Dead and Horny Ch. 08

When Cyrus left his room, Amida was already up, his eyes on one of several screens.

"Master Cyrus." Amida turned in his chair. "May I get you some coffee or tea?"

"No, thanks. Have you seen Tasia?"

Amida flinched. "She is...in a poor mood this morning."

Cyrus nodded. "As she should be." After being attacked by so many of her own, Tasia had taken the escape of the succubus poorly. He wondered if she had slept a wink the entire night.

"Master Cyrus? I've been wondering something."

"Ask." He sat down on a nearby chair and looked over at Amida's files. The young mage was looking at papers about the Dragon's Seed.

"Well, I've been looking at some surveillance photos, and I wanted you to see something." Amida slid the photos from underneath his files. It was a picture of the motorcycle that was currently in the research rooms and the one they had taken from the side of the road last night. "I've looked at these several times and have come to the conclusion that they must be the same bike. Is that even possible?"

"It is." Cyrus said nothing else, curious to hear Amida's ideas without further encouragement.

"Hmm." Amida looked at the images. "Based on the temporal nature of the creature under the lake, I am wondering if perhaps the succubus was sent back in time with the motorcycle. The witch, as well."

"That's a possibility, but you should know something." Cyrus cleared his throat, then took the images from Amida. "Any trip through time is extremely destructive to organic tissue of any kind, especially one that may be caused by contact with an otherworldly being. Perhaps the succubus survived, but I sincerely doubt that the witch has. See the condition of this bike? It was embedded in the rock of the tunnel, if I'm not mistaken. The witch may be thirty feet directly below us, merged with the very earth itself. There's simply no way to know."

"Oh." Amida frowned. "I was wondering if we could try and figure out what happened to them if they had actually gone back in time to when the bike was discovered. There was a disturbance here, but everyone thought it was just extra activity from the creature in the Pit. I did some digging and found out that someone stole a car in town that very morning. It got found quite a distance away and may have been linked to another stolen car in that area."

Cyrus rubbed his eyes. "Maybe I'll take some tea after all."

Amida stood and left the room, and Cyrus sat down in the now vacant chair. If Amida was right, then the succubus had survived, and she was officially on the run.

Then again, that didn't entirely make sense, did it? If they had come for the Dragon's Seed, then why didn't she stick around and try to find it. He figured destroying the timeline wasn't beyond whatever moral code existed in a demon, so why not get the drop on the Order a week ago and raise some hell?

"Master Cyrus." Amida was back in the room, and handed over a chipped coffee mug full of tea.

"Hmm." Cyrus ran his finger along the rim of the mug. There were at least three chips missing, but none of them were sharp. "I'm not one to complain, but I'm surprised this didn't get tossed out."

Amida winced. "Actually, that was one of the only ones I could find. Tasia lost her temper in the kitchen after one of the knights called her a bitch."

"That's not appropriate behavior for either party." He looked in the cup. "Green tea?"

"It is. The knight who antagonized Tasia got his arm broken in three places by her, and suggested that the least she could do was help put away her dishes. She is still...struggling with how things went down."

"As am I." He sipped his tea and looked at Amida's paperwork. "I've been pondering your theory and have a question. You may be onto something about the succubus being caught in a time vortex, but I'm trying to make sense of why she ran away."

"I think I can tell you that." Amida moved the files around and then pulled out a slip of paper. On it was a diagram of the Dragon's Seed. "We discovered that the witch and the succubus went through the items from Unearthly Delights. I believe it's entirely possible that they know that we don't have it."

Cyrus nodded. "So, then I guess it's mission-failed for our succubus and her witch, God rest her soul."

"Well...maybe. You see, I had the same idea late last night, and started to wonder. If the succubus went back in time, why didn't we have issues tracking her earlier this week? She must have been laying low, but where?"

"That is a very good question." He was curious where Amida was going with this.

"I think she went back to Hell. It's the only explanation that makes sense. And demons hate going back to Hell. So why bother with it in the first place?" A grin broke across Amida's face. "Perhaps she's being used by a coven of witches? I even found evidence of a group of individuals on the east coast who have been under observation for quite some time. There was an old mission file regarding a knight who may have been killed by them via a succubus attack, but there was never enough evidence."

Cyrus held his hand up. "I'm familiar with that story. Anyway, go on."

"The succubus is being kept locked away until they can track down the Dragon's Seed, and then they'll send someone else out to retrieve it. But how are they going to do it? Magical means, maybe, but that can be difficult. Well, I looked into this group, and discovered that they have connections. The Order has kept tabs on them all this time, but there's never been cause to do anything about them. I believe they may be using resources similar to ours to try and find the seed."

"We haven't even found it." Cyrus frowned. "Having all the money in the world won't magically make that happen."

"While that's true, here's the thing. I figured that maybe, instead of looking for the seed, I could find signs that they were looking for it, and then follow them. Hunt the hunter, so to speak."

Cyrus saw the grin form on Amida's face. "You found something, didn't you?"

"I think so. Earlier this week, someone co-opted at least two research computers to look through images and sort through them in order to identify something that looks like this." Amida reached into his pocket and produced a piece of paper. When he unfolded it, it was identical to the other drawing. "Someone uploaded this drawing to both of them earlier this week."

Cyrus stood, nearly spilling his tea. "What else did you discover?"

"That they stopped looking a couple of days ago. So I had our team try to track down the last batch of images processed and see if we could find anything."

"And did you?"

"I think so, but it took me and some of the night crew several hours. But we have a name, which I sent it to a clairvoyant down in Mexico. She is trying to track him down as we speak. She always gets good results."

"Good." Cyrus felt a surge of pride for the young mage. "This is excellent work. I don't think even I would have come up with such an idea."

"You honor me." Amida stood just a little bit straighter.

"Any chance we tracked where that data went?"

Amida shook his head. "No. It bounced around so many servers and the trail went cold somewhere in Europe."

"No matter. Retrieving the seed is far more important." Cyrus sipped at his tea and headed for the door. "You keep working on that. I'll go break the news to Tasia, and maybe see if I can convince her to be more polite while we're here."

A wave of relief passed over Amida's face. "I would appreciate that, thank you."

Cyrus walked out into the hallway, a grin fixed on his face. If they could retrieve the seed, he was already planning on a vacation once everything was done. As he moved further along the hallway, he could hear Tasia's raised voice. She was clearly shouting at more than one person, and he took a deep breath.

"Time to calm the beast," he muttered, then went to save whoever she was yelling at. Hunting monsters was often far easier than dealing with people.

Dana let herself out in the cargo bay and immediately frowned. It was very cold and very loud. If not for Tick Tock shoving some bags aside, she would have been stuck inside for the entire flight.

They had passed through the scanners with no issue, but she froze up when she heard TSA agents doing random bag searches. Luckily, they hadn't shown any interest, so now she was just reading a book on her phone to pass the time.

It was a long flight, and by the time her phone hit ten percent battery, she turned it off and put it in her pocket. The bay was pitch black, and she had nothing to do but sit and wait, alone with her thoughts.

"This sucks," she said out loud, unafraid that she would be heard. Her legs felt itchy and she was drooling at the thought of all the men and women directly above her. In the process of sneaking her onto the plane, neither of them had considered the fact that her regeneration would trigger a powerful hunger.

To pass the time, she thought about Alex. How they had first met in the engineering program at school, how Alex had asked her out on a date. Dana had been very reserved when it came to her sexuality, but Alex had helped her to explore that part of herself and grow as a person. Every day was a new opportunity to fill herself with courage and grace, and before Alex had died, she felt like the two of them would be able to accomplish anything.

Now, though, she found herself wondering if Alex would be going through the same thing for her if she had died instead. Then again, Alex probably wouldn't have fallen into a well of depression and gotten caught up in this mess. Alex had always been the stronger one, and would have found a way to move on.

It was so hard to be abject about any of the things from her old life, because the cold logic of her dead brain struggled to grasp the nuance of emotions these days. Once she was alive again, maybe she would take a proper vacation, cry a bunch, and maybe look into therapy or something.

Thinking about Alex had bummed her out, so she turned her thoughts to the cabin. Ever since she had died, it was the first place she had felt welcome and a part of things, and she attributed all of that to Velvet and Eulalie. Would they be okay there for the rest of their lives, or would they be happier in a home with lots of other people?

She would keep her mouth shut, for now, but only because she had promised their father that she would wait. After only a week, she doubted that she should be making choices for people she barely knew. Still, she had enjoyed the sense of normalcy at the cabin, and wondered how long it would be until she went back.

In the dark, she felt the plane's descent, so crawled her way back to Tick Tock and got inside. The mimic zipped itself shut from the outside, and she was forced to resume waiting. On the odd chance that she ended up on a plane again, she would get a backup battery at the very least, and maybe download some movies.

Or maybe she would chance flying. At some point, she would have to learn better self-control, especially if she was going to be stuck this way for a long time. The Dragon Seed was the big item off her list, and she wondered if Ratu would be able to figure out an alternative for her.

After the plane landed, she waited in silence as she was unloaded and then taken to baggage claim. Relief filled her when she heard Lily's voice, and it was another forty-minute ride to the hotel. After an eternity in the dark, she heard fumbling at the zippers, and then she was blinded by light.

"Oh, good," Lily announced, helping her out of the bag. "Looks like my vibrator survived the trip."

"You'll need to put the batteries back in, first...what the hell is this?" Dana, upon sliding out of Tick Tock, looked around the room with her mouth open. It was huge with a hot tub nearby, and she could see the ocean just over the balcony.

"Oh, don't worry. Romeo can afford it." Lily walked over to the bar, which was fully stocked with booze. "It's only a couple grand a night, he'll understand."

"Where are my legs?"

"Put them out on the balcony to get some sun," Lily told her, then pointed. Out on the balcony, Dana's legs were laid out on one of the chairs, each foot in a pair of sandals. "It's like looking at the belly of a fish."

Dana groaned. "Glad to see you're in good spirits. A little help?"

Lily sighed. "Fine. I wanted to just sit and relax a bit, but no, apparently someone needs help with her legs." She retrieved them from the patio and tossed them to Dana. "Just make sure you put them in the right spot."

Once the bones were lined up, the regeneration process began and they locked into place. Lily used the spider silk thread from the sewing kit Eulalie had given them to start the long process of stitching her muscles back together, a process which took about two hours. When Lily finished, she took a step back to admire her handiwork.

"Minimal scarring, but not bad for my second surgery." She tucked the needle back into its case. "Well?"

Dana stood on wobbly legs, then flexed her calves. "Feels okay. I'm fucking starving though."

Lily kissed her, passing along a huge glob of sperm which Dana greedily sucked off her tongue. She could feel her entire body wind up like a spring as the magic was distributed throughout her limbs. When the kiss broke, Lily took a step back and wiped her mouth.

"I've really only got enough left to do that one more time, so you might want to—"

Dana leapt off the bed and tackled Lily onto the floor, then pinned her arms in place and pulled down the front of her dress to reveal her breasts. Her legs burned as if on fire, the cell regeneration speeding up, and she pulled off her top and threw it onto the ground.

"You're gonna pay for that dead weight remark," Dana said, sliding her panties to one side to reveal her labia.

Lily laughed. "Of course I am. Why do you think I said it?"

"You've got a big mouth. Now put it to use." Dana slid forward, burying Lily in her thighs. Later, once the lust had fled, they could strike out and find out more about Tristan. She had never been to Hawaii before, and wondered if they would get a chance to stick around for a little bit. But for now, her entire world was focused on the tongue greedily lapping at her inner folds, and that was going to be good enough.

When she finally came, she dug her fingernails into the bed so hard that she tore the comforter. She rolled on her back with heat flooding through her body, and Lily sat up, licking her lips.

"Way better than the pretzels they gave me," she said, then used her thumb to push a gob of fluid into her mouth.

Dana snorted. "Just pretzels? I figured you would have weaseled your way into first class and at least gotten a sandwich."

Lily chuckled, then walked to the corner of the room and picked up a bag that Dana hadn't noticed before. She reached inside and pulled out a bikini.

"C'mon, dead girl. Let's go work on your tan," she said, then tossed them over along with a pair of Maui Jim sunglasses. Her entire body shimmered and she was now in a red and black bikini that matched her thigh high boots. "And no arguments. C'mon, let's go."

With reluctance, Dana picked up the bikini and swallowed the lump in her throat. "I'm not much of a bikini girl, you know. And the scars will look a little—"

Lily tossed a matching sarong her way with a wink.

"I've got your back. Forever and always," she said with a smile. "That's what friends do."

Bikini season has officially begun for Dead and Horny.

Who is the mysterious Tristan? Will Lily and Dana find the Dragon Seed? Or will Cyrus beat them to it? All of these questions will be answered in the chapters ahead!

Thanks again for reading, don't forget to rate, comment, or send me a note. I can't respond to all of them, but I do actually read them all!

~Annabelle Hawthorne