your success, as I am learning, the fate of all people in this city depends, and not only of a single victim.”

  “I know, Achrotzyber. But that’s a weight I don’t want to accept.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  You can’t discuss under water, not even with a Dragon. I was glad about that, as my arguments’ irrational inconse
quence eluded any attempt at explanation. While my Dragon pulled me along under the patrol boats toward the East River’s Queens-side banks, I didn’t have to talk about it.

  No, I wouldn’t allow another cruel sacrifice. With regard to this, I was firmly determined not to weigh. On the other hand, I had quickly been ready to balance the lives of seven girls, who might have caused their situation by own negligence, against those of ten men who only had defended their own territory and their own rules. Was that conclusive?

  Actually, I was in no mood for such complicated philosophical thoughts now. I had a distant goal, namely relieving New York of the Syndicate, and a close goal—preventing the next sacrifice show. On the way to this goal, there would be victims—very likely numerous violent criminals, probably many innocent, perhaps the remainder of my already dented self-esteem, my—Ha!—innocence.

  My innocence—it wasn’t worth a penny. Whore, thief, murderer, that’s what little Jo had become. What should I care about it any longer?

  Achrotzyber slowed down, the bank was near—time for me to face the task at hand.

  After I had left the industrial area on the river banks behind, Queens presented itself as a peaceful collection of deserted streets and mostly no more than four-stories-high buildings. Often, you only could tell that the houses also harbored shops—closed at this time of night—when you were standing right before them.

  So this was no theater for Velvet?

  As Queens was more than four times as large as Manhattan by geographical area alone, this conclusion seemed to be premature.

  I guessed a more vital part was near Flushing Meadows and the Citi Field, around the crossing of Roosevelt Boulevard and Main Street, and wasn’t disappointed after the two-and-a-half-hour walk. Even close to midnight, the area bustled with life. Mainly young people—the girls always in company or in large groups—were on their way from one event to the next. Older couples arrived by car. Here, shops and bars could be recognized from the distance—if you could read the Chinese letters.