Font of Fertility Ch. 19

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All Characters are 18 years or older.

This story is a continuation of the Font of Fertility series. I would suggest reading Chapter 1 if you have not already. This chapter includes lots of magic shit.

Jeremiah and Lauren go to the Council of Threes.

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The breakfast table was full, and everyone was jamming down cereal, eggs and toast at an alarming rate.

Lauren and I were the ones who needed to go, but everyone else was helping Stacey clean up all traces of the party before my parents got home. Jay had ended up crashing with Clarissa in my room - I still wasn't sure how I felt about the fact that he'd had sex on my bed. Clarissa was a sweet girl with a bit of a funny accent that poked its head up when she said words like 'about' and it came out sounding like 'aboat' when she was talking fast. She really was from Alberta, she really did live on a farm, and she really did like Jay.

Jordan was eating with us, talking and joking with Stacey when she wasn't eating or rubbing my leg lightly under the table. She was dressed in a loose tank top under an equally loose and baggy sweater, her 'starving artist student' vibe was strong even if she wasn't starving. Another couple of Stacey's old high school friends were there, and we'd found a couple of mine and Lauren's classmates passed out down in the basement in a tangle of couch cushions and discarded clothing because someone had thought it would be fun to have sex in a pillow fort. Lauren knew them better than I did, so she wrangled them into helping clean in exchange for parental alibis if needed along with breakfast.

"OK, we need to go," Lauren announced after slurping down the last of her cereal milk straight from the bowl and standing.

"We do," I nodded in agreement. "Thank you so much you guys for helping Stacey. I hate that we need to scram like this."

"Whereare you two going in such a rush again?" Jay asked, a piece of toast half in his mouth.

"It's a secret," Lauren said. And apparently, that was enough for everyone.

I gave Jordan's leg a squeeze back under the table before standing, then gave Jay a fist bump and a promise to hang out before Clarissa went home, and hugged Stacey from behind and gave her a kiss on the cheek since there were a lot of eyes around that didn't know about us. She hugged me back from her sitting position by raising her arms up and backwards and scritched the back of my neck with her fingers as she held me for a moment. We'd already talked briefly that morning and she'd wished me luck and given me as long a kiss as she could without us getting caught in the busy house.

I followed Lauren to the front door since we had to make it look like we were actually leaving, but footsteps followed me into the hallway.

"Hey," Jordan said, grabbing my hand as I turned back to her. Then she planted a kiss on me that took me a half-second to react to before I kissed her back. "Get my number from Lauren, OK? We need to hang out for real in the next few days and talk writing."

"I'd like that," I grinned and kissed her again with a peck. "When do you leave?"

"I fly out in four days, so don't take too long," she smirked.

"He won't," Lauren said. She'd gotten her boots on and came over, taking Jordan from my arms and kissing her firmly herself. "Last night was a lot of fun."

"It was," Jordan chuckled. "And you're pretty good with your 'tools' for a newbie."

Lauren blushed a little as she grinned. Jordan was clearly using coded language for the fact that Lauren had fucked her with a strap-on last night. "Thanks," she said. "See you around?"

"Definitely," Jordan nodded.

I'd gotten my own boots and coat on and now I leaned in and kissed the redhead goodbye one more time quickly before Lauren and I went out the door.

"Concubine number six?" Lauren asked me with a teasing smile.

"There's only four of you right now," I pointed out, avoiding the question.

"We're talking with Angie tonight. You really think she's going to say no?"

"Jordan is going to school multiple states away," I countered as we got into Lauren's car.

"You can teleport anywhere you want," Lauren shot back.

"Not that she knows," I said. "Which brings up an important question - how much are we telling Angie? Because she already knows about the multiple relationships, but she doesn't know about the literal Harem part or the really big elephant in the room that is Magic."

"I think that's your decision, babe," Lauren said as she started the car and pulled out of the driveway. "But if she's in, I think she needs to be in. If we need to have a Concubines Only chat and a 'Concubines who know about Magic' chat, things are going to get messy really quick."

I sighed. "You're right, but what if that's the thing that breaks it?" I asked. "What if she can handle poly stuff, and the weirdness of Stacey and I being raised together, and the weirdness of you and Lindsey, but not that."

"Jerry," Lauren said, reaching over and taking my hand. "Seriously. You're overthinking it. And you're doing it because you're nervous about what comes next."

"Well, obviously," I sighed.

Lauren pulled into a strip mall parking lot. The stores were closed for the day since it was New Year's, so we had the place to ourselves. "You ready?" she asked.

"As I can be," I said. "You?"

She nodded. "I love you, and anything you decide I'm behind you 100 per cent."

"I love you too," I said, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. "Thanks for everything."

"Last night was fun," Lauren smirked.

"I meant everything," I said. "Everything in the last few weeks, and everything before that too. You know Aidra thought about getting with me back in the 10th grade but she knew you and I were supposed to be together so she didn't?"

"Really?" Lauren asked with her eyebrows raised. "She didn't say anything to me."

"I think we owe her one," I said. "I hate to think what would have happened if I didn't have you."

Lauren beamed and leaned over to kiss me, and then she turned off the car. "So how do we do this?" she asked.

"I think I'm starting to understand what it's like for a proclamation to go out," I said. "I didn't hear it in my head or anything, I just know what to do when I feel that tug."

Lauren nodded. "OK. So let's do this."

"See you on the other side," I said.

"Love you, dorkus," Lauren grinned.

I closed my eyes and focused on the Summons as I gripped Lauren's hand, and everything went white.

* * * * *

The chamber was massive and went on for years. That wasn't a measurement that made any sense to my brain, but I somehow understood how it was a reality. We weren't inside a physical space, or at a specific moment of Now. This place, the Council chamber, sat somewhere... Else. Somewhen else.

Somehow else.

So the chamber went on for years, and it dissolved into a darkness that faded into walls of foggy light at the far edges. There was no sky and was instead topped by a vaulted ceiling of immense intricacy that looked like the vaults had vaults, which had vaults of their own. It was a web of construction that formed intricate patterns I immediately recognized as likely being, or at least hiding, runes in its construction. But the complication of it all made me wonder if even Lindsey could begin to discern anything useful out of looking up at it.

We didn't step out of a doorway like when I teleportaled - instead Lauren and I just sort of... started existing in the space. There was no fanfare, no puff of smoke. We justwere.

I squeezed Lauren's hand as we looked around. The space was empty except for nine sets of stone chairs. Each set was organized with two lower seats and one higher one behind. They were in a perfect circle, all equidistant from the centre and their neighbours, and I could feel the pull of the summons in my chest calling me towards one of the seats.

"This one," I said, gesturing to it.

"How do you know that's not someone else's?" Lauren asked.

"I just do," I shrugged. "I am a Seat, after all. I think I'd know where I'm supposed to sit."

"Lame, Jerry," Lauren smirked as she shook her head.

The floor, if you could call it that, was made of nothing. No brick or dirt or concrete. It just sort of was, and walking on it felt like I was stepping through a puddle.

"Hello, Jeremiah Grant," Adama said, making Lauren and I jump as she appeared behind us. "Welcome to the Council."

We both turned to look and Adama seemed the same as she always did, though she was smiling serenely like the cat that ate the canary.

"No one else is here?" I asked. We hadn't waited too long into our hour-long timeline for the summons, but we weren't exactly early.

"No, but they will be shortly," Adama said. "The Council Chamber works through ancient traditions - for a regularly scheduled meeting like this, the youngest of the Seats always arrives first, then the next youngest, and so on allowing the Eldest to arrive last."

"When do they show up?" Lauren asked.

"Once we take our seats," Adama gestured towards the same stone thrones that I had indicated. "Each Seat sits on the right, and their Prime sits on the left, while I and Patrons like me sit behind and bear witness to the proceedings and offer advice as required."

"I'm just happy Lauren doesn't have to jerk me off to have you here with us," I said.

"Are you saying I give bad handjobs?" Lauren asked.

"What? No, that's not-"

Lauren broke into a grin. "Babe, you really need to be a little less gullible right now."

"Shit," I laughed. "Now isn't the time, Laur."

"For jokes or a handjob?" she smiled, reaching towards my fly like she was happy to whip me out right there.

"Both," I said, catching her hands and pulling her close as she grinned playfully and then kissed me.

"Well, if we're not having fun with this, I think we should sit down," Lauren suggested.

"Don't tempt me," I said.

We went over to our seats and as I slid onto the right-hand throne it felt cool to the touch even through my clothes. Lauren sat next to me, reaching over the wide armrests to grab my hand again.

Adama perched above us on the smaller, higher throne and then cleared her throat before calling out in a booming voice, "Jeremiah Arthur Grant, Fifth Seat of the Council of Threes, Lord-Sorcerer of the Great Order of Fertility Shamans, sits in attendance by the will of the Mother."

"Lord-Sorcerer?" I asked.

"It's the honorary title of the Fifth seat," Adama explained, dropping her announcer voice to a regular volume.

The next Seat became. She didn't enter the space in any discernible way, and it happened without any sort of warning. One moment it was just Adama, Lauren and I, and the next I was entirely aware of another person havingbecome in the space.

She was imposing, but not because of any sort of strange size or anything. She was, physically, built a little like Lauren was in terms of being athletically fit without being big or muscled. At the moment that's where the comparisons between Lauren and her ended though because the first thing I saw was that this woman was daubed in the face paint of a decorative skull - highly detailed and decorated with gemstones, but clearly a skull. She had withered flowers in a crown on her head over a messy, roughly-dyed pink mane of jaw-length hair. She wore a slimming black corset ribbed with white rib bones and a long, flowing skirt of gauzy black that looked more like mist than it did cloth. She was barefoot and wore beaded jewellery on each ankle, her feet were caked in dried mud, and her arms were covered in intricate tattoos from her bare clavicle and shoulders down to her fingertips. Her wrists and hands jangled with an eclectic mass of bracelets and rings. In one hand she held a skull by its eyesockets, a metal conquistador helmet seemingly attached to its top.

The woman looked at Lauren and I, and the skull facepaint turned her smile sinister. "Hello, Jeremiah Grant," she said, the tone of her voice full and bearing a Spanish accent. She stepped towards us, her black-mist skirt seeming to cling to the ground and pull away behind her before dissipating, but also never leaving her legs bare.

"Hello," I said, eyeing this... person up and down. I'd had two encounters with Seats so far, both anonymous; one had sent me a warning basically not to trust anyone including them, and the other in the fight over George Stoker. This woman could be either of them. "This is my Prime-"

"Lauren Baxley," the woman said with a broad grin, looking at Lauren. "Yes, I know. Society couldn't get enough of you in those first few days before your Seat realized the need to protect your image."

Lauren flushed a little. "Well, a little attention never killed anyone."

The woman barked a laugh and then snickered lightly as she shook her head. "Perhaps not," she said.

"And your name?" I asked.

The woman raised an eyebrow and turned on her heel, padding on her bare feet over to a set of thrones across the circle from me. I felt... awkward, noticing that she had a pretty nice butt under that misty skirt.

First, she set the skull she was carrying down on the seat for her Prime and it began to raise up and float, the faint outline of a man taking form around it. The Seat wasn't done with her oddities yet and she seemed to open her mouth wide, her jaw unhinging like a snake, as she reached inside herself and then pulled a grotesque, amorphous thing out of her mouth and tossed it up onto her Patron seat. It landed without a sound and slowly bubbled and jostled and congealed into a vaguely humanoid form that phased in and out of existence.

Then the woman sat in her seat, and her set of thrones changed - or, maybe they had always been that way and I just hadn't noticed. But that didn't make sense.

As she sat, her throne became reminiscent of an ancient stepped pyramid, with black-leaved plants and grasses sprouting up from the corners while a dark liquid began to flow like a waterfall down from the Patron's throne in sluices built into the pyramid seat, all pouring to pool at the feet of the woman, and I realized it wasn't mud on her feet but old, dry blood.

"Esmerelda Romero, First Seat of the Council of Threes, Lady of the Dead City, Saint of the Lost Peoples, Daughter of the Blood Rite of Death's Dominion, sits in attendance by the inevitability of their will." The Patron, whatever it was, spoke with a clear voice that sounded like something crossed between a bullfrog and the growl of a motorcycle.

Esmerelda, for her part, leaned over and whispered something to the ghost-skull-thing that was her Prime but didn't take her eyes off of Lauren and I.

"Adama?" I muttered. "Want to explain what I'm seeing?"

"Esmerelda's Prime is her deceased father," Adama said quietly. "All Death Seats ascend when their Prime dies, always by unnatural causes. Her Patron is Gragfasnbinn, whose form is that of a poltergeist."

"Great," Lauren said. "A hot necromancy ghost lady."

"Really?" I asked. "Hot?"

"You see those tits in that corset?" Lauren asked.

I had, but I wasn't going to say it.

We didn't have time to say anything more as another Seatbecame.

He was short and somewhat squat and walked with an odd gait. He wore intricate leather armour that would have been better suited to a video game than seeing it in real life, including a wide-brimmed helmet with a chain-link neck guard, embossed pauldrons and an array of blades sheathed on his hips, along with a revolver in a holster. Unlike his armour, he also wore sleek snakeskin cowboy boots with spurs jingling as he shifted. He was vaguely Asian in heritage, though he had such a bushy beard it was hard to see all that much between it and the helmet.

In contrast to the squat warrior, his Prime was stunning. She was tall, also of vaguely Asian descent, and curvy in a way that spoke of child-bearing hips and life-sustaining tits. She was also flawless, her skin smooth like silk and her long black hair hanging loose and shimmering almost down to her ankles. She was dressed in a sleek and sexy modern ballgown that showed off a swathe of her impressive cleavage.

"Ah, the fresh meat is here at last!" the man said, his accent strangely off to my ears in a way that I couldn't place. He immediately started strutting towards Lauren and I, eyeing us up and down. "Stand up, boy. Stand up. Let's see what you've done with yourself."

I glanced at Lauren, and she shrugged slightly.

"Good to meet you," I said, standing up and offering him my hand. "I'm Jeremiah."

"Temüjin greets you," the woman said with a soft smile and a nod.

"Is that...?" I asked, glancing between the two of them.

"It's me," the man said. "What, you think I would be attached at the hip with a woman who speaks in the third person?"

"I, uh-" I stammered.

"Hmm, slow to gain powerand slow to pick up on things," Temüjin muttered. Then he turned and eyed Lauren. "You are exquisite, however." He looked back at me. "I would have her. You may take a turn at mine if you think yourself man enough while I have my way with yours."

"Excuse me?" Lauren said.

"Stop," I growled, taking a half-step to put myself partially in front of Lauren and glaring down at the shorter man. "If you ever speak like that towards anyone associated with me, I will not hesitate to reprimand you."

"Reprimand, he says," Temüjin sighed, looking at his own Prime. "At least he hassome balls to stand up for what he wants." He turned back to me. "Your jealousy is noted, boy. If you think you could stop me, you have things to learn, but I will respect a fellow Seat. You have a long way to come though - by your age, I was already raising empires. My descendants number in the millions. You are too soft. Too emotional. I can see it written on your face."

He turned and stalked towards a set of thrones spaced two down from me.

"I am Khaltmaa," the woman smiled softly, her beauty like a radiance compared to the roughness of her Seat. "It is wonderful to meet you. Please forgive Temüjin, he was good friends with Ezekiel and has missed him sorely these last eighteen years. I am sure he will regret this first meeting and come around. He always does."

"You are absolutely lovely," Lauren said, standing and offering her hand to Khaltmaa. "I'm Lauren."

"It is nice to meet you," Khaltmaa said. "Do you do the Facebook? We should stay in touch."

"I have it," Lauren nodded. "Let's just trade numbers and we can figure it out from there."

I just shook my head as Lauren traded contact info with the gorgeous, busty woman and then sat back down and grinned at me. I could see the wheels in her head turning - she thought Khaltmaa was beautiful and sweet, and wanted me to have sex with her.

There was no fucking way that was going to happen, no matter how hot the lady was.

When Khaltmaa joined Temüjin at their thrones there was a thrumming sound of cantering hooves and then a goddamn centaur apparated in the middle of the circle. He was big, probably as big as the largest of horses, with a human portion to match. and shaggy with thick body hair and a long trail of hair in a mohawk on his oddly bestial-but-human head. He was also very obviously male what with the giant horse cock hanging out below him.

He jumped over Temüjin and Khaltmaa, landing perfectly on his throne, and the three seats suddenlywere a wooden construction of elaborately carved thrones. Each piece of wood was dark and polished smooth, carved into the likenesses of couples having sex. Shields hung over the heads of both Temüjin and Khaltmaa bearing strange sigils I didn't recognize, torches casting their fiery light down onto the pair, and plains grasses sprouted around them.