Dead and Horny Ch. 10

On that account, Cyrus had to agree. But now another realization had sunk in, and he had to know.

"If you're dead, then what are you?" he asked. "Or, rather, what sustains you?"

Dana frowned. "Technically, I'm supposed to eat the flesh of the living. But we found a way around it. I don't want to be a killer."

"Dana, are you a...a zombie?"

Her silence was deafening, and when she nodded, he felt his stomach drop. She was a category of being that required immediate extermination, and if his hands were free, he would have already done so.

"You don't need to worry about it," she told him. "I'm not going to eat you. In fact, I haven't eaten anybody yet."

"But you will," he warned her. He had never heard of a zombie with retained intelligence. No matter how strong her mind was, he knew that once her instincts kicked in, she would become nothing more than a feral being who consumed all within her reach.

"And that's why we need that stupid necklace," she told him, then shifted on the rocks so that she was closer to him. "I'm not a normal zombie, if such a thing exists. If I die, my soul is stuck here, in whatever is left of my corpse. Trust me, if a bullet to the head would have done the trick, I would have done it and moved on already. In fact, one of your guys did put a bullet in my head. I have a pretty good appreciation now of what insanity feels like, all your thoughts flitting around like a swarm of angry bees." She shuddered.

He didn't know what to think at this news, but Dana was perhaps a bigger danger than what he had encountered in the Black Palace.

"He eats virgins," she said, out of the blue, then pointed up. "Tristan. That's how he became a dragon so fast."

"Makes sense." Cyrus had no idea what he was going to do with that bit of information, but a bunch of pieces of the puzzle clicked into place for him. "Dragons covet wealth. In a way, purity is considered equally as valuable as gold. It's why dragons of old would request virgins, it's the symbolism. Out of curiosity, did he try to control you?"

Now Dana looked puzzled. "I don't think so. He told me to do something, and when I ignored him, he had me offed."

Cyrus nodded. "Dragons are like any other creature. Magic or not, there's always change over time, a type of evolution. Dragons can make huge evolutionary leaps from one generation to the next, and being able to command a woman who is about to be your next meal was a survival mechanism. It's how we were taken out, actually. He commanded the women in my team to attack the men, and our strongest fighter happens to be female."

"Why would dragons be afraid of women?"

"Not regular women. Witches, warriors, anyone who could fight. It's how we, the Order, used to take them out once upon a time. Send in a qualified wizard or knight as the virgin sacrifice and then kill them when they got close. Dragons have the ability to use magic, so the few malicious ones that had command of magic quickly adapted and passed it onto their young."

"Makes sense. Yeah, his magic didn't work on me, and it really didn't work on Lily. He actually breathed fire on her, and she disappeared. I'm kind of worried."

"Your succubus will be fine. Dragon fire may be hot, but hellfire is hotter still." His problems were currently magnified, but he now saw opportunity. If Dana was immune to Tristan's magic, maybe he could work out a temporary arrangement. "I assume she'll be back when her body puts itself together. Demons are fallen angels, after all. But now I wonder if maybe we can't help each other."

She looked at him and frowned. "It sounds good in theory. I think we both want to get the necklace away from that asshole, but we're never going to agree on what to do with it. I'm also aware that you are carrying weapons on you, I can smell the magic coming out of your pockets."

"It's true, I am armed. And yes, you're right in that I expect the necklace to come with me when we're done." He grunted in frustration. She wasn't wrong in the fact that he would take a shot at getting rid of her as soon as things were over. He couldn't allow her to continue living as she had, but he definitely couldn't go into the house, rescue Tasia, and take down Tristan on his own. "What if...So I know a spell I can cast, a binding spell. It would keep us from harming each other until sundown tomorrow. That way, you know I won't stab you in the back, and once we've taken down Tristan, we can argue over the necklace with plenty of time before the spell ends."

Dana turned her head toward the water, as if in contemplation. He hoped it wouldn't occur to her that any spell he cast wouldn't apply to Tasia herself, who would be happy to finish the job for him. He turned his gaze toward the building above, suddenly worried about his subordinate. She was easily one of the strongest knights the Order had produced in a generation, and he really hoped she would be able to come out of this ordeal intact.

"Let's wait for Lily, but then you've got a deal." She stood on the rocks and limped toward a crevice that was invisible in the shadows, then wedged her leg in it.

"Oh, please tell you aren't going to—" he winced when she twisted around and let out a loud grunt, then pulled herself across the rocks. There was a scraping noise, followed by a loud pop, and Dana let out a moan and pulled her leg free.

"That's disgusting," he muttered in horror.

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry. I didn't know my dislocated leg made you so uncomfortable." She was walking around now, then did a couple of stretches. "Before Lily gets back, do you have any plans for how to get back in and take him down?"

Cyrus grimaced, then looked up at the home above them. He had more than a couple of ideas, but all of them hinged on being able to separate Tasia from Tristan. "It'll have to be before morning. He's leaving to check something out, and I'm hoping his militia's guard will be down."

"That all depends on Lily. I'm not going back up there without her."

He nodded. Truth be told, he felt exactly the same way. His main concern was that the succubus wouldn't be so forgiving in his presence, and the thought of having his soul eternally damned truly frightened him. He had seen so many things in his life, saved so many lives, that he felt that he deserved at least the illusion of a peaceful afterlife, not whatever hellscape awaited those that the demon consumed.

His attention fell back on Amida, and he fought back the sadness that threatened to overwhelm him. So much potential, gone in the blink of an eye. His entire team had been wiped out by a creature that would have challenged a hardened team.

He felt a bulk of their loss directly on his shoulders. There were plenty of reasons that he couldn't have foreseen just how far Tristan's metamorphosis had carried him, but he also saw plenty of room for improvement. His interactions each time with the succubus had been the same way, all of them ending in failure as well. As he lay on the hard rocks, pinned in place by a mimic, it occurred to him that maybe he had lost his touch.

It had been a long time since a mission had gone sideways like this. The last one he remembered was back in the seventies, a hunt that had ended in the death of his partner, the knight Jeffrey. While still considered a success, he had learned an overabundance of caution from the experience. His future missions were even more meticulous, and he had quickly climbed the ranks inside the Order as a result.

But now? He felt as though he had stepped completely out of his depth. It had been years since he had run into such difficulties, and now he wondered if, perhaps, this should be his last mission. After losing an entire squadron of young mages and knights to a bloodthirsty dragon that commanded his own armed militia, nobody would blame him. He would still be held in high regard for his many years of service and allowed to retire to the location of his choice with a pension that would provide for the rest of his life.

A sigh escaped his lips, and he closed his eyes. He had known plenty of others just like him, working well past their prime until one final mission claimed their lives. He was clearly on the precipice of such an event, and he wondered if he would have the strength to survive and actually get to choose whether or not he was done.

Dana shifted on the rocks next to him, and he opened his eyes and watched her. It was dark enough that he couldn't see much of her face, but he noticed that she kept looking over her shoulder at Amida.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

"Just hungry." She pulled her knees up against her chest. "When I heal from injuries, I need to eat."

His heart skipped a beat, and he looked over at Amida's corpse. On the one hand, he didn't want to encourage her to partake of human flesh. On the other hand, he knew that whatever life remained in Amida's cells was fleeting compared to the hot blood that ran through his own veins.

"What happens if you don't eat?" he asked.

"I think you know." She shifted again, and he thought he heard her stomach growling over the waves. "I just need Lily to come back, she has a way to help me."

"How does she manage that?"

"Don't feel like saying. Now shut up for a bit. I can smell your breath, it's like ballpark hotdogs on a summer day." Her lips smacked together when she spoke, so Cyrus switched to breathing through his nose.

An hour passed, and Dana moved away from Cyrus and down toward the water. In the dim light, he watched her stare morosely at the water, her fingers tightly gripping the nearby rocks. The waves slapped against the rocks, and he wondered if perhaps it was still too late for a mermaid rescue.

Over the smell of salt and mist, a sulfurous stink manifested. A thick purple cloud of smoke appeared above them and slammed into the rocks, then swirled upward like a tornado, eventually twisting into the shape of a woman with large, thick horns on her head and magnificent wings spread wide behind her. Her tail whipped about as if tasting the air, and she inhaled deeply through her nose.

"Oh, that smells so good," Lily said. "The ocean air really helps to cleanse the—" she lowered her gaze and looked directly at Cyrus, her red and yellow eyes smoldering. "What the fuck is he doing here?"

"He's fine for now, can I talk to you for a second? Alone?" Dana was practically scrambling over the rocks, and Cyrus was surprised when she grabbed the succubus by the horns, dragged her to the edge of the water, and then pulled her into the ocean.

Beneath the lapping waves, Dana pulled the succubus against her body, her lips searching for Lily's. When they met, she sensed a moment of hesitation before they opened, and their tongues curled around each other. It was there that she accepted the sweet delivery of Mike's semen in her mouth, and her entire body was now ablaze with energy as her twisted limbs sought to fix themselves.

She had downplayed her injuries to Cyrus. When her body had been tossed from the Black Palace balcony to the sharks below, she had belly flopped into the water and gotten caught up in a tumbling current. It was like being stuck in a washing machine as she was repeatedly dragged over sharp rocks. The nearby sharks had fled, knowing that her meat was poison, and it wasn't until Tick Tock had yanked her free of the churning tide that she had a chance to rest and assess the damage done to her body.

How long would it have been before she had decided to eat Amida in front of Cyrus? Or worse, what if Amida hadn't hit the spot, and she had turned her hunger on the mage instead? These were both questions that she had been afraid to discover the answers to, and was grateful that Lily had reappeared when she did.

The magical heat flowing through her gut sped up the healing process throughout her body, leaving behind a fiery trail of lust that permeated her very being. It was dark beneath the water, and when the two of them bounced off the bottom, all she could see was the dark shape of the body on top of hers.

Down in the murk, the only sounds that could be heard were the lapping of the waves against the rocks and the distant hum of boat engines as the cargo ships carried off into the night. Her sense of smell was finally dulled out, and the only sense she had that was properly functioning was her sense of touch. The sand was coarse against the skin of her back, and made a scraping sound when she shifted her head against it.

Lily's eyes glowed like a pair of molten glow sticks above her. Dana had no idea what expression the succubus wore, and frankly, didn't care. At the moment she was in a hurry to get off and return to the surface to discuss the next steps in recovering the Dragon's Seed.

Delicate fingers pushed Dana's bikini top up, and a hot mouth kissed around her chilled areola, Lily's tongue suddenly rough like sandpaper. Dana moaned, letting the remaining pocket of air out of her lungs, and then inhaled seawater. Her body now felt heavy, and she bit her lip when a pair of hands pinned her wrists to the ocean floor.

The glowsticks winked at her, then vanished, leaving Dana in the dark. Her ears popped, and she wondered how deep down they were. Something was now tracing shapes along her inner thigh, and she spread her legs wide, hoping to fill the void that had opened up inside of her.

Lily must have sensed Dana's urgency, because she was suddenly flipped over onto her stomach, her ass raised in the air. When Lily's tail penetrated her from behind, she screamed soundlessly into the waves as her face was pressed into the sand. The current was still strong enough here that the two of them were rocked back and forth as Lily fucked her from behind, and she accidentally found a cluster of rocks with her outstretched hands, and held onto them for support.

Hands caressed her breasts and played with her exposed nipples, pinching and tugging them as she was filled from behind by an ever-thickening tail. With her other senses dulled, all she could concentrate on was the heat and pressure of the tail buried so deep inside her snatch that she could have sworn it was pressing out against the skin of her belly.

The pressure inside her built to a crescendo, and just as the first wave of an orgasm radiated outward through her pelvis, she felt a pair of hands grip her ass and a tongue pressed against the rim of her asshole.

Pleasure ripped through her body, and she opened her mouth to moan and accidentally got a mouthful of sand. Lily's tongue swirled around the sensitive skin of Dana's anus and then pushed inside of her, expanding like a balloon until she felt like she was overflowing. Her body couldn't decide which sensation to focus on, and the world felt like it was spinning.

This is who I am now, she thought to herself. Her mind felt detached from her body and the world moved in slow motion around her as the water leached away what little body heat she had remained. Getting fucked like an animal on the ocean floor. Typical dead girl things.

She thought back to everything that had happened since she left the Radley home, all of the people she had met and the things she had experienced. The arachne, time travel, even the times she should have died. It occurred to her now that through this entire adventure, she had been desperately clinging to the idea of trying to reclaim the person she was, to be the woman who Alex had fallen in love with. But once she was alive again, would she ever feel that way again? Was there any hope of going back to the person she had once been?

If she had been breathing air, she would have screamed for Lily to keep going. Her whole body was a raw nerve, desperate to be touched, and until she came, she was a slave to its desires. Dana felt like she was on the edge of some giant revelation, but she was also on the edge of a massive orgasm. In the brief moments of clarity, she tried to recapture her train of thought, but the fire inside of her finally blossomed, sending a supernatural heat through all of her limbs.

Beneath her fingertips, the rocks she had been holding onto crumbled, and the two of them were caught in the swirling tide, drifting further out into the darkness. Dana let the water carry her, wondering how far out to sea she could go before finding the willpower to swim toward the surface.

Luckily, Lily had kept her head, and was pulling them both up to the surface now. Dana was the very definition of dead weight, but started kicking her feet to help their ascent. When their heads finally popped above the surface of the water, Dana retched several times, successfully evacuating the water from her lungs and stomach. By the dim light, she could see Lily watching her with an arched brow.

"So that was different," commented the succubus. "Want me to tell you how I love it when you're rough?"

"Shut up, it's been a shit night," Dana replied, her voice rasping.

"So, about your new pet? We absolutely cannot keep him, and probably should have him euthanized."

"Hold up." Dana coughed violently and felt her throat properly clear. "We need him. Tristan is too strong for the two of us, and Cyrus said he would cast a spell to keep us from betraying each other."

"Hmm. Must be a linking spell. Do unto others as you would do unto yourself. I'm sure there's a catch, though."

"He's just as screwed as we are. The bitch with the sword, remember her? Apparently, she's being mind-controlled, and the rest of his people were killed."

"Boo-fucking-hoo." Lily grabbed Dana by the wrists and started kicking her feet again, towing them back to the outcropping of rocks where they had left Cyrus. "So you're saying I shouldn't kill him?"

"Not yet. He may be a threat to us, but that asshole Tristan is a threat to everybody. And if we move now, I'm all juiced up, so will be able to hold my own a bit better." Fresh from a feeding, it felt like she had lightning in her veins now.

"Hmm. Just so you know, that was the last of Mike's most recent batch. I lost some of it when I got smoked, so try not to get too fucked up, or you'll be snacking on whoever survives this part of our adventure." Lily went quiet for the rest of the swim, and a few minutes later, they pulled themselves back up onto the rocks. Cyrus was still splayed out with Tick Tock hovering above him, locking him in place.

"I don't know, I kind of like him like this," Lily said, then knelt down next to Cyrus. "He's like a bug pinned to a board. We could dissect him, or—"

"I'd like to see you try," Cyrus grumbled, but the look on his face made it obvious that he knew he wouldn't be able to fight back.

"Boss girl says you get to live. For now." Lily slapped his cheeks condescendingly. "Lucky little boy."

Cyrus' face turned red, but he remained quiet.

"Let him up, Tick Tock." Dana crawled along the rocks and watched as the mimic's limbs folded back into its body, then it laid down next to her like a giant, nonsensical spider. Cyrus sat up and moved slowly while rubbing his wrists.

"What do we do with this?" asked Lily, and Dana looked over to see that she was crouched down over Amida.

"Leave him," Cyrus said. "He's carrying some magic we can use, but I would prefer he remain unmolested."

Lily snorted, but Dana ignored her. "I'm thinking that Lily can fly us back up to the Black Palace, but then what? Should we try and land on his balcony and attack him while he's sleeping, or maybe we should try to find a different way in?" There were plenty of options available to them, but she wasn't sure which ones would be best.

Cyrus' forehead furrowed, and he moved toward Amida's corpse. He knelt over his dead friend and appeared to be saying a prayer of some kind. Lily made a face like she was going to blow a raspberry, but Dana got her attention and shook her head to let her know that now was not the time.