The Soul Eaters

"I am Kalika, and I bring the Darkness", she said, or something of that sort, and "I am a goddess of Time and Change and Destruction. I am the handmaiden of Kali, the consort of Shiva and our tales spin out far beyond the Mahabharata to when time began. I have seen civilizations crumble and seas boil and mountains rise and fall like first breath of babe newly born ..."

The businessman heard none of it he was so transfixed by Kalika's burning eyes. "You are beautiful," he told her, like he told all the women he wanted to fuck.

He thought then that he heard a bit of laughter from the corner of the office, a man's voice, even, but he paid it no mind, he only had eyes for Kalika, in her odd, tight red dress that barely concealed her heaving breasts.

"I am Kalika! And I am hungry!" She fell upon him like a lioness with her prey and when she had sucked in his soul she laughed out loud at the taste of it. And then Rudra pounced on her and they rolled on the floor, mouths pressed together, tongues entwining in knots as they tasted the soul, as it fed them and gave them power.

But not enough power to resist the pull of the bewitched postcard. Before they had done more than swallowed the soul and felt its brightness within them, they were swept back in and captured once again as images on a beach, smiling in the sunlight.

The company failed when the businessman's hopes and dreams faded away, and the postcard was lost for a time, in a file, behind a cabinet, amidst a shuffle of papers that no one looked at anymore.

Until it somehow ended up on a table in a library, and caught the eye of a desperate young man. His life had been reduced to a number and that number was up, he had been called up, and he was overwhelmed with the feeling that his destiny was no longer his own. And as he held the postcard in his hand, he was not so stupid to believe that his final destination would be anything like this sunny place, with the beautiful woman in the surf with the red swimsuit and the nice tits, but the postcard gave him hope. He felt it surge suddenly in his chest, so strong it almost made him sick. Maybe, he thought, he would come out on the other side of this war, maybe it wasn't a death sentence, maybe he could imagine a day where he would be flying away to a far away place and he could dream of other things besides smoke and blood and death.

So the young man tucked the postcard into his pocket and kept it with him, always nearby, in his footlocker at boot camp, in his pack on the long flight overseas, even inside his helmet as he slogged through an unending jungle, surrounded by the smoke and blood and death of his dreams. But when all seemed lost, when the flame of hope inside him seemed all but drowned in the never ending damp of the jungle, he would take out the postcard and stare at it, he would imagine the woman with the amazing curves was his, and the handsome guy in the chair was his best friend in the world, and all they had to do for the rest of their lives was drink and sleep and fuck and have fun. And the hope would flare up in him anew.

He endured a good amount of ribbing from his buddies, it was true, but they understood, For didn't they all have dreams of their own? At night, in the dark, they would pass the postcard around, and make up ribald stories about the couple in the picture to amuse themselves. Soon they were all planning exotic vacations with "Esmeralda" and "Guy" once they were out of this shit hole of a war.

But very few, if any, of them were making it out of that shit hole of a war, this they all knew. That this was an irrefutable fact became most clear on that last night, when the jungle shredded around them and the sound of artillery was never going to end. It was in the tiny supply tent that he saw her, and he thought he must be shell-shocked. Or possibly already dead. Esmeralda didn't look exactly as she did in the postcard, and he would know, wouldn't he, he had memorized every detail, but it was she who beckoned him from the shadows at the other end of the tent. And he went to her without question, and stood before her trembling and afraid. She wore a red dress, her feet were bare, and her black hair was in tangles around her face.

"Esmeralda?" He asked, beseeching, unbelieving. And she smiled sadly at him and reached out to stroke his wet cheek.

"I am Kalika," she whispered, "and I bring the Darkness that never ends. But you don't have to be afraid. In fact, you will never be afraid again, I can promise you, young soldier."

Kalika wrapped the young man in her arms and she could smell the hope within him, it was so strong, for wasn't the desire to live the most potent form of hope there was? But she also sensed that this young soldier had lost control of his destiny, just as she had, and she took pity on him and wanted to be gentle as she had not been for so very long a time.

So she fought the urge to rip him apart to devour his soul, and instead she let her dress drop and stood before the young soldier in offering. Quickly he shed his own clothes, and it was as if she were the soul and he the Soul Eater, the way he sought to consume her. His hands snagged in her long hair, and his mouth tasted every bit of her he could reach, her lips, her breasts, and her large dark nipples that he rolled with his tongue until she felt the pleasure stirring within her.

But she was Kalika, and she was a goddess of destruction, so she pushed him to the floor and knelt over him, letting her hair fall over his face. How many soldier souls had she taken in her existence? How many well-muscled young men with hard shafts had she straddled as she did now? Young men with doom looking over their shoulders who still had the audacity to hope. Kalika had traipsed across countless battlefields, innumerable wars and marveled how it was always and ever the same. Young men destroying one another. And that was all.

Kalika looked deep into the young man's desperate eyes, and tried to imagine what he saw when he looked at her. She teased the head of his sex with the open, puffy lips of hers, and felt a delight she hadn't in ages when his hips rose towards her and he groaned in supplication. But alas, time was short and so must the tease be. She pushed herself onto the young soldier's shaft, took him within her and smiled widely at his groans of desire. She caressed his smooth chest and strong shoulders as she rode him, pulling herself all the way off, and then pushing him all the way in, letting him revel in her warm velvety depths.

The solder stared at her while she thrust herself upon him, like he was sure she wasn't really there, though he could feel her soft flesh under his hands as he gripped her wide hips, her behind, caressed her breasts and her strong thighs. He groaned again, "Esmeralda", and she felt his desire pulse within her. Kalika bent over him again and rode him hard and fast, slamming herself down onto him as he thrust up to meet her, and she whispered to him once again that she was Kalika, and she served the great Destroyer, but to him they were just words, so she kissed him hard and deep and pushed her tongue against his, tasting him, searching deeper and deeper, down his throat until she could wrap her tongue around the sweetness that was his soul.

She devoured it quickly and gave a great cry and felt him move and spurt his warmth within her. Kalika kept her mouth on his for just a moment more, savoring his soul with everything she had, for who knew how long it would be until she could taste another? Especially once such as this, this hope for life that sparks ever bright even in the darkest of times.

Kalika sat with the young man as she waited for Rudra, he had gone off to find his own sustaining soul, she was sure, just as she was sure that their time was short. She sensed no more fear in the young man, and that was good, for his time here was not much longer than hers.

"I'm not afraid to die." He told her, but it wasn't bravery, for brave was what you were in spite of your fear. And it wasn't despair, for despair was born of hope's last breath. No, it was indifference. And for that she was glad.

Then Rudra strode in, skin aglow, fierce eyes shining with the strength of several souls, and she knew he had fed more than she had. He looked so much like his true self from before the old goat magic that Kalika felt a stirring in her breast. Would the time soon come that they gained enough power to break the spell that captured them? It's power must be diminishing for it had been such a very long time. But just like always Kalika felt a pull and a tremble and they were both swept back into the postcard to cavort once again, fettered to the water and the beach and the chair.

When the young soldier died, uncaring and alone, far from home in the unyielding jungle, his possessions were retrieved and returned to his grieving family, including his postcard of "Esmeralda" and "Guy" looking as they always had, she in her red swimsuit and he watching her from his chair.

From postcard to billboard to graffiti sprayed carelessly on a wall, Kalika seemed doomed to dance in the water, and Rudra consigned to sit and watch her. But no matter what form their image took, there was always a soul whose hope was so great that it called to Kalika and Rudra and freed them from their prison of frozen time for a few fleeting moments, and with every soul they consumed they gained strength and with each passing year the ancient magic that kept them there weakened. They would look into the darkness behind one another's eyes and feel the stirrings of something they had never felt before. Hope.

There came a time, then, in a city of tall steel towers, where the streets and even the skies were crowded with machines, that a young beautiful painter sat at her easel with a brush in her hand and a vintage postcard taped to the corner of her canvas. She sat back to admire her work and smiled, she had captured the postcard's image so perfectly. A dark haired beauty in a red dress danced at the water's edge while a handsome smiling man sat in a chair and watched her.

She sat and she gazed and she whispered to herself words long dead, sounds that hadn't been heard since the time of small temples and petty gods and dark spells on sunny islands. In her lap she held a small, burned wooden box and she traced it's odd carved figures with paint stained fingers. Still whispering her ancient words she opened the box to reveal a small clay pot, so old it almost crumbled to her touch, so old but still holding a stain of paint that must have once been bright red but had now turned to a rust like old blood.

The beautiful young woman held the clay pot in the palm of her hand and stood back from her just finished painting, stood back and with a gleeful shriek threw the pot in the air, and as she followed it with her eyes it exploded into black dust and settled onto her still wet canvas. Then she waited, panting, fists clenched, to see what she had wrought.

A heavy moment passed, and then another, and then suddenly they were there, Kalika and Rudra, standing before the artist with fire and hunger in their eyes. A lovely little painter, Kalika thought with joy, but Rudra was looking around them with suspicious eyes and when he spied the fresh portrait of themselves all coated in black dust he reached for Kalika with a quick hand.

But Kalika was so hungry after so many years frozen in time, the last soul seemed so very long ago and she fell on the girl with great eagerness, her mouth already opening wide, her long tongue snaking out towards the girl's smiling mouth.

She recoiled just as quickly when the stench hit her nose, the foul odor of the old goat wizard who had long since turned to bone dust assailing her senses and choking her throat. How could this be? What magic was this? Who was this thing that had called them forth?

A rage rose up in Kalika the likes of which she had not felt since the twisted old goat had first come to them with his malice and magic and she burned with a desire for retribution. This here was no shining soul to feed and sustain them, this was no lovely little painter of the kind Kalika had favored for so long in the days when she was free. This was some kind of trick of a soulless creature and if she was to have no soul to eat she would have long delayed vengeance.

The awful little thing was still whispering foul words when Kalika wrapped her hands around it's throat. The rankness of the soulless shell surrounded her like a dark cloud, and Rudra's warning words fell on deaf ears. Rage at so many centuries of torture and disrespect and mistreatment welled up in her like molten rock from a volcano's mouth. She was Kalika! Eater of souls! The audacity of what had been done to her and to Rudra would not stand! She laughed without mirth and her hands squeezed with an unbreakable strength around the young woman's neck.

Rudra pulled at her arm and she could sense his fear and that angered her all the more. He was Rudra! With his long black braids, broad shoulders and strong thighs but he laughed and danced and sang no more because of the spell of the ancient goat wizard.

Kalika looked into the face of the young soulless painter and saw she was still smiling and whispering her ancient words even as her face turned blue and the bones in her fragile neck snapped. Her eyes frozen wide seemed to mock Kalika in some ghastly way and she threw the body down with disgust.

Whether she was vessel or wizard or something other, she was as dead as the old goat and Kalika felt it again surging in her breast, that unfamiliar sensation, the awful humiliation of hope rising in her and making her tremble.

She grabbed Rudra's hand and saw it shining in him, hope so beautiful it was like to a human soul and the awful hunger overwhelmed her anew. She saw his black eyes looking back at her with the same lustful hunger that she felt inside herself, and imagined that she shone with the same desperate hope that made her Rudra glow like he did.

So before she could think she twisted her arms around Rudra's broad shoulders and felt his strong arms encircle her waist. She smiled at him as his hard sex pressed against her belly and she pulled him tightly to her. Kalika sighed with longing as Rudra put his large hands on her breasts and dug his fingers into her dusky flesh.

She wrapped her strong legs around his wide waist and impaled herself on his throbbing thick sex. He groaned into her tangled hair as his hard shaft plunged into her her warm velvet depths. So tightly Rudra held her as she rose up and off of him then slid him all the way back in, the pleasure so fierce she could feel herself clenching tightly to him with each thrust. Their viciously hungry coupling all but cracked the brick walls of the attic loft, and they lost themselves to it.

Kalika pressed her hungry mouth to Rudra's hungry mouth and she could taste his hope on every panted breath. Hope for the power to be free of the foul spell cast upon them, hope that it wasn't too late to regain what they had lost, to become what they were meant to be. She knew it so well, this newborn hope, because it was exact and identical to her own.

She kissed Rudra deep and full and when her long tongue started to snake over his long tongue, he pulled away and began to speak. "I am Rudra," he whispered between harsh breaths, "and I bring the Darkness that never ends ..." but Kalika pressed her hand over his mouth to stop his words.

Consumed by hunger, aroused by the awfulness of hope and a dreadful rage, and with Rudra's hard sex buried deep within her, Kalika threw her head back and screamed her own words.

"I am Kalika! I am the Darkness that never ends! I am a goddess of Time and Change and Destruction! Oh, my Rudra, I am Kalika and I am so hungry!"

And she forced her mouth to his once again and thrust her tongue inside him deeply, and at first Rudra's own long tongue twined with hers, and they twisted against each other, each seeking the source of the other's great and fearful hope, each thrusting tongue gaining purchase into the other's throat, struggling back and forth, and it seemed time stood still as the kiss deepened and they fought against one another.

Then with a sigh Rudra's long tongue withdrew and he let Kalika have her way as he would. And as he felt her hot tongue snaking down his own throat he thrust his thick shaft deep inside her one last time and wondered in amazement at the unusual sensation of Kalika draining him of hope, of the soul he only just discovered he had.

Kalika pulled away from him and stepped back, and he sensed in her both pure dread and great power. His eyes drank her in as she truly was, as she was always meant to be. Wild tangled hair moved like waves around her head, dark skin shone with the inner light of a devoured soul, breasts heaving, hips undulating, she moved towards him with her dark eyes shining.

He smiled sadly at her and asked as he always did, "And how is it, my goddess, my Kalika? Does it fill you up as you had hoped? Are you still hungry?"

Kalika stroked his muscled chest and thought to herself, no, no, my Rudra, I am so full, but in moments his strong form, his body she knew as well as her own, crumbled to a fine black dust that coated her skin and Rudra the Soul Eater was no more.

In a new burst of rage Kalika turned on the painting and rent it in two with her fearsome bare hands. But it was still not enough, how could she be sure? So she tore it to splinters and tossed it aside and she ripped the old postcard to tiny paper shreds, though it pained her to see the smiling form of Rudra disappear once again under her trembling fingers.

Kalika stood in sudden silence and waited with clenched hands, braced for the familiar pull of the old goat wizard's magic.

But with her newly consumed power the spell was forever broken and Kalika had at long last triumphed. Cold triumph though it may be, with the loss of strong Rudra, Kalika was now free to spin through the ages as she would, a goddesses of Time, and Change and Destruction. She would dance and laugh and consume the little lives she found in her path, whomever she chose and wherever she wanted.

For she was a consort of Kali, of Shiva, it was said, and she brought with her the Black Night that never ends. Even before the tales of the Mahabharata, before Shiva, before the dark place where Kali danced and time came together at the clap of her hands. Even then, she was waiting, she will always be hunting, for as soon as consciousness sparks to life there is want, there is desire, there is fear and there is hope, always hope, and hope feeds.

*****

Author's note: I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you did, or even if you didn't, I would love to hear your feedback in the comments section. And if you feel inspired to vote, I would really appreciate it. I learn from every story I write. Thanks.