Corruption Ch. 01

"Hardly torture not to be led around by my manhood."

"Torture not to exercise it at all," the dark-haired man said, lifting one eyebrow. "When was the last time you -?"

"None of your business," Webster told him sharply. "Can we talk about this case?"

Gage shrugged, loading another hunk of bread with the flavoursome stew and sauce.

A shadow fell across the table and the men looked up at a barrel-chested man, shorter than either of them but much broader, beefy arms extending as he leaned on the end of the table.

"And what brings the wolves of the Church to my door?"

Gage's disbelieving snort went the wrong way and he coughed, the man leaning forward and slapping him hard on the back.

"Donato, what are you doing here?" Webster asked, leaning back as his partner sent a spray of half-masticated food over the floor with the throat-clearing blow.

"Retired here," Donato said, dropping to the bench beside him and glancing around the room. "But it's Ryan, here, now."

"Ryan!?" Gage recovered his air and washed the rest of the mess down with a mouthful of ale. "You retired ... here?"

"Everything I ever wanted, right here," Donato said, gesturing discreetly around the room.

Following his gaze, Gage couldn't disagree. "Food's good," he said. "And you still have an eye for the ladies, I see."

Donato looked around as Gage stared at the serving girl standing by the next table. "Oh, no, take your pretty eyes off that one, Gage," the innkeeper said immediately, his voice dropping to an irritable growl.

"What's wrong with her?" Gage wanted to know, his gaze moving appreciatively from head to foot. A little taller than the others, the woman was slender, her curves not as pronounced, but still enticingly suggested against the close-fitting linen blouse and long skirt. Long red hair, vivid and curly, fell down her back, her skin creamy pale, flushed a little with the warmth of the room. Not his usual type, he admitted to himself, but well worth the look. Her face was heart-shaped, a wide forehead, large eyes and wide, plump mouth. He stared at her lips as she smiled at the man she was serving, a brief and heating image of those lips wrapped around him filling his head like summer lightning, there and gone.

"That," Donato said, shifting his bulk to block the man's view. "Is my daughter."

"Oh."

"Aye."

"What do you know about the killings ... Ryan?" Webster asked tersely, glancing at the red-haired woman and back to her father. "We've been sent to investigate the possible opening of a gate."

Donato leaned forward, shaking his head. "It's a bad business. The local lord's wife ripped to pieces, along with half her retainers. The signs are here, I sent the report to the Monseigneur myself."

"What signs?" Gage asked, his attention sharpening on the older man.

"Storms and earth movements, blight and animal deaths," Donato said. "Six people have gone missing, from both the village and the farms in between us and the town. No remains have been found."

"Have you found the gate?" Webster pushed his plate aside impatiently.

"No," Donato said abruptly, shaking his head. "Not looking for it either," he added, looking from one demon hunter to the other. Wolves of the Church, he'd called them, and they were, sniffing out evil and hunting and tracking it and devouring it. He should know, he'd been one himself, years gone by. "I sent the report. I'm retired. I got a family. It's your problem now."

"Come on, you must have heard more than that," Gage said, his wide, mobile mouth curling up at one corner.

"I'm not in it," the innkeeper told him harshly. He looked down at the table top, aware that he might not be active, but that his life wasn't the easiest to retire from. "There're whispers, since her ladyship was killed. Whispers about something not right at the convent."

"What convent?"

"All Hallows," Donato said, turning his head to look in the direction of the convent, gesturing vaguely to the east. "Been there six hundred years, same order. Father Martin is very well-thought-of and they help here, all the time, with the sick. Until lately."

"What are the rumours?"

Donato looked away uncomfortably. "Ah, you know rumours, Gage, lights and strange sounds coming from the buildings. One of the village ladies was up there, said their gardens have died." He looked at them. "All of them."

"We can look tonight -"

"We can look in the morning," Gage cut him off firmly, his eyes on the blonde woman by the long counter. "We'll see more," he added reasonably, glancing back at his partner.

Webster's mouth thinned out but he didn't respond, turning his attention back to his food.

"Any possessions?"

"None that I've seen," Donato said, with a shrug. "There are a few people in the village who swear black and blue that the Lady Eloise was a witch, and leading a coven, but I could never verify it, and you know what jealousy's like in the smaller towns."

The hunter nodded. The burnings and torture of hundreds, possibly thousands of innocents had been driven by small-town petty hatreds and jealousies. What recourse did anyone have against an accusation that could be neither proven nor disproven?

"You have a messenger? Someone you trust?" he asked the burly man beside him.

"Aye, my son," Donato said. "You need to get a message to Rome, he'll take it."

"Angeline'll take you to your rooms, they're at the back and there's a separate stair down to the yard," Donato said, getting to his feet. "These are good people, for the most part, Gage. Whatever's going on, it needs to be stopped."

"At your service," Gage said with a grin. "Which one's Angeline?"

Donato smiled humourlessly at him. "The one you felt up when she served you," he said, his tone dry. "Seems to have taken a liking to you for some reason."

"It happens," Gage said modestly, ignoring Webster's deep exhale from the other side of the table.

"You keep your eyes, an' everything else, off my daughter, Gage, or I'll have your guts for garters," Donato said, waving a warning finger at him. "Not negotiable."

"Not my type," Gage assured him.

The innkeeper turned away and crossed the room, stopping to speak to the red-haired. Gage watched with interest as she glanced across at him, turning back to her father and shaking her head.

"You heard him, Gage," Webster said, watching his partner's expression. "You would risk the one ally we have here for the sake of a night's pleasure?"

Gage looked at him. "Depends on the night," he remarked. "Relax, Web, like I said, she's not my type."

"You have no 'type'," Webster told him with a sniff. "No morals or principles or discernment of any kind when it comes to women."

Closing his eyes, the hunter pretended to consider that. He looked across the table. "You know, I think you're right."

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The candles sputtered, their flames leaping over the rough plaster walls as the wick was slowly drowned in liquid wax. Gage looked down, licking his lips as he savoured the taste in his mouth. The unsteady light lit the skin of the woman under him to a pale gold, the shadows to tints of umber and mauve, and he ducked his head again, spreading her legs as he licked the creases and folds of her sex, his tongue finding and flicking the hard protuberance at the top of them. He held it for a moment with his teeth, biting down very gently and she moaned and lifted her hips up to him, her hands fisting in the coarse linen bedclothes as he pushed his fingers inside, curling them up.

God, he loved women, he thought, only a little incoherently as his tongue lashed her nub and his fingertips found the corresponding roughened patch of skin that amplified her pleasure, deep inside of her. Her helpless moans made his cock strain and twitch, slick already over the head and ready for the moist, soft heat that clenched and sucked on his fingers. He loved their scents, so different woman to woman, yet all with that intoxicating underlying hint of musk when they were aroused and begging him to take them. Soft flesh and sweet tastes, smooth, silky skin and hair and even the roughest farm-maid moved with a grace that fascinated him, in the turn of a wrist, or the long curve of a neck, head tipped back, lips parted and eyes half-closed in mindless pleasure.

He watched their faces, watched their bodies, looking for the tells, for the minute shivers and flutters that told him where to touch and how and with what pressure and for how long. When his cock slid into their delicious infernos of heat and pressure and softly pulsing damp, he saw their eyes fill with emotion, with love and gratitude and acceptance and every time he saw it, he felt himself healed, a little more.

It was no different with the woman under him, he saw. Her legs spread wide and curled around his back, her hips jerked up to him, nails driving into his shoulders as he thrust in and out of her, his weight supported on his hands, the big muscles of shoulder and chest, of back and neck hard and bunched, gleaming with sweat in the fluxing light of the dying candles.

"Harder," she moaned, and he sucked in a deeper breath, feeling his control like a fine wire, winding tighter and tighter.

"Faster," she pleaded, and he groaned, a deep rumble in his chest as he felt his balls swell and draw up, the muscles along the back of his thighs shuddering with the strain.

"Oh! Yes! Oooh, yesssssss," she mewled, her eyes rolling back and every muscle in her body convulsing and throbbing and pulsing around him, sucking him deeper. He looked down at her face, at the slackness of expression, her mouth open and panting as she was lost in the pleasure he'd given, and the fine wire snapped, the line crossed, the building vortex that spun and throbbed through his groin and up his stone-hard length released and out of control.

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All Hallows Convent

"Father Martin will see you now, Patience," Clementine said, pushing the door open and standing aside for the novice to enter.

Patience walked through the doorway nervously, wondering what she'd done to occasion a conversation with the priest. She started as the door shut loudly behind her, her hands gripping each other in the folds of her habit.

"Patience," Father Martin said, turning from the window to face her.

With the light behind him, she couldn't see his face clearly, nor make out his features.

"Father," she acknowledged, bowing her head.

"You have been with us for almost a year now," he said, taking a step closer to her. "What think you of this life?"

She looked up, a little confused. They had talked a little of this in the garden, not more than a few weeks ago.

"I am enjoying the studies, Father," she said, wondering if he'd forgotten that conversation. He had seemed a little different, in the last couple of weeks, but she couldn't be sure. She didn't spend enough near the priest to have noticed a significant difference.

"I'm glad to hear it," Father Martin said, his eyes darkening.

She was the one, he thought. The one that would break the chains of the gate completely. Innocent in every way, untouched.

"Sister Felice tells me you are ready for the next stage of your education," he said, moving around the big, polished desk to lean against its edge. "Take off your clothing, my dear."

"What?"

"Are you hard of hearing? Or do you choose to deliberate misunderstand me?"

"I'm sorry, Father," she said, dropping her gaze to the floor.

"Take off your clothing," he repeated, slowly and clearly. "I will be sure that you are ready for a union with our Lord."

"Father, I cannot - this is not right -" Patience stammered, taking a step back toward the door uneasily.

"TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES! NOW!" the priest roared at her, straightening from the desk and striding toward her. "OR I'LL TAKE IT OFF AND YOU WILL BE PARADED THROUGH THE VILLAGE IN YOUR SKIN!"

Patience cowered in front of him, her fingers plucking uselessly at the coarse grey wool of her habit as she stared at his face.

It was twisted in rage, his eyes no longer a warm, periwinkle blue, but black, his hands closed in fists and raised.

She fumbled with the soft cloth belt that held the habit around her waist, her heart thudding against her ribs, her breath whistling in her throat with fear. The man standing in front of her was not Father Martin. The thought would not let her go.

The belt gave way and she lifted the habit over her head, letting it fall to the floor. The sunlight through the thick glass of the room's windows shone over the thin, white shift as she tugged at the lacings, her skin flushing with colour when the garment fell beside the habit.

"Better," Father Martin said, his voice quiet.

She could feel his eyes moving over her, raking her skin. Lifting her arms, she covered her bare breasts and the triangle of fine, soft curls at the apex of her thighs.

"No, no," Father Martin said, reaching out and pulling her arms away from her body. "You will hide nothing from the sight of our Lord. You will do exactly as you are told. You will become His bride."