Font of Fertility Ch. 24

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All Characters participating in sex 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 a dinner party and a few sexy texts.

Jeremiah has a family dinner with a Seat of Death.

Returning Dramatis Personae

- Jeremiah 'Jerry' Grant - Seat of Fertility, aka. Powerful Sex Shaman

- Esmerelda - Seat of Death, aka. Powerful Death Wizard, second-youngest Seat, weirdo

- Lauren Baxley - Public girlfriend, Jerry's Prime in the magic world, closest friend and confidant

- Stacey Wilde - Girlfriend/Concubine, godchild of Jerry's parents, athletic

- Lindsey Baxley - Girlfriend/Concubine, Lauren's step-sister via marriage, girl-genius

- Annalise Stoker - Concubine, Fire Mage

- Benji - Jerry's guy friend from high school, the one with the attitude

- Jay - Jerry's best guy friend from high school

- Clarissa - Jay's Canadian girlfriend, who is a actually real

- Maya - Annalise's younger sister

Referenced Characters

- Anna 'Other Anna' - Yaroslav's Prime, magical media mogul

- Angela 'Angie' - Lindsey's friend from high school, has been dating/sleeping with Jerry

- Ezekiel - Former Seat of Fertility, his death caused Jeremiah's ascension

- Genghis Khan aka Temüjin - Seat of Fertility, aka. Powerful Sex Shaman

- Jordan - Redheaded writer friend, interested in Jerry and his Harem

- Ndia - Eldest Seat of Fertility, aka. The Most Powerful Sex Shaman

- Yaroslav - Seat of Life, aka. Powerful Experience Wizard, stoner/partier

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The dinner was going great. We'd all arrived. Esmerelda had arrived. No one had died or gotten magically blown up or anything.

That would be considered great, right?

Unfortunately, we were only about 40 seconds in, so that could change.

"If family dinner is too far out of your comfort zone, we can go," Lauren said, challenging the Death Seat a little more than I thought might be smart. She had a mask of a smile on her face, but as I glanced around I could tell that all of my girls were a little steely at the moment. Stacey was wearing an expression a lot like Lauren's, while Lindsey seemed to be assessing everything about Esmerelda all at once and filing it away in her mind.

Annalise, the only woman at the table who could potentially actuallydo anything about Esmerelda if something went wrong, looked like a statue but her eyes were wide open - her natural expression was generally with those slightly hooded eyes, her face relaxed into a 'resting bitch face,' so I could tell she was on edge.

The problem was, I felt a little on edge as well, and I wondered if maybe that was feeding into their responses. Esmerelda wasn't the other Seat who had attacked me; that was generally a settled concept. But she was a Death Seat whose power not only came from death happening near them, but she'd also acted creepy as hell at the Council Meeting. Even without her spooky clothing getup or the skull facepaint, she had an aura around her that was menacing.

"That won't be necessary," Esmerelda said as she continued standing near the door to the room. "None of you pose any serious threat. And that includes you, stud bull." She glanced at Annalise on 'none' and me at 'stud bull.'

"Join us," I said, ignoring the comment and gesturing to the seat across from me at the table. "Please."

She nodded, a slight smirk on her lips for a moment, then came around the table and passed behind Annalise before stopping at her open chair. She pulled it out and then very blatantly looked under the table, frowned, and sat.

"Something you were expecting?" I asked. "This really is just a dinner."

"I was just interested to see if you had brought a sex pet of your own to tend you during our meeting, or if you had taken one of the staff here to do it," Esmerelda said.

"That has some... disturbing connotations to it," I said slowly as I sat back down in my chair.

"To be clear, if Jerry needed some 'tending to,' one of us would be happy to do it," Lindsey said with a smirk. "Very, very happy."

I sighed but decided to ignore Lindsey's 'pro me' comment as much as I'd ignored Esmerelda's barb. "Is that something that the other seats do, or Ezekiel? That sounds pretty fucking rude to everyone involved."

Esmerelda lifted one dainty eyebrow as she leaned back and rested her folded hands on her stomach casually. "You saw Ndia at the meeting. Your kind of power is the easiest to accrue, though it comes in slightly smaller amounts than those of Life or Death because it's about an action and not a state of being. The first time I met with Ezekiel outside of a Council meeting he was balls-deep in a woman, and went through three more before our meeting ended. At least he warned me that he was in the middle of preparing for a ritual. Ndia is ploughed constantly in the real world - she's carried around on a palanquin by her harem and a new man is fucking her within moments of the last one finishing. Temüjin takes breaks to meet with Seats and for his other sport, but that's rarely. As the heir of Ezekiel, I wondered if his... proclivities had manifested in you - the other Seats have told me stories of Poi Fung, the man who occupied my Seat before me, and I see mirrors."

"Jeremiah can control himself," Stacey said, reaching over and taking my hand. "He isn't some deviant sex addict."

Esmerelda's lips flicked a quick smile and then went back into a neutral expression. "Well, you can certainly hope that he stays that way."

There was a big part of me that just sort of wanted to verbal-vomit all over the table and the room. Even with just what she'd said, I'd had six different questions come to mind of shit I felt like I should, or at least wanted, to know. I was overflowing with questions. But there was another part of me that still wasn't sure about feeling safe even admitting to not knowing some things. I didn't even know what it was dangerous for me not to know.

And this meeting, for all that it could give me information, wasn't actually about that. Information I could hopefully get elsewhere, from sources that weren't as likely to angle things the way they wanted.

I needed someone I could at least begin to trust. Going into the Council meeting, I hadn't said it to the girls but I'd hoped that there would be a natural alliance with the other Fertility Seats, but that hadn't happened. Genghis Khan had been dismissive at best, and Ndia had been willing to explain basic shit but hadn't exactly gone out of her way to be an ally. Over the last couple of days, I'd realized I couldn't trust either of them. Genghis Khan was a warlord who had conquered a swathe of the world in bloody campaigns that had never been matched - more than Alexander the Great, more than the Romans throughout their entire history. Ndia was... for all intents and purposes, Ndia was a primal, elemental being compared to me. Pre-known history. If I were Frodo, Genghis Khan was Sauron and Ndia was Morgoth, at least in terms of age. Hell, maybe they were inherently evil too. Hard to know so far.

But Esmerelda was... I didn't have a metaphor for her yet. What I did know was that, other than Yaroslav and his potentially fake 'chill vibes man' attitude, she was my best bet at finding something close to a modern contemporary. At least until that other vacant Life seat was filled - and I hadn't said it to the girls yet, but I was concerned about that, too. Another young Seat, someone unestablished and unknown to meor the rest of the Council, could cause more chaos for me and everyone else.

I needed to be ready for when that happened. And for that, I needed an ally.

"Honestly," I said, replying to her little barb. "I'm not worried about becoming some sex-numb rabbit fucking anything that moves. That's partially why I think something like this, a family dinner, is important - Lauren might be my Prime, and Lindsey, Stacey and Annalise might be my 'harem,' but I'm in love with each of them for who they are. The sex is great, butthey are more than that. And yeah, I'm showing you my weakness here, Esmerelda, because I think it's also my strength. And I'm trusting that you're at least honourable enough to appreciate my trust in you and not to leverage them against me."

Esmerelda narrowed her eyes for a moment that hung on, then pursed her lips just slightly like she'd come to some decision that was just a little more than inconsequential. But she didn't have a chance to respond as the doors to the room opened and three servers came in with our first course of Ajiaco Cubano, a Cuban chicken soup. We were all quiet as the bowls were placed neatly in front of us, my girls and I thanking the waiters quietly, and then the servers left the room.

"Jeremiah," Esmerelda said. "Who said anything about me being honourable?" Then she lunged out of her chair and grabbed my hand in hers, clutching it tightly as she dug her nails into my skin.

My vision flashed black, and then a deep blue. The blue of a night lit by a half-moon. I was surrounded by lush orchards and pristine agriculture that should have made a picturesque view. Should have, except for the screams. They were everywhere. A thousand voices, wailing so hard that they might tear their throats from grief and terror. But the screaming was coming from me as well, and my throatwas torn from it and when I wasn't screaming I was coughing up the blood that threatened to choke me. I staggered through the orchards, watching as the bodies fell. Man, woman and child. They died where they staggered and collapsed, some alone and some clutching each other.

I could see the sickness on them. In them.

The vegetation cleared, and I was looking up at a stepped pyramid - no, a range of them, a dozen, perfectly aligned to the sun and stars, carefully designed and built over an age by magic and by hand. At the height of the main pyramid, Ilhicamina was feverish in his work as his lesser priests hauled the living to the sacrificial altar, cried out prayers and demands for health and protection from his dead gods, and then paid the blood price he thought would buy their favour. A thousand corpses lay scattered across the steps of the pyramid, and he would continue until the people finally turned against him long after it would be too late.

The High Priest had no notion that it wasn't his gods he was feeding, but me. Every death fueled my power, which in turn fueled the destruction I wrought.

Revenge and hate. They would all pay for-

"Are you much of a foodie, Esmerelda?" Stacey asked. I blinked and everyone was sitting around the table in the restaurant. I was sitting with my spoon in my hand, but I hadn't taken a bite of my soup yet. None of the girls looked like something strange had happened, or that Esmerelda had lunged at me. The only thing that hinted that it had happened was the fingernail mark on the fleshy skin at the base of my thumb. And the awful memory that was quickly fading from my mind like a bad dream.

"Is that a question about whether I eat food, or simply sustain myself on the death and souls of my victims?" Esmerelda asked.

Stacey, to her credit, didn't flinch whatsoever. "It was exactly what I asked.Do you like trying new foods? That's what a foody is. Though I guess if youare some sort of cannibal you could still be a foodie by trying new cooking techniques or something."

That actually cracked a full smile from Esmerelda, though it was a wild sort of grin that hinted at an unsettling mirth at the dark joke. "I'm not a cannibal, though I have known more of them than most," she said.

"Mm!" Lindsey hummed, eyebrows lifting as she held up a finger while swallowing her first mouthful of the soup. "From the remote tribes in the Amazon, right? The ones that have had almost no contact with the outside world in centuries."

Esmerelda nodded, eyes narrowing again as her wild grin slipped into a grimace. "Yes," she said. "How do you know about them? I wiped knowledge of them and their ancestors from the face of the planet for a reason."

We all glanced at each other a little awkwardly. That flash of memory was almost gone, the feelings lingering and making me more uneasy than before.

"I, uh, watched a documentary?" Lindsey said, her voice coming up into a question even though it wasn't one. "There's... multiple...?"

"Sorry to break it to you," Lauren said. "But they aren't exactly a big secret. Well, I mean, they are still isolated, but weknow about them."

Esmerelda was frowning and nodding. "It seems when I return to my territory I have somereminders to hand out," she said.

The girls all glanced at me, and I tried not to give away howfucking ominous that had sounded.

"Stacey's question stands," I said, trying to shift the conversation back. "Are you big on new foods, especially after multiple centuries?"

"I don't seek them out," Esmerelda said, daintily lifting her spoon to her lips in an almost aristocratic sort of way with perfect posture and elegance that was nothing like the rest of the way she carried herself. "But I occasionally enjoy something new that is brought to me."

That led to a long, somewhat uncomfortable silence. Apparently, Esmerelda wasn't much of a small-talk person.

"Do you keep a household of some sort?" Lindsey asked. "Friends, or employees?"

"I live in the deepest parts of the Amazon where no man has set foot in four centuries," Esmerelda said. "I am served by the animated bones of my enemies, and I pull the strings of every Ascended across the continent. I have no need for a household or friends. You could call my servants employees, of a sort."

"Mmm," Stacey shook her head, pointing at Esmerelda with her spoon. "Bullshit. I call bullshit."

"Stace," I said, cautioning her.

"Nah-uh," Stacey shook her head at me, then turned to Esmerelda. "You're totally lying."

Esmerelda set her spoon down and curled her hands into fists, sneering a little as she glared at Stacey. "You dare call a Seat of Death aliar?" she growled.

Annalise looked like she was about to shit herself on the other side of Esmerelda from Stacey, and her eyes started to glow softly. Stacey, on the other hand, snorted. Loudly.

"Bitch, please," Stacey laughed. "You'reobviously lying. First of all, and ignoring all the things you could just use magic for like being fluent in English even if you never speak it, there's your clothes. Sure, you're dressed down, but you aren't dressed like it's the last decade, let alone the previous century or three. Second, there's no fucking way you would have a shitty, bathroom-sink dye job on your hair if you live by yourself out in the middle of a jungle. You did it on a whim for sure, and someone you like helped you with it even if it could use a stylist. And lastly, and this is the big one, you're having way too much fun playing the spooky Seat."

Esmerelda looked like she was about to blow up. I had a half-dozen half-formed spells all competing for my attention. Attacking her, defending Stacey, and shielding all the girls. Teleporting them away without a teleportal. But then she cracked a smile again and laughed.

The laugh went on a little too long. And then she stopped and stared at Stacey. "I lie constantly, girl, but I only tell the truth. Would you prefer it if I never told the truth, but promised not to lie?"

"... What?" Lauren asked.

Esmerelda turned a slightly-crazed grin onto Lauren. "You haven't wrapped your heads around it yet," she said. "Truth is subjective, lies are reality, and even if you bare your hearts and souls to me I'm not going to tell you anything useful about my life."

I had to take a deep breath and let it out, and I glanced at Annalise who was doing the same.

"So is this just some ritual hazing or something?" I asked.

"No," Esmerelda said, shaking her head. "It isn't." Her grin lost that edge and she smiled almost sweetly. "This was just me having a fun conversation. The others are as weird and dangerous as you think they are. And so am I, for what it's worth."

"And what about at the Council Meeting?" Lauren asked. "All the staring."

"My walls are of my own making, my prison is self-imposed," Esmerelda said. "Most of the other Seatswill give you time to adjust before they start manoeuvring you around, Jeremiah. A century, or thereabout, is what they gave me. But that was a lot less time than it is now, the way the world moves. Things took longer back then. I was also... let's just say that the events of my Ascension were unusual, and I grew in power much more quickly than anyone else on the Council."

"The fall of the South American civilizations," Lindsey guessed.

Esmerelda nodded, and her side-eyed glance at me had me remembering something like a dream that flared a strange emotion in me for a moment, though I wasn't sure what it was. "That's what you could call the short version," she nodded. "I used that to my advantage, and while I may not hold the most lucrative of territories in terms of mundane resources and number of people, no other Seat has sought to challenge my authority. Ezekiel was the closest in proximity, and he and I came to an understanding."

"What sort of understanding?" Lauren asked.

"The kind where we don't poke our noses in each other's business," Esmerelda said levelly. "He was more of a politician than I was, but we were both generally left to our own devices, isolated across the oceans as we were from the rest of the civilizations. The rise of this new, modern world has created more and more connections to the domains of the others, which brings new risks even if it brings prosperity to our territories."

"So what you're saying is I'm benefitting from Ezekiel's isolationist policies, but I'm going to need to adapt sooner than later," I said. "Either by getting more defensive, or becoming a politician."

Esmerelda nodded, then turned to Annalise. "Tell me of your father," she said.

Annalise looked spooked again for a moment, and I reached across to her with my mind. 'You can tell her whatever you are comfortable with, Anna,' I assured her. 'We're with you.'

When I cast the spell Esmerelda immediately looked at me, and I realized she must have had some sort of 'magic sight' like I had used before, or something similar. Again, I felt kind of stupid for not having that going myself, or any other protective spells. Annalise also looked over at me and nodded. 'Thank you,' she whispered back in her head. And then I got the distinct sense of her forcing her confidence back to the forefront of her mind before I disconnected from her.

Annalise told Esmerelda almost everything that she knew. Her story lasted through the rest of the soup course, and after a brief break for the servers to move in and out, most of the way through the appetizer course as well. She ended with the discovery of another person at the site of her mother's grave.

Throughout the story, Esmerelda had made the appropriate concerned frowns and noises of disgust or commiseration at the right times, but part of me felt like it wasn't entirely genuine even while she wasn't varying her emotions wildly. Not that she wasn't legitimately feeling and responding to what Anna was saying, but more like she was forcing herself to engage with it.

I had to wonder if empathy was difficult for her because of her magic, or if it was a nerve that had been deadened and worn smooth over time.

"This explains more of what I saw in Jeremiah's vision from his laboratory," Esmerelda finally said. "In this century, it is not likely your father would do this without having been broken himself, either in mind or spirit. If this were two, perhaps three hundred years ago, I would not blink at it."