The Devil's Pact Pt. 40

She inhaled deeply.

I had to stop her from killing any more of my soldiers. I had to protect my men. I led them into this mess. I owed them. This was my responsibility. I had made a choice that night in June. I made a Pact with the Devil, and all of this was the fallout.

I gripped my sword, swallowed my fear, and stared down this fire-breathing she-beast.

She exhaled pure fire, the air dancing from the blistering heat.

I summoned Molech's flames, armoring myself in my own fire, and rushed into the inferno. Orange, red, and yellow engulfed me. A crackling roar filled my ears. Her rage pressed against my fire, seeking to broil me. Every second it grew hotter and hotter; my skin felt raw, peeling like old paint exposed to the sun for years. I kept running. I couldn't stop. I had to reach the monster before her flames overcame my power.

And then the flames vanished. I could see again. She stood two steps away, her golden eyes widening in stunned surprise.

First step.

She inhaled.

Molech's flames flickered feebly on my skin, my protection about to die out.

Second step.

Her dark arm raised up to ward off my slicing sword.

I swung.

A stream of red flame exhaled from her mouth. My sword cleaved through her arm and down into her chest. Fire exploded in my face. She screamed. I reeled back, pain engulfing my face. Everything became oranges.

I howled, thrown back. I landed hard on my side. Pain burned across the left side of my head. It hurt worse than a sunburn or touching a hot stove. I breathed in and my lungs screamed in agony. I must have inhaled some flames.

Goddamn it burned!

"Master!" a woman cried out. Cold hands grabbed me.

"Karen," I groaned at the concerned face of my dead slut. I fought to think past the burning pain.

"You need to get out of here, Master!" she cried. She hauled me to my feet. I leaned against her spectral body.

Fire consumed the entire hallway. Black smoke ran thick along the ceiling, undulating like waves rippling across the surface of a pool of oil. Every breath I took choked with fume. The pain in my lungs threatened to topple me. A loud crash boomed as a flaming support battered through the ceiling and across the hallway.

Fear beat in my chest. I couldn't tell which way to go; the smoke was so thick.

"Basement," I croaked. I had to catch Lilith.

Karen led the way, unaffected by the smoke. I gagged and coughed, struggling to breathe as the ghost led me through the inferno. I stumbled, tripping over debris. My face felt like it still burned, still slowly, and painfully, being consumed. Was this what Hell would feel like? My nerves screamed in agony. Every time I grunted, the flesh of my face cracked like old leather.

Finally Karen brought me to metal stairs; cold air rushed up from the basement.

It was sweet and clean. And so wonderfully cool!

"Shoot her!" a muffled voice yelled as we descended the stairs and gunshots fired. Who was that? The pain made it hard to think. "C'mon, rangers! Get your shit together and hit the bitch!"

Right, the men I had sent down to the basement. I stumbled faster down the stairs, the pain fading as adrenaline poured into me. The Gift supplied a surge of energy that kept my battered body moving. At the base of the stairs, a fire door was propped open. Lights flooded the dark stairwell from a room made of cinder-block walls.

I stepped into the chaos of battle.

The ten rangers fired at a fierce, leonine woman as she nimbly twisted around their bullets. She spat something black. It streaked across the room, striking an Asian soldier in the throat. A spine, like a porcupine's, jutted from his neck. He fell to the ground, convulsing and frothing at the mouth.

Beyond the leonine woman, Lilith and Lana stood before a portal that opened into the mists of the shadow, urging a small group of children—no, too many of those children looked abnormal; they were young monsters, Lilith's spawn—and women through the hole into the Shadows. The demoness looked as beautiful as ever, her silver hair falling in a mussed tumble about her large, perfect breasts that seemed to defy gravity.

"Lilith!" I roared, ignoring the pain in my face, the feeling of burned flesh cracking. White-hot hatred consumed my mind. She killed my Karen. My anger drove all other considerations from my mind.

She had to die.

Fuck the consequences!

Lilith turned to face me, her sneer vanishing as I sprinted across the basement. I had a clear shot at her. My blood pounded through me, an incessant, rage-filled beat demanding that I cut the bitch in half. I hungered to see her blood drip from my sword. I bellowed out a primal scream, my battle-cry. Fear paled the demoness' face. She turned, grasping a woman and throwing her to the ground in her haste to reach the portal.

Exultation soared through me. Lilith was too far from the portal. She reacted too late, and I moved too fast. The Gift and adrenaline powered me, gifting me a burst of speed. Nothing could stop me. I would avenge Karen and rescue Lana and Chantelle from her foul grasp. I raised my sword above my head, Lilith within my reach. Nothing could stop me from cutting the bitch from stem to stern.

Except Karen.

"No, Master!" she cried, grasping my hands, halting my sword before it could find Lilith's flesh.

The bitch fled through the portal.

"No!" I roared, twisting about to stare at Karen. "Why? She killed you! Why did you save her?"

"A darkness comes," she whispered, staring at me with her gray eyes. I flinched beneath the weight of her words.

A darkness? Lucifer. I almost summoned the Devil before we were ready. I paled, my knees suddenly weak, the pain of my burned flesh crashing into me. I stumbled. Everything would have been ruined by my rage. Everything.

"Thank you," I whispered. She smiled at me.

"Cora!" Lana shouted. The leonine woman barreled past me before I could react and swing my sword. She scooped up Lana in her arms and leaped through the portal. It wavered, like a mirage, then vanished.

A loud groan shuddered through the building. Debris crashed to the ground above, shaking the foundations. The warehouse was collapsing as the fire consumed it. We had only moments to escape before we died.

* * *

Lilith

An hour later, I still shook from my brush with death.

My body wouldn't stop trembling. My weak flesh quivering at the memory of Mark charging me in his angelic armor, that terrible, gleaming sword held high and thirsting for my powers. I hated how I quaked with fear. I tried to shrug it off, reminding myself that I was a Goddess, and he was only a slug. A worm. A piece of filth to be scraped off my sandals after I crushed him beneath my heel.

But he wielded a Priest's Sword and came within heartbeats of slaying my vessel.

I could not afford to die. I could not afford to be cast back into the Abyss, bereft of my powers.

I shuddered again.

Sent back with no powers, like Molech had been.

I could feel Molech's power in Mark when he charged me with that damned weapon. He had the Gift, and any demons felled by his blade would lose all the power they'd accumulated before their souls would be cast back into the Abyss. They'd be as weak as any newly-dead human, left to the mercy of all the lesser demons they'd trodden upon.

It would be decidedly unpleasant.

A grin split my lips. Molech must be learning that lesson right now. All those he tortured over the eons would be more than glad to share their affections with the former demon prince. For a moment, my fear vanished beneath gloating amusement.

And then I froze, my eyes widening in realization. Mark had Molech's powers. Instead of just dissipating them, Mark had instead absorbed them. How? Was it a side-effect of him being a Shaman? Mark wasn't just a Priest, he was also a Warlock, and that always caused unanticipated effects.

"Mother, we're ready," Tir said, interrupting my thoughts.

I glanced at my daughter, her head cocked to the side like a curious bird, her sapphire eyes wide and shining. She perched at the edge of the Cedar Creek Watershed next to her birth mother, the dusky-skinned Thamina. The Arab woman looked sick with worry for her wife. Fiona was either dead or captured. Otherwise, she'd have rendezvoused with us. Beyond Thamina crouched another of my daughters. Vera was sickly-looking with paper-thin skin.

"Begin," I ordered.

Tir vomited something black into the watershed while Vera opened her wrist and thick, clumpy blood oozed out into the water. Both of my daughters could spread disease. For weeks, the pair had worked on this plague. They engineered it, tested it. Something new. Something to reshape the world into something better.

I smiled as they polluted the reservoir. The Cedar Creek Watershed provided the majority of the water to the city of Seattle. In just a few hours, half the city would be infected by my weapon. An attack to shake the world.

Mark may have driven me from my demesne, but I would reclaim it.

"How potent is it?" I asked Tir.

"Mother, we did not have time to finish it," Tir hedged. "It's highly communicable and should kill roughly 33% of the men infected."

I smiled, staring off at the distant city of Seattle. Soft light bathed the city as the sun rose over the Cascade Mountains behind us. "That's more than enough to distract Mark."

Chapter Two

And with righteous anger, did our Living Gods drive the foul Lilith from Seattle, liberating the citizens from her dark shadow.

—The Second Book of Vivian 5:23

Mary Glassner

I watched in horror as the warehouse was consumed by flames. The greedy fire devoured the structure in minutes. The flames delighted in the destruction it caused, an insane glee that grew and grew as it engulfed more and more of the building in its tendrils. Red and orange danced in the night, sending cackling roars and popping laughs into the night sky.

The surviving rangers gathered around me. Mark was still inside. My heart clutched in my throat. With a mighty groan, half the roof caved in, sending fiery sparks raining into the night air. I swayed, my knees on the verge of collapsing.

Get out, Mark! I frantically sent. Please, please! The warehouse is about to collapse!

Working on it, Mark sent back.

I pulled out my silver locket from beneath the stab vest, clutching the heart-shaped jewelry desperately in my fist. The building creaked ominously, a shuddering moan growing louder and louder as the inferno consumed it. With one loud snap, it all came crashing down. Flames surged up into the sky. A hot wind slammed into me. I flinched before the heat, my auburn hair whipping about my head.

"Mark!" I screamed, tears burning my eyes.

Only rubble remained, twisted and burning. No longer a building. No one could have survived that. Tears ran down my warm cheeks. There was no way Mark could have survived the collapse. He was crushed to death, buried in fiery debris. My knees gave out. I collapsed into a ruin on the street, sobs wracking my body.

"Oh, Mark!" I wailed.

"Yeah, Mare?" Mark croaked behind me.

I spun around. My husband stumbled out of a portal from the Shadows behind me followed by eight shaken Rangers. Mark looked like hell, his face red from a terrible burn, half his head burned clean of hair. He stumbled forward. I caught him, helping him sink to the ground. His armor disintegrated into golden motes about me.

"Mark!" I gasped in horror, unable to look away from the ruin of his face.

"She got away," he groaned bitterly.

"That's okay," I whispered and then healed him.

He grinned at me when the scarlet light faded, his face healed, and I couldn't help but giggle nervously at his missing hair. He frowned, and I ran my finger along the swath of bare scalp where his hair had burned away.

"You need a haircut," I smiled.

Laughing, he hugged me onto his lap and kissed me hard. All the scared, excited energy exploded out of me as our lips mashed passionately together. I told Mark the truth earlier when I said it excited me watching him fight. He was amazing as he threw himself into the battle. My adrenaline and joy stoked my passions.

Our kiss would have led to us fucking each other's brains out if a moan of pain hadn't reached my ears.

Breaking the kiss, I said, "There are still wounded who need our help."

"What?" he asked, passion still filling his eyes. "Oh, yes. Of course."

I climbed off my husband. We set about healing the rangers who fought and bled and died for us. We led 132 soldiers when we attacked the warehouse, an entire company. Only thirty-five remained combat-ready, sustaining no or only minor injuries. Forty-eight were seriously or critically injured, and forty-nine died. We killed fourteen monsters, most slain by Mark or with our help, and another six had been driven off.

It was sobering to learn just how lethal Lilith's daughters were.

As we healed the wounded, a Humvee rolled up, and an officer—he had an eagle on his epaulets, so I think that made him a colonel—walked over to us. A group of soldiers followed him. "My Lords," he saluted. "We captured a prisoner at the Mayor's house."

I turned and blinked at strawberry-blonde Fiona glowering at me, her hands bound behind her back. "Lilith will defeat you, Tyrants!" she spat at us.

I flinched at the hatred in her eyes. Her aura was red, a Warlock's aura. She'd made a Pact with Lilith.

"You'll see!" she howled. "She'll crush you."

It broke my heart. I still cared for Fiona. But we deserved her hatred. We forced her to be our whore.

* * *

Mark Glassner

I found Mary in the mayor's office, sitting on the edge of his desk. My wife still wore her black fatigues, though she took off the stab vest. Underneath the vest, she wore a tight, black halter top that molded to her perky breasts and slightly round stomach. Her pregnancy was just starting to show. She wore her auburn hair pulled into a ponytail. She looked fetching as the rising sun streamed in through the window behind her.

Mayor Erikson wasn't in his office. He couldn't be trusted. He appeared to be enthralled by Lamia, who was either Lilith or one of her daughters. He could be a weapon. A danger to me or others. I left the man calling pathetically for, "My sweet Lamy!" with the soldiers downstairs. Mary would have to fix him with her Gift later.

"Mark," she purred. "I believe I promised to fuck your brains out?"

I grinned, my cock hardening. The fight in the warehouse had been terrifying, but afterward, I felt so alive. And I wanted nothing more than to prove how alive I was by fucking my wife. I sauntered to her. She slid off the desk, moving with a strong grace.

Man, she looked sexy in her fatigues, like an amazon.

When I reached her, she kissed me with passion, pressing her body to me. She shoved her tongue deep into my mouth, meeting mine, caressing me, driving me wild with her ardor. I groaned, loving her passion.

"Fuck me," she hissed, breaking our kiss, grinding her crotch into my hard cock. "God, I need it so bad! It was so hot watching you fight."

I grinned at her, loving this woman so much. Her green eyes sparkled, lips shiny. "Just dripping wet, huh?"

"Yes!" she moaned. "I need you in me. Fuck me with that same fearless passion!"

I groaned and spun her about. I bent my pregnant wife over the desk. Her arms knocked a computer monitor and keyboard to the side. They crashed to the floor, plastic snapping. She wiggled her ass at me, those fatigues molding to her rump.

I groaned, my dick throbbing. I loved the sight of her plump rear. I squeezed her butt through the fatigues, savoring her. She let out such wanton moans, throwing hungry looks over her shoulders. My cock throbbing, I ripped her pants down off her ass along, dragging her sky-blue boy shorts with them.

I groaned at the sight I had unveiled. Her cunt was wet and waxed bare. Those lips just begging to be rammed into. Pink petals I wanted to feel wrapped about my dick. My hands ripped down my fly. I yanked out my hard shaft.

And buried into her dripping snatch.

The heat of her pussy engulfed my dick. I drank it in, savoring the silky friction of her snatch around me. Exhilaration surged through me. To be in her, reveling in her heat, feeling her wet passion for me. Dizzy delight groaned through me as I drew back through her sheath, her flesh gripping me hard.

Then I rammed into her again. My balls smacked her clit. She whimpered, her back arching. Her plump ass jiggled. I loved the sight, gripping her hips. She rotated her hips, bucking back into me, loving the feel of my dick in her.

"Fuck, that's nice!" I moaned as I pounded her pussy.

"Yes, yes!" she cried, writhing on the desk. "Take me, stallion!"

The soldiers guarding the door were sure to hear us. That just made it hotter. I wanted them to know I fucked my wife. My goddess.

I buried my shaft into my wife's tight hole over and over. The desk rattled and slid on the beige carpet. It rocked beneath the vigor of my thrusts. She whimpered again, gasping as I bottomed out in her every time.

"That's it!" she moaned. "That's how you fuck a woman! Oh, yes, I need this, Mark!"

The jiggle of Mary's freckled ass drew my attention. Her rump was so pink and plump, so inviting. I couldn't resist. I raised my hand as I buried over and over into her silky pussy. And smacked down hard.

The air shivered with the spanking.

"Ohh, spank my ass!" Mary groaned, her pussy clenching down hard on my dick.

I slapped her again, leaving a red handprint. I loved the sight, her ass glowing. My hand came down again and again, making both her butt-cheeks glow. Her pussy grew hotter about my dick, her groans throatier. She reveled in it as she squirmed, her ponytail dancing.

I grabbed her auburn ponytail and yanked her head back. I usually wasn't this rough with her, but after the fight, we both were boiling over with energy that needed a release. She gasped, her face twisting with pleasure as I plowed her with all my strength.

I pulled her head up and snarled in her ear, "You like this? You like it when I fuck you hard?"

"Yes, yes!" she cried out, her green eyes lidded with lust as she looked over her shoulder at me. "Fuck me, stud! Make me howl in pleasure!"

"Naughty filly!" I panted and slammed my rod harder into her cunt. "Such a wanton mare!"

"Yes! So naughty! I'm your naughty filly! Oh, god, make me cum! I want to cum on my stallion's huge cock!"

"Yes," I growled and thrust so hard.

I savored the heat of her pussy, pounding her bent over the desk. I reamed my dick in and out of her silky depths. Her pussy clung to my dick, shooting pleasure through my body with every thrust into heaven. My clits smacked into her flesh, making her gasp, making her sheath tighten about my girth.

I heard it in her moans, felt in the heat of her pussy, saw in the way her back arched. Every time my dick buried into her juicy cunt, she came closer to her orgasm. I knew this woman's body better than my own. I reveled in her passion. I shared her rapture.

I worshiped her.

"Mark!" my goddess moaned, her auburn hair dancing as she writhed. "My mighty stallion!"

Her cunt convulsed on my cock as her passion swept through her. She felt delicious around my dick. I groaned as her wonderful sheath milked my shaft. Her juices spurted out around her, bathing my swinging balls as she howled her rapture.

I made my woman cum. My wife. My goddess. My soulmate. I thrust into her convulsing depths, keeping her rapture alive as she built my own. Her pussy's caresses brought me closer and closer to spurting into her.

To celebrating our victory over that bitch Lilith.

"Cum in me, stud!" howled my wife. "Flood your naughty filly with all that wonderful spunk."