Nos Faux Ratu Ch. 06

Of course, the first part still hurt like hell, as his crown pried open her backdoor like it was a crowbar. He wanted inside so badly that Nessa was surprised at his restraint. She savored the tense pain as he slid inside her. She relished the feeling of his belt around her throat. The very thought of how she was in his "control" made her want to cum again. She knew she would. He would make sure of it.

Ghede growled like one of the wolves at Nessa's door as he found himself embedded completely in her ass. He snapped the belt down on Nessa's back as he withdrew slightly and then bottomed out.

"Wicked woman," he reiterated as his tempo increased. There was a reason he did not visit her very often. Nessa was an addiction as much as a thinking being. She had gotten under his skin years ago, and there was no cure. Just disquieting bouts of remission, and a steady ache to feel her spread.

"Harder! Harder!" Nessa began to chant. She thrust back onto his spear, a willing sacrifice to his desires, and she was met each time by hard, savage penetration. And these vocalizations just became more heated as the pain in her rectum dissipated to be replaced by a mind-numbing pleasure. One hand sought out her clit, and she began to tease it with her nimble fingers.

Ghede wanted to drill the vampire into the lower mantle of the earth's crust. A full-fledged war could have broken out in Nessa's apartment and he would not have been able to stop. She was tighter than Scrooge's purse, and she was waiting for a deposit. And she would not have to wait long. He could never keep it up for long when things got like this.

Nessa could feel her own climax building. "Soon," she snarled. "Cum with me. Fuck me!"

He obeyed her to the best of his ability, smacking her ass with his hand and her back with the belt until he saw the trembling begin. So he slammed his way home one more time, then let himself go. His cock spasmed, then he ejaculated what felt like a gallon of seed into Nessa's ass. And that delightful orifice milked him dry.

Ghede was still recovering when he heard a "snick" noise and the belt came free. Nessa had sliced it open with one fingernail.

"Bitch," he grunted. "That was a designer belt."

"Put it on my tab," she shot back with a tired smiled. She rolled off of the bed, standing and stretching out. "Damn I needed that." She sauntered over to her closet and pulled out a black hot-and-slutty outfit. "So is the spell ready?"

Ghede rolled his eyes and started to get dressed. Nessa had gotten laid, now it was time to get on with business. "Yes. It will hook up with the bioengineered bits of the DNA and mutate them. It'll look like it's been going on for some time."

Nessa pulled a leather vest over sizable breasts, then poured herself into skintight leather pants. "So we need to set something up in their records to make it look like the Fool has been covering things up to keep the project going." She shot Ghede a grin. "Man, sex with you makes me smarter."

"Then you should be a genius by now."

"Not so fast. I fuck some stupid people too just to balance things out." She stroked her chin. "Actually, Lawrence is a computer whiz. I can probably get him to do it."

"Lawrence?"

"My youngest," she said. "I haven't seen him in a while. He's up in Jersey, so we can probably still get him down here on the red-eye shuttle."

Ghede looked thoughtful for a moment. "You know, this is the first time I think you've ever mentioned one of your children's names to me."

"I don't go advertising them. They have their own lives and their own broods. But since I'm calling in Lawrence anyway, you might as well know his name."

"And I won't share that name with anyone."

"Thanks. Right now, you, Avery, and Anabella are the only ones who know any of their names. Anabella is the only one who knows more than one, though Avery has the ability to find out if something were to happen to me."

"What do you mean?"

Nessa gave a smile that was more chilling than he was used to from her. "You haven't been around many vampires, have you?"

"No."

"Let's just say that Garon knows that he's taking a risk by wanting to kill me. Something happens to me, generally meaning foul play, and my brood will avenge me. With extreme prejudice."

Ghede rolled that over in his mind as they headed to the lift. He knew that Nessa had created a dozen vampires over her lifetime, which was a pittance compared to others half her age. She would have chosen carefully. If they only had a fraction of the resources that she possessed –

"Yeah," Nessa said firmly, "it would be a bloodbath that would make the Old Testament look like a children's story."

A minute later they emerged into the lounge, and Nessa smiled broadly. The room went quiet as everyone turned and stared at their first real vampire. Everyone except the woman who was in a whispered conversation with a very fetching dark-haired Nightwalker.

"A-hem!" she said loudly. The two women looked over at her. Jenna blushed a little. The stranger looked Nessa up and down, and Nessa recognized that look. The Nightwalker was sizing up the competition. And in contrast to how most people would react, Nessa gave her a warm, genuine smile. If someone was going to try and win Jenna's affections, she wanted it to be someone willing to fight for them. Someone who valued them. This woman was already showing a desire for the former, and it would take a while for Nessa to evaluate the latter.

"Good evening everyone," Nessa started brightly, then made upward motions with her hands, enticing a grumbled "good evening" out of everyone else. "It's nice of you all to join us. My name is Nessa McGowan, and I'll be your tour guide for this evening. Directly in front of you is an amazingly hot vampire. Off to your right is my best friend of the last two thousand or so years, Anabella. She is a banshee, and more than capable of screaming your brains into jelly, so don't piss her off. Next to her is my chauffeur, friend, and chief of security, Avery."

Nessa started to prowl the room. "Of course, you all know my dear friend Jenna, who has actually been trying to bring this all to peaceful solution, which is an idea that is now dead in the water. Still, I like people who try to help me. Which is why I'm only going to ask my next question one . . . time." She stopped then made sure to look briefly at least once at everyone in the room. "Who here is spying for the Fool?"

There was silence for a moment. Nigel looked a bit perplexed by this line of question. "What makes you think one of us is spying?"

"Well first of all," Nessa said with a disarming grin, "I know it's not you, and I know it's not Jenna. Everyone else is suspect. You see, just because this place has enough SigInt blockers and magical wards to prevent any signals getting out, I still know when someone is trying, and Avery told me that someone is trying." She threw her arms open. "Anyone who steps forward now . . . lives," she said, her voice suddenly less friendly. "But make no mistake, I have not survived as long as I have by accident."

"Sometimes it just seems that way," Anabella said, lifting a glass of some dark liquor to her lips. "But honestly, you'd best do as she says," the banshee said. "Otherwise, she starts biting people."

The was a murmur in the crowd. Some were incredulous, some were nervous, but none of them were happy.

"Hey, you brought US here," someone said.

"Actually, I brought you here with Nessa's permission," Death interjected. "Though I'm beginning to wonder if that was such a wise idea."

Jenna nodded. "Nessa, you can't invite people in and then threaten them."

"I'm not going to kill anyone who doesn't try to kill me," Nessa replied. "But I will lock them up until this is over. Now, we can do manual searches of everyone until we find the transmitter, but there's always a chance that it's sub-dermal or that some yahoo swallowed it. Option two is me delving directly into your subconscious. That's where the biting comes in. Option three involves someone being a dear and just admitting that it's you."

"Screw this," Strength said. "I didn't walk away from one psychopath to get threatened by another." He turned and walked toward the stairs, only to have his path blocked by three very large demons.

"Yeah, you kinda did," Ipos said, punching one palm with a fist the size of a ham.

The Nightwalkers circled the wagons quickly, with Nigel staring straight at Nessa. "I never would have brought them here if I'd known you were going to threaten them. I won't let you do this."

Nessa glanced at the door, where more of her troops were filing in. "You can TRY to stop me," she said.

"Nessa," Ghede said, his medical monitor going haywire.

The vampire looked over to find that Jenna had gotten off of the gurney, but she was struggling to stay upright. "Jenna, you're in no shape to be out of bed."

"I'm not letting you do this," Jenna replied. Despite the trembling in her arms and legs, her voice was smooth and even, and her eyes had gone cold.

"Nessa," Ghede growled, moving to try and get Jenna back in bed, "you're getting her heart rate up, and she hasn't exactly replaced all the blood she lost."

The High Priestess interjected herself between the Empress and Nessa. "Jenna, don't do this."

"Death is right," Jenna said, trying to push Caitlin out of the way and finding herself unable to. Normally, she should be able to overpower the junior Nightwalker, but apparently it took longer than two days to recover from being mauled. "Nessa, I trust you, but you can't go invading their minds --"

"I did with you," Nessa replied.

"I let you. They're not. They --"

"I'll go first," the High Priestess said. She turned around. "You want to strip search me or --"

"Yes," Nessa said quickly.

"Can't we go over the options again?"

"But I want to choose strip search."

Caitlin rolled her eyes. "But what about the whole 'might have swallowed it' thing?"

Nessa shrugged. "We could check for that too, but at least I'll have gotten to see you naked."

The High Priestess looked over her shoulder. "She's crazy, isn't she?"

Jenna nodded.

"She can't be serious?"

Jenna shrugged. "Actually, yes. She's pretty much a teenaged boy in a two-thousand year old woman's body."

"A hot two-thousand year old woman's body," Nessa corrected. "And no matter who goes first, there's going to be a second and a third and so on. I'm not looking for who isn't a mole. I'm looking for who is." Her eyes began to devour Caitlin's body. "But I guess I have to start somewhere." She stepped forward, her fangs extending.

Using every bit of her strength, Jenna shoved Caitlin off balance and out of the way, then took an uneasy step toward the woman who had sheltered her for weeks. She was actually feeling dizzy, and wondered what the hell medications Ghede had given her. She had to grip her own knee briefly just to remain upright.

"Won't . . . let you --" she started to say, then let out a gasping cough.

"I promise I won't make it hurt," Nessa said softly, lifting Jenna off the ground as easily as picking up a child's doll. Jenna struggled, but simply had no strength. "But I won't endanger my house or my people because of --"

"You shouldn't have let them come in here then," Jenna said, pulling out of Nessa hand and leaving a scrap of her hospital gown in the vampire's grip. "You should have given them a choice. Now --"

"And how would that have changed anything? The refugees would have come, and the spy with them."

Jenna stood up straight, pretty much by a sheer act of will. "If they had known you might reach into their souls and rip out their secrets, they might not have. They could have . . . (gasp) . . . made a go of it on their own." She moved into a fighting stance. "I chose. Death chose. The rest --"

"It was me," came a voice, drifting in from the back. The crowd parted, and the Two of Coins stood, pale as a bed-sheet. "He . . . the Fool said that if I heard of anyone defecting to go with them. I think he talked to all the Two's."

"Why?" Nessa asked.

"Because we're the low men on the totem pole. He said that if I helped him, that I would be one of the strong ones. He probably promised the others the same thing. I never realized how much I resented the Face Cards and the Major Arcana until he promised me that I'd be on the elite team this time."

"So why confess? I hadn't even gotten to the biting part yet."

"Because you were going to. Because the Empress mentioned the part about 'reaching into their souls,' and I'm really not interested in going that route. Besides," he said, looking towards the Empress, who was now being aided back to bed by the High Priestess, "the whole point was to reunite the Nightwalkers as a fighting unit. We'd be unstoppable if --"

"If what?"

"The Fool said that if we could get the Empress back, we'd be unstoppable. He told me about her fight with the Hanged Man, and said that any woman who could do that would be worthy of . . . of commanding at his side."

Nessa looked at Jenna, who just looked shocked. "Damn girl, you just have admirers everywhere."

"I believe in the Nightwalkers," the Two said. "And if I didn't speak up, the Empress was going to fight you. None of us know her that well, but I know one thing for sure. She won't quit. You'd have to kill her, and I don't want that."

"I wouldn't have killed her, but I like the sentiment," Nessa said. "Ipos," she told the big demon, "take the prisoner up to the holding cells. Avery, go with him and give me an analysis on the bug. If it's something easy to detect, we can scan everyone without having to resort to biting." She started to pout. "But I wanted to bite her," she added, sticking her thumb towards Caitlin.

"Well, the night's still young," the High Priestess responded, arching an eyebrow and grinning.

Nessa grinned back, then looked around. "Anabella?"

"Here."

"Good. I need you to take the truce flag and go talk to that moron Pegg. Take a couple of bruisers with you just to show that you mean business."

"Why? Dumb-fuck can't hold me, so why --"

"Sending my best friend means that I'm serious, but he's still a misogynist. You're a woman, so he still won't take you as seriously as I'd like. Yeah, I know it sucks, because you could turn him into mulch if you wanted, but just suck up your pride and take a big male protector. Okay?"

Anabella was mumbling in some language no one except Nessa recognized, but it was easy to tell that the words were probably not flattering.

Nessa turned and found Ghede, Nigel, and Caitlin hovering over Jenna. Ghede looked concerned. "What is it?" she asked.

"Her heart rate is eratic," the dark-skinned doctor said, "and she's much weaker than she should be. I'm worried --"

"What?" Nessa said, the events of the last several minutes all but forgotten.

"I'm worried that its the lycanthropic virus. If it had been mutated by her attacker's bioengineered physiology, then the medicines I've given her might not work. They might not work because they were designed for a normal human, which could also be causing problems."

Nessa looked down. "You. No more getting out of bed. At all."

Jenna met her gaze. "I couldn't let you (cough) do that. Without consent," she added, her voice becoming vague and wispy. "Can't --"

The medical monitor let out three short beeps and then a long, continuous drone.

"Fuck," Ghede said, "she's flat-lining!"

"What?!" Nigel said. "What's happening?"

A crowd began to gather, with the one of the demons making sure that the doctor had breathing room to work. There was an uneasy feeling. It was almost tangible, like a layer of fog, and it was chilling.

Ghede was pushing the gurney back toward the lift. He had not brought his medical kit down, because he had not been expected to need it. "Crap," he said, letting Nigel take over pushing duties. He ripped open Jenna's gown, then pulled a knife from his pocket and cut his own finger. He began to draw symbols in blood on the dying woman's chest. Finally, he muttered a few words and let the energy flow out of him.

The Empress's eyes shot open and she gasped, clutching her chest in obvious pain. Ghede pushed her back down to the gurney, whispered the words again, and sent another surge. The rhythm of the heart that he had restarted began to stabilize, and the beeping of the monitoring device returned to normal.

Thirty minutes later, Jenna was resting comfortably back up in Nessa's apartment. Nigel and Caitlin had both been allowed to accompany them, which was the first time any of the Nightwalkers except Nessa had been into the inner sanctum. Ghede was going over the report he had sent in from a lab back in New Orleans.

"This strain of lycanthropy is far more aggressive than anything else I've seen," he told Nessa. "The medicines I'm giving her will only delay it for a little while. Maybe a couple of days. I might be able to come up with an accelerated counteragent, but not if you want me to have that bio-spell ready for your enemies."

"Damn it," Nessa growled.

"Maybe she should go to the hospital," Caitlin said. "No offense," she told Ghede, "but if she isn't going to be your first priority --"

"She can't be," Nessa said. "And don't look at me like I'm some sort of fiend either. The Fool and his men are far too dangerous now. They're carrying an insanely dangerous virus with no concept of the damage it can do. They probably just see it as a weapon, but all it takes is one of his flunkies scratching the wrong person, and we could have a citywide epidemic, and that's not even the worst case scenario. I have to stop him, not matter the cost," she finished. She had tried to keep her voice calm, but she hated her own words. She did not want to sacrifice Jenna.

"Are there no other options? Suspended animation perhaps?" Nigel asked.

"It might work, but even Nessa doesn't have a spare cryo-tube sitting around," Ghede said.

Nessa's land line began to ring. "Now what?" she said, her eyes drawn to Jenna's pale face. She stared, just for a moment, and her eyes softened. She was not prepared to let Jenna go. Then she picked up the phone.

"Anabella, what . . . babe, slow down. Who's there? Damn it! No, just move to the roof. The troops are on their way." Nessa grabbed a priceless statue off an end table and threw it into the wall. "The Fool and the rest of the Nightwalkers has Garon and his men surrounded."

Nigel scowled. "He doesn't want to risk facing all his foes at once."

"But this is still awfully aggressive for him," Caitlin said. "He never would have moved so openly with so many of the Arcana."

"He's an animal, and he's just going to get worse. Normally, the different weres have a pack leader or whoever turned them to help learn and control their impulses. The Fool doesn't, therefore his people don't." Nessa scowled. "I have to go. I've got to end this tonight. We'll stack up the bodies somewhere that no one will find them, and we'll work the frame-up out later. Ghede, keep Jenna alive for the night. Things have changed, and we may not need subtlety after all."

Nigel stepped up. "I'm with you," he told the vampire, "if you're willing to trust me."

Nessa smiled at him. "Any of your people that are willing to come can come. Everyone else will have to stay in one of the holding cells until I get back. You understand."

"Perfectly."

It turned out that there would be no need for the holding cells. A few well-placed phrases such as "bloodbath" and "werewolf outbreak" spurred the rebel Nighwalkers into action, and they moved fast. Nessa got everyone into vehicles and headed towards Garon Pegg's headquarters. She had a veritable army with her, including a dozen or so Nightwalkers, three demons, lycanthropes loyal to her rather than Garon, and a slew of highly trained human security. She had sent out for more reinforcements, but she was in a hurry, so they'd have to catch up.