Dead and Horny Ch. 09

"I read the old legends, you know. There was something that dragons were constantly requesting as tribute, and once I discovered that secret, I unlocked the true magic of the pearl." Tristan smirked, his hand now crushing Lily's windpipe. "Eating my first virgin wasn't easy, but once I did, it hastened the process. I also learned that I only needed to eat their hearts, so the second one went much faster. Each one I killed added months to my development, and they became easier to acquire once I had the funding to do it. In a way, I get to have my cake and eat it, too."

"Sir, the shoot is supposed to start soon." This came from one of the guards.

Tristan nodded. "While I'm down there, toss the blonde into the ocean. The sharks will eat what's left of her." He looked at Lily. "I can sense them, you know? Just like I could sense you when you walked in. They're swirling around in the ocean, uncertain why they are drawn to this place. Maybe they can smell the blood I'm about to put in the water, but who can say?"

LIly tried to respond, but he had crushed her windpipe. The strength of his grip kept her from transforming, and those golden eyes of his had pinned her in place with some kind of magic.

He sniffed her face, then turned her head to the side. "Speaking of lunch, my next meal never made it onto her plane. Guess I'll settle for a demon and see what happens." He opened his mouth wide, and his face distorted, shifting into the fearsome maw of a crocodile.

Fire scorched Lily's features, and pain racked her body once again. She was fireproof, but the scorching heat from the dragon's maw was enough to raise blisters on her flesh. When the flames subsided, she sneered at Tristan, who had relaxed his grip on her throat.

"Is that the best you can do?" she asked him with a strained voice.

"I prefer cooking my meal before I eat it. If the heart of a virgin can bring me so much power, I wonder what the heart of a demon can do?"

She smirked at him. "Then I guess it's too bad that I've already given it to somebody else."

"We'll see about that," he replied.

When his jaws snapped together on her face, she let out a scream of rage and burst into smoke, leaving the real world and Dana behind. Her consciousness swirled around in circles as if going down a drain, and her last thoughts were that she hoped Dana would be okay.

Cyrus opened his eyes. He had been sitting in a meditative pose for some hours now, and when he unfolded his legs, he heard his knees click. Checking the time on his watch, he looked over at the double circles on the floor.

Amida was in one of them now, the young mage's face frozen in a grimace.

"Report," Cyrus commanded. The others in the room had been sitting quietly, biding their time. Since nobody had woken him, he assumed that the status of their target hadn't changed.

"The shoot ended almost an hour ago," said Amida. "It was...a little unsettling to watch."

"How so?"

"He likes to choke them," replied the older mage from earlier. She was sitting in the other circle, her eyes closed as well. "He is violent with the girls, more so than I remember from the briefings on the way here. None of them seem to mind, but some of the crew were uneasy about it."

They had all watched some of Tristan's latest videos. Part of it was basic research, but they had also watched in the hopes of discovering some type of weakness. The man's physical transformation was already happening, but Cyrus had assumed that part of that was money, a good trainer, and most likely some steroids.

However, if Tristan had figured out how to hasten the magic along, things would go sideways quickly.

"What is he doing now? Any sign of the block from earlier?"

Amida shook his head. "The block disappeared a little bit ago. If he was controlling it, it wasn't because of our presence. As for what he's doing now, he is fucking one of his co-stars."

"In the ass," the other mage added. Her cheeks were flushed once more, and Cyrus wondered if it was hard for her to watch.

"If the shoot is over, then why are they still having sex?" he asked.

"It's an after-party. The whole thing is winding down." Amida opened his eyes. "However, I think we can set up an ambush in his bedroom if we move now. His security team has moved to the lower levels to keep an eye on him, and it looks like they may be live streaming what he's doing now. They're all busy."

"Your call, master." Tasia was sitting against the edge of the door. "If he has a security team, it may be best to catch him off guard."

"Agreed." Cyrus put his hand on Amida's shoulder. "Think you can take us up to the room?"

When Amida nodded, everyone stood. Cyrus stayed behind until they were all out of the room, then followed them out. The service hallway went all along the perimeter of the building, but ultimately let them out of a nondescript door on the second floor. The mages were using magic to mask their presence, and it was easy to sneak by a couple of guards who were busy watching the show below. When they climbed the stairs to the master bedroom, Cyrus saw that Tasia was sniffing the air apprehensively.

"Problem?" he asked.

"It smells like sulfur up here," she told him. "Like the succubus."

"It could be this." Another knight knelt down by a large scorch mark on the tile floor. It outlined the torso of a person, and Cyrus crouched down to inspect it. The stink was particularly bad here, and he wiped his hand on the soot and gave it a sniff.

"It's this," he declared, then stood back up. "Spread out. He may come up here with his men and I want this to be a clean extraction. Amida, have the mages seal the room once he's alone so that we don't have any surprise guests. Tasia, you're on point, exterminate the subject with extreme prejudice. If this was Tristan's doing, his transformation has begun. Also, fire wards, everyone."

Everyone nodded, and the mages took turns casting their spells. Cyrus found that he and most of the others could easily stand behind the pillars on the deck, allowing him a wonderful view of the night sky as stars hovered over the ocean horizon, swallowed up briefly by the passage of cargo ships. Tristan had left the door to the patio open, which meant they would easily be able to hear him come up.

The Order took their positions and waited. What Cyrus hoped wouldn't be too long turned into an hour, and he briefly worried that Tristan might have decided to go out once he was done, maybe bounce from party to party. He had no idea what night life was like on the island, but the thought of hours spent outside in the dark wasn't too appealing.

It must have been closing in on midnight when he heard the faint footsteps of a small group ascending the steps of the Black Palace. The others tensed up, ready to move at his signal. He closed his eyes and unhinged his spirit, then stepped sideways as if unfolding himself. His astral arm and foot were still connected to his body, which meant nothing would be able to wander in, but now he was able to look into the room of Tristan Edge unhindered, for a few minutes anyway.

Tristan was looking at something on a laptop that had been given to him by one of his men, and his features were all twisted up. There were seven men with him right now, all of them armed.

"I say we move on the caldera tomorrow," Tristan told the man closest to him, then folded up the laptop. "Now that we've located the spot, we have no reason to wait."

"I do want to remind you that the land is privately owned," replied laptop guy. "Your last bid on the land was ignored, and it sounds like the new owner has no desire to sell."

"Yeah, well, he's just some asshole on the mainland." Tristan unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it onto a nearby chair. "Even if he finds out, it isn't like he's going to teleport out here when we go in."

The men looked at each other nervously, then laptop guy spoke up. "I say this with all respect—what if he can?"

There was a moment of tension, and then Tristan laughed, causing his men to relax.

"Well, now that would be something. I doubt it, though. Our research says that he's a nobody, just some webmaster who came into a bunch of cash. I doubt he even knows what he has out here, and if he did, he would have come long ago." Tristan slid out of his pants and stood naked in front of everyone. "But even if he does, that's what I have you for, right?"

They all nodded their assent, and Tristan dismissed them. As they disappeared down the stairs, he did a few stretches, then turned toward the patio.

"You have my attention," he called out. "May as well get a good look at what I'm dealing with."

Cyrus snapped back into his body and signaled to the others to stay put. When he stepped into the light of the bedroom, he made sure his hands were up.

"It's just me," he said.

"It isn't." Tristan sniffed the air. "There are ten of you, and you stink of magic and desperation. But mostly magic. C'mon now, let's get it all out in the open."

One by one, the members of the Order appeared, wands and swords drawn. Tristan appraised them all with a large grin on his face.

"I've been dying to know who you were. I sensed you downstairs shortly after you broke in. You can't concentrate magic like that and expect to go unnoticed." Tristan walked toward a desk by one of the windows where a pitcher of water was. He knelt down to a minifridge beneath it and pulled out a glass with some ice cubes in it, then poured himself some water.

"If you knew we were here, then why did you get naked?" Amida asked.

"Didn't want blood on my shirt. Just because I have money doesn't mean I want to spend it needlessly." Tristan drained the glass and refilled it. "I assume you're here for the pearl?"

"We are." Cyrus slid his hands into his pockets and drew a wand with each.

"And you're probably going to kill me for it?"

"Undoubtedly," Tasia replied, holding her sword steady.

"Well then, let's get to it." Tristan drained his glass once more and set it down, then stretched, revealing bands of solid muscle that ran the lengths of his body.

Cyrus and Amida activated their wards, sealing off the stairwell so that Tristan's guards couldn't help him. Tasia and the other knights ran forward, and the room filled with the glow of spells being readied.

Tristan's eyes turned golden and he smiled. "Defend me," he commanded.

Tasia, who was the closest to him, spun around and sliced through the exposed belly of the knight immediately behind her. Another female knight turned to attack the nearest mage, who blasted his compatriot with lightning before she could spear him. This mage was in turn attacked by the older woman who had kept blushing in the circle, and Cyrus immediately recognized what had happened.

"They're enthralled!" he shouted, then raised both his wands. A beam of green light swept across the room, blasting some of the others off their feet, but Tasia ducked beneath it and came charging straight at him. Amida froze the floor, causing Tasia to slip and fall to the ground. Then, he was knocked off his feet by a stray blast of lightning. The magic barriers that protected them were quickly smashed away, and Cyrus threw a glass bead at the floor that obscured the room in a thick fog.

"Ah, women. So eager to obey." Tristan's smoldering eyes glowed in the fog, and Cyrus pulled a different wand out of his pocket and sent a beam of light toward them. Someone cried out in agony, and Tristan's eyes disappeared.

"Amida!" In the cacophony of the attack, Cyrus had lost track of everyone, so he crouched down and started walking backward. He bumped against the glass of the window and turned around to look outside. The ocean lay down below, and he swore he could see dark shapes swirling about.

Tristan's abilities were far above what they should have been. He was easily decades ahead, which meant that the lore had been wrong. Bad information was the number one cause of death for the Order, and Cyrus was about to become another statistic unless he thought of something fast.

A shadow moved toward him from the fog, and Amida appeared. He put a finger to his lips and turned back toward the fog. Through it, Cyrus heard a few loud crunches and a few muffled cries for help as they were hunted. The fog was dispersing through the open door of the balcony, and he felt his stomach drop when he saw that Tasia was the only one left standing. She was behind Tristan, her own eyes glowing gold like his.

"An interesting gift you've given me," Tristan said as he moved toward Amida and Cyrus. "This one is by far the strongest, it's taking most of my concentration just to keep her under my control. But don't worry, I'll break her down over time."

"Tasia!" Amida called out to his partner. "You can fight him, you can win!"

"She really can't." Tristan's face deformed, and his grin now stretched from ear to ear. "And there's nothing you can do to save her." He opened his mouth wide and took a deep breath as a ball of fire formed in the back of his throat.

When the jet of flame came out of his mouth, Amida jumped in front of Cyrus and raised his arms in defense. A golden shield of magic swirled in front of him, pushing back the flames, but dragon fire burned hot and hard. Even Cyrus could feel the heat of the assault and knew that Amida's shield would only hold out for so long. He looked back over his shoulder and saw that the glass of the window was starting to melt.

"Master, go!" Amida's hair was burning now, and Cyrus knew that there were only seconds left. He grabbed his apprentice by the collar of his shirt and threw himself back, the molten glass glowing hot against his own magic shield. Instead of breaking, the glass continued to stretch, and Amida let out a scream of agony moments before they fell through.

The fall was almost a hundred feet, and Cyrus stuck a hand in his pocket and slid his finger into a ring that he kept there. His descent slowed and he held tight to Amida, but ended up swinging around violently as the man fell past him. He caught a flash of charred flesh and skull before the spinning motion whipped him back around so that all he could see was open sky.

The power of the ring could only support the weight of one man, so when the two of them hit the water below, it was hard enough that the air was knocked out of him. He let go of Amida and fought the darkness that crept in on the edge of his vision. Dark shapes swirled about him in the water, and he fought to grab hold of Amida once more. He grabbed hold of Amida's hand and tried to pull him toward the surface, but Amida yanked the hand away.

No, that wasn't right. Something had grabbed Amida and was pulling him away. Amida's pale features receded into the inky black, and something tried to take a bite out of Cyrus, but got a flash of magic instead.

He had failed them. His thoughts were beginning to slow as he fought for the surface, desperate to feel the cool touch of air on his fingertips, but the lights up above were always just out of reach. He had walked into that place with nine of his best, and they had been annihilated by the first dragon-human hybrid to walk the earth in decades, maybe even centuries.

Something else knocked him sideways, then dragged him down. The shadows around him were attacking now, and once he lost consciousness, they would have him. He caught a flash of teeth followed by a dorsal fin and gritted his teeth.

Fucking sharks, he thought, trying to dig through his pockets. His thoughts were like whirlpools, slipping through the cracks of his mind as he tried to find the lava rock in his pocket that would let him breath underwater. It was standard issue for missions in Hawaii, and just as he pulled it free, a shark ran into him, causing him to drop it. They were steadily moving him deeper now, away from the surface.

This was it. A dull roar filled his ears as he contemplated the end, and wondered if he had earned himself a place in Heaven, Hell, or maybe somewhere in between. The sharks scattered, giving him just a little bit of time to process his own demise.

A pale figure moved toward him beneath the water, and if he had had the energy, he would have pumped his fist. It was one of the mermaids! She slid her arms around him and pressed her lips to his and blew. The air that filled his lungs tasted awful, but he imagined it was due to an all fish diet. She swam him toward the surface, and when they broke the water, he saw well over a dozen fins circling him.

"You saved my life, thank you so much," he told her, but she said nothing. Instead, she swam on her back, both of her arms slid under his and clutching his belly. All he could see was the night sky once again, but he was grateful for it. "I thought I was a goner."

The mermaid paused for a second and then used one of her hands to tilt his face back. "Ah, shit," she muttered, but kept swimming. Eventually, they made it to a spot on the rocks where he was able to climb up. It was rough, and he nearly stabbed himself on a black urchin, but he was finally out of the water.

He heard a loud splash and looked up to see that his savior had pulled herself free of the water. What little light from above illuminated her pale face, and he saw that instead of fins, she had a pair of very human legs. One of them hung at an odd angle, and she was covered in scars.

Between the darkness and her wet hair, he didn't recognize her immediately, but when it came, he reached into his pockets, frantically trying to grab one of his wands. The fact that she was here was impossible, but impossible no longer mattered. If she was here, the demon wouldn't be too far behind.

She saw him fumbling about and grabbed something on the nearby rocks and threw it at him. He turned his head away and felt something enormous crash against him. When he turned back to look, he saw that he was pinned beneath a large, iron chair with over a dozen legs. Several of them had wrapped around his hands, pinning them to the rocks. Over the crash of the waves, he stared in wonder as she hobbled off to his side and fell down next to the corpse of Amida. The man was missing one of his arms, and the top of his face had been scorched away.

Seeing what he was looking at, she turned Amida's head to face away from Cyrus.

"I suppose you're going to kill me." He had literally gone from the frying pan into the fire, and without his wands, he was currently helpless.

"If I had wanted you dead, I would have let the sharks have you. But I'll admit that I probably would have thought twice if I had known it was you." She sat down on the rocks and he saw that one of her legs was twisted inward, and there was a bulge by her hip. "Your friend wasn't so lucky, but I think he was dead when he hit the water. I tried to save him first, but..." she shrugged.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Same as you, I bet. I got tossed over the rail hours ago and think I dislocated something. Can't really walk on it, and it looks pretty gross." She poked at the lump on her hip. "I don't suppose you've seen my succubus, have you? She's usually the one to put me back together."

This was the woman who had lost an arm and put it back on, then been eaten by an elder god. She had fallen over a hundred feet into the ocean, dislocated a leg, fought off sharks and now spoke with him as if it was no big deal.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked. "What the hell are you? Why didn't the sharks attack you?"

She looked up at the stars. For a couple of minutes, she was silent, then nodded as if making a decision. When she looked back at him again, he couldn't help but notice that her eyes were flat and lifeless in the evening light.

"My name is Dana," she told him. "And let's just say that what I am is complicated."