The Creators Ch. 04

Editor's note: this story contains scenes of non-consensual or reluctant sex.

*****

Chapter Four: Drastin

BRANDON

"So," I said as we walked down the dirt path to Drastin; Tera on one side of me, and Justina on the other, "the Heat Bringer can ignite with the force of a volcano, the Earth Former can level entire mountains, and I can grow fucking plants."

I held the disappointing tulip in my palm, whose sickly-looking flower drooped pathetically after growing another inch. Tera, who I'd since relieved of her lustful slavery, laughed.

"You can do more than grow plants, Brandon," the succubus said, affectionately placing a hand on my arm. "You can stop people from dying, you can create life from nothing, you can—"

"Grow weed!" I exclaimed excitedly as a marijuana plant sprouted from my hand. "Why didn't I think of that before?!"

"You can also do that," Tera smiled, plucking the herb from my hand and placing it in her pouch, "but we'll need to keep a clear head in Drastin."

I had thought Tera would be furious with me after the things I made her do during her night as my slave, but she didn't seem to mind in the least. In fact, she was more than a little friendly with me. She didn't worship me like she did two nights ago (and my god, does that woman know how to treat divinity), but she did openly flirt with me, and let me 'feed her' each night while we camped. The touch of the succubus no longer affected me, not in the magical sense, but her company was still quite distracting. She had the face of an angel and the body of a devil, and every step she took was a vulgar display of sex. Sometimes I had to stop by the side of the road to 'feed' her behind a tree, though honestly, it felt like I was the gluttonous one. Tera was an all-you-can-fuck buffet, and I was ravenous. She let me do things to her that I'd never dreamed of, and it wasn't just that she let me do them, but that she encouraged me to. All the while, Justina watched with obvious envy, which irritated me somewhat as it meant Angela was probably watching me too. But my twin sister had caught me jacking it a hundred times already, so the audience didn't stop me from giving Tera my all.

"Just think," Justina mused, if only to get my attention, "if I had been born just a week later, I might've been a Creator instead of you."

"Is that how it works?" I asked her.

"I think it has something to do with—"

"Hey, Brandon!" Angela blurted from Justina's mouth. "Keep practicing; you need to make me a new body!"

"You could live in this ladybug I made," I smiled to Justina, whose eyes had turned Angela's pale blue, "I worked for hours on it."

"It has ten legs and three heads," Angela said frankly. "I'm not an entomologist, but I think you might've fucked up."

"It's a true marvel," Tera said, squeezing my arm encouragingly, "a miracle of nature."

"It's an abomination and should be burned with fire!" Angela spat. "At this rate, I'll be lucky if you manage to make me a body with an asshole for a mouth."

"Probably wouldn't make a difference," I sneered.

"You're fucking hilarious," Angela grumbled, and then receded into Justina's mind, allowing the succubus to regain her violet eyes.

"I thought it was pretty funny." Tera smiled up at me, resting her head on my shoulder. I smiled back, put my arm around her, and walked the path to Drastin with an extra spring in my step as Tera walked with a slight limp in hers.

WILLOWBUD

Goddamn, it felt good to be back in Drastin. I soared over the city atop Astrid, taking in the sights and smells, breathing in the thick rancid air of a million people crammed together. Onlookers gawked at us as we zipped through the maze of stone spires in downtown, flying past churches, government buildings and commercial towers that jutted defiantly into the sky. I mused for a moment about what kind of destruction I could cause in a city build almost entirely of stone, but I shook the thought from my mind. What fun would Drastin be if it was rubble?

Now that we'd melded, Corruption didn't speak to me, but thrummed steadily in my mind, a calming whisper of nihilistic indifference. Do what you want, Willowbud; what does it matter? the whisper seemed to say, and I readily complied with it. It was a much easier set of rules to follow than my father's, don't swear, don't kill, don't show them what you are, though, the last one was something I generally still abided by. For now. I directed Astrid to fly into the brothel district, my old stomping grounds. We landed in the middle of a busy street, sending pedestrians sprawling to avoid the fourteen-feet of incoming wings. I gave Astrid a congratulatory smack on the ass for a successful landing, and then hopped off.

Whispers and exclamations greeted my ears. "Valkyrie!" they yelled, "Iona!" they shouted, "Night Eyes!" they gasped, "she's back!" they whispered. The crowd's mood changed from awe at the sight of the majestic Astrid, to fear at the sight of me. I grinned at their horrified faces; they had good reason to be afraid. People averted their gazes, shutters were slammed above me, doors were locked and 'closed' signs were hung. I laughed a heartily at my reception, took my vehicle by her hand, and made my way to my old safehouse.

"The Screeching Siren" wasn't the most ostentatious of brothels, but it wasn't the dirtiest either. Technically, I owned the place, but being a pimp was never my calling. Playing with the merchandise is fun, but actually selling it is another story. When I opened the door to the brothel, my ears were assaulted with the laughs, yells, moans and screams I was accustomed to. When I walked in, the place quieted with each of my footfalls until my boots hitting the wooden floor was all anyone could hear. All eyes were on me, and I took a moment to bask in the fear.

"Night Eyes?" a deep, gruff voice asked from behind the bar. I turned to my left, and smiled at Gronk. He was seven feet of muscle, tusk and dreadlocks, with a canvas of green skin over his bulging form. The orc struck an intimidating figure, lessened only by the round spectacles that were too small for his face.

"Hello Gronk," I smiled easily to my old comrade. "Where the fuck is everyone else?"

It didn't take long for Gronk to roundup the rest of the gang. There was Terry, a squirmy human with a talent for lock picking; Flendian, a dark-elf with a penchant for stabbing people; Hacksaw, a brutish half-giant who used his fists to solve every problem; and Grunt, my second-in-command, a dwarf who enjoyed cooking food almost as much as he enjoyed cooking people alive. The six of us sat around a large oaken table as Astrid stood straight-backed and nervous behind me.

"So, Night Eyes," Flendian grinned across from me, his tan skin and dark eyes almost making him handsome, "you gonna tell us where the fuck you've been this past year?"

"I went to Terondia to visit your mother," I smirked back, "she had some back problems I helped her straighten out. Now she has walking problems, but what can I do?"

"We're never getting a straight answer out of ya, are we?" Hacksaw said, his massive frame taking up an entire side of the table, his scarred face a testament to his days as a fighter in the Pit.

"No," I replied, "so don't bother asking."

"Are you going to at least tell us about her?" Terry asked, gesturing to Astrid. "She doesn't look like the kind of company you usually keep."

"No, she doesn't," Grunt chuckled, eyeing the valkyrie with greedy eyes. "If you don't mind me saying, Miss, you are the hottest piece of ass I've ever seen."

Astrid did not reply. I suspected it was because she was waiting for me to give her permission to speak, more than it was her obvious disdain for the dwarf.

"Say 'thank you,' Astrid," I sneered over my shoulder.

"Thank you," Astrid said, unable to keep the contempt and disgust out of her voice.

"Ah, she doesn't like me," Grunt said with mock indignation, running a hand over his bald head and into his black beard, "and here I was being so polite to her."

"So," Terry said, leaning forward, "where'd you find her?"

"You know about my... secret, right?" I said, subtly moving a stone across the table without touching it. The men nodded, not daring to speak of it aloud.

"Well, there's a whole mountain of these bitches," I said with a smile, gesturing over my shoulder, "and they worship me like a fucking god!"

"That's just your luck!" Gronk said, his deep voice practically vibrating the glassware on the table. "I can't get pussy unless I hold it down or buy it, and you've got a mountain of beauties who will do anything you want!"

"Anything," I smiled, "but don't worry, boys; I'll let her prove it to you later."

The gang collectively turned their eyes to Astrid, and I could practically smell her terror, disgust and contempt, but she didn't say a word, and she didn't move a muscle. Good girl.

"But, before we get to the fun," I said, drawing my gang's attention back to me, "I want to know what the state of things are."

"Well, as you can imagine," Grunt said, clearing his throat, "not great. Once you left (without telling anyone, I might add), things got... bad. With you behind us, we were punching way above our weight class, but once you left, we couldn't keep it going. We tried to pretend you were still around to keep the sharks at bay, but then they started taking little bites, and we couldn't bite back. Gloria's gang struck first, then Vistir's, then Ryan's. We lost the docks, we lost the corners, and we lost every brothel but this one. The only reason we managed to keep this place was because we were too small-time for Vistir and Ryan to give a shit about, and they got back to killing each other."

"And Gloria?" I asked, her name foul in my mouth.

"Oh, you know her," Grunt chuckled, "she holds a grudge. I guess being thousands of years old allows for vengeance to simmer. We bolt our doors at night, and keep an astral sunbeam on at all times."

"Vampires," Terry spat, refilling the mugs and passing them out, "fucking rats."

"How big is the tag on my head?" I asked.

"Fifteen-thousand from Gloria," Flendian said. "Ryan and Vistir matched that, but after you didn't come back, they pulled the offer."

"But she kept it up, huh?" I smiled. It was nice to have someone who hated me that much.

"Like I said, she holds a grudge," Grunt said, shrugging. "I've got to be honest with you, Night Eyes; flying in here on a fucking valkyrie wasn't exactly subtle. People are going to tell Gloria you're here—WHAT THE F—"

There were three things I sensed within the blink of an eye: the whoosh of something heavy moving with blinding speed, the wind of it breathing past my ear, and a metallic flash that moved with such swiftness, its path was a single image of arcing, gleaming steel. Astrid's massive sword split the thick oak table in half so cleanly that it didn't even splinter, and Terry's head rolled across its surface, his eyes writhing in his dead skull. His fist clutched the handle of the mug he'd been passing to me, and a thin packet of powder slipped from his twitching fingers. I dipped my thumb into the substance and sniffed it. Belladonna Nightshade.

"Looks like Gloria already knows," I muttered to Grunt, and picked up Terry's decapitated head as Astrid sheathed her sword. I turned Terry's face to each member of my gang, and stared coldly into their eyes.

"You all know what I am," I said quietly, making them look at Terry as they matched by gaze, "you all know what I do to people who fuck with me. Terry is the lucky one, gentlemen; remember that. Astrid is quick and painless, but I am not."

Each man held my eyes without faltering, their expressions as cold as their killer's eyes. I was satisfied that I didn't have any more traitors seated with me, but I kept Terry's head as a decorative piece just in case any of them needed a healthy reminder. Gronk unceremoniously pushed Terry's body to the side, and no one so much as blinked an eye over the death of a man they'd known for thirteen years.

"That one," Hacksaw said, pointing a meaty finger at Astrid, "needs to fight in The Pit."

"Fuck yeah, she does," Gronk said, a touch of awe in his baritone voice as he stared at the valkyrie. "I've never seen anyone move that fast; not even vampires, and those fuckers are like lightning."

"That draw," Flendian said, mimicking the motion with his hand, "to move a blade that heavy, that quickly; Night Eyes, I hope you're not going to waste her in the brothels."

"That was exactly what I was going to do."

"We could make a fortune off her as a whore," Grunt said, leaning forward on his elbows toward me, "but we could build an empire on that blade, Night Eyes. The Pit is the beating heart of this city, and I know how you like to be perceived."

"Are you calling me vain, Grunt?" I asked with a smirk.

"You're fucking right I am," Grunt grinned. "You don't do what we do for the money, the women or the men; you do it because you like the way people look at you when you walk down the street. You didn't fly into this city on the back of a fucking angel, knowing half this town wants you dead, to avoid attention."

"Think of the opportunity!" Flendian hissed excitedly. "The Pit champions are all brutes; orcs, ogres, trolls and half-giants; hardly the sort that gain the people's adoration." He looked unapologetically at Gronk and Hacksaw, but they just nodded in agreement.

"It's a place of brawn and savagery," Hacksaw said, flexing a massive arm. "Fancy faggot fencers get buried before they can even make the tournament."

"Drastin starves for a real champion," Flendian said, looking appraisingly up at Astrid. "Someone they can adore, someone they can romanticize, someone they can idolize, someone they want to fuck. A shining beacon—a hero, if you will. Night Eyes," Flendian said in a hushed voice, "if you play this right, that valkyrie will be on the lips of every crier on every street corner by the end of the week. By the end of a fortnight, she'll be more famous than the fucking king."

"And whoever owns her," Grunt smiled, "owns that fame. You want to carve your name onto the face of this city?" Grunt gestured to the gash in the table. "Do it with that blade."

If I wanted to carve my name onto this city, I literally would, I mused to myself. I'd carve it from the docks to the west gate. Hell, I could kill Vistir, Ryan, and even that bitch Gloria without so much as breaking a sweat, but there's no fun in that. Grunt's right, I don't play the game for rational reasons; I play it because it's fun. I looked down at the poison that had been meant for me, And the deadlier the game, the more fun it is. What game is deadlier than the Pit?

"Astrid," I said, looking at the statuesque Nordic beauty, "how would you like to be my champion?"

"Killing for sport is against the codes of the Iona Guard," Astrid said. "It is an evil—"

"Fuck your codes!" I laughed, turned away from the dejected valkyrie, picked up Terry's severed head, and raising it aloft, "To Astrid!" I toasted merrily. "The Avenging Angel, The Winged-Executioner, the future-fucking-champion of Drastin!"

"To Astrid!" my gang toasted back, raising their mugs in place of decapitated heads, and then drinking deeply.

"Right," I said, getting up and taking a firm grip of Astrid's leather-clad ass, "now who wants to fuck her?"

BRANDON

"Those two," the guard at the city gate said, gesturing to Justina and Tera, "need to be registered before they can enter."

"They what?" I asked.

"The succubi cannot enter the city until they've put their names on the prostitution registry."

"They're not whores."

"Then they can't come in," the guard replied frankly. "All succubi are restricted to the brothel district. It's nothing personal lad, my brother is married to a succubus—the fucking simp—but the king can't have magical seductresses running around town turning honest folk into slaves."

I sighed, and turned to Tera. "Can we meet your contact in a whore-house?" I asked.

"She wouldn't meet us there," Tera frowned. "Too many prying ears."

"Mom," Justina whispered, "maybe you should drop some names."

"I still have some pride, Justina," Tera hissed back. "We'll just have to make do."

"Drop names?" I asked.

"My humble country-girl of a mother is actually royalty," Justina smirked. "Her sister is the newly-crowned arch-matriarch of Arbortus."

"Bullshit," I said, gawking at Tera.

"It's true," Justina smiled as Tera scowled. "Mom's sister is Flora Autumnsong."

"But, you're a succubus," I said slowly, "and Autumnsong is a nymph. So... genetics and shit."

"Our father was an incubus," Tera said, working her lips like the words tasted foul in her mouth, "and having an incubus in your lineage is like playing roulette with your family tree. I was born a succubus, but my precious sister was born a perfect, little, nymph. Rumor has it that her daughter was born a mutated freak, so I guess karma found its way into her womb."

"You sound bitter," I snorted.

"They kicked me out of Arbortus once I started maturing," Tera said. "They said I was too dangerous to keep in the colony, so they put me on a boat with a sack of gold, and shipped me off. Flora was particularly delighted, seeing as how I got all the boys she wanted. Bitch."

"Can we use it to our advantage?" I asked Tera, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Right now's not the time for prideful decisions."

Tera worked her jaw a little longer, seeming to acclimate her palate to the taste of the choice. She finally relented, reached into her pouch, and pulled out a set of frayed documents that looked hundreds of years old. She handed them to the guard, who paged through them with bored disinterest.

"These papers were dated the fourth of summer season, fifteen-hundred-fifty-two since the last cycle," the guard said looking up from the yellowed pages. "It is the thirty-sixth of spring season, twenty-one-thirty-nine."

"Yeah, I'm fucking old," Tera grumbled, "are they still valid?"

"They bare the Arbortus seal," the guard conceded, "a really old print of it, but still recognized. You may enter without registering, Tera Autumnsong, but you'll need to wear this badge..." the guard dug into a sack to his left and pulled out an embroidered patch, "...that marks you as a royal diplomat. This one, though," the guard said, gesturing to Justina, "will still have to register."

Tera looked like she'd object, but Justina put a hand on her mother's shoulder and nodded. She signed the registry, sewed the whore's patch to her cloak, and the three of us (four of us) walked through the gates of the largest city in the world.

"Holy shit," I gasped. The walls of Drastin had concealed the city from view, but now that we were inside, its enormity was overwhelming. Every street was a trench; the buildings running endlessly on either side, connecting wall-to-wall with different facades, standing fifty feet high at their shortest stature. Behind the maze of continuous buildings, I saw the tops of towers reaching for the sky. The downtown of the metropolis was decorated with stone spires that speared the skyline hundreds of feet up, creating a gapless wall of architecture that cast its shadows over the entire city. I saw more people on one block than I'd seen in my entire life, and the churning, chaotic life of this place intimidated me. The others did not share in my fear. Tera regarded the city with passing interest, Justina was giddy with excitement, and Angela was bursting from Justina's mouth with even greater exuberance.

"Oh my god!" Angela squealed from Justina's mouth. "Look at all the... everything!"