Demon's Punish Ch. 03

There was a deep, gaping history blossoming in his mind. It was both the early lives of his ancestors, and the line of incarnations of his greater self upon a succession of lesser selves over the past age or two of humanity. It was too much to put into words. He had more memories than he could shift through in a lifetime. He knew they dwelt within his blood but also within something infinite. Right now, he gathered pieces that mattered. Creation was sealed, riveted with a host of wards to keep it as it had always been. Once they hadn't been necessary, but now they were vital. Both his Eld and another had been close to ascending beyond. Those memories were both thousands of years old and yet only a few decades old. Those memories were so twisted and inconsistent that he'd need time to work through them. He didn't have all the memories from time immemorial, but he had enough to not be ignorant of whom he was.

He had the memories to know what he was, just not the words to convey it in any comprehensible way. He imagined it was like what the native American's had struggled with when they'd seen giant behemoths cutting through the waves. How do you talk about a ship of the line when you have no concepts let alone the words to describe any of the concepts it embodies? He knew he needed a teacher. Someone to help give him the words that would allow him to process all these memories.

He also had access to more pragmatic things. The seals binding the universe could be manipulated. Some seals would be easy, some hard, and some impossible. The easy ones he could manipulate with body and mind. The harder ones would require lengthy rituals and assistance. The impossible ones were just that to him but maybe possible to others. There were many kindred in his House, and at least one other House he knew about. Demon and angel were close concepts, but they didn't feel quite right.

He was of the cold darkness, and they were of the pure light. Many religions had attached names that fit but didn't.

All that took five stairs. He had another eight ahead of him. He turned the vastness of his mind towards much sweeter pursuits. He lifted his right foot and raised it up to the next step. His hand slid up along the banister. His left hand flew up in front of him. It moved through several different movements, feeling for the first seal he wanted to manipulate. It made more sense to him now how Bijou had moved so fast. He was aware of the Principles of Motion, but that seal was not his to manipulate. The axis of his powers lay along three lines: greed, lust, and gluttony.

Unraveled to be simplified to its most basic components, meant actions manipulating the accumulation of things, desire for things, and consumption of things. There were nuance to those broad brush strokes, but it provided a framework for him to attach his mind to. For example, the manipulation covered not only these axes but their opposites. That was the basis for the curse he'd laid upon Bijou. He realized too, that the limitation placed upon him was his and his alone. It didn't change the existence of the constraints, but it lent some color to how he might in time learn to blur those lines and gain access to such that was beyond him now.

It took three more steps, his left hand working through a repeated loop of movements that were at once new and familiar to him. Still, his body lacked the training to execute with precision and speed necessary to combat realistic obstacles to his objectives. What was before him at the top of the stairs was no longer an obstacle.

When he crested the top of the stairs, his right hand joined his left in dancing through passes of movement. He touched the seal controlling the manipulation he desired. The efficiency in this approach compared to his haphazard flailing before was an order of magnitude. Not needing to invoke his name further added to the cost savings. Instead of protecting a box or a room, he coaxed the same for himself. The seal was there before him, his hands working to perturb it. The faint traces of dark essence he'd supped on downstairs were sufficient to manifest what he needed.

They weren't wings. What emerged from his back was a cape of the light eating nothingness he'd experienced both in the Du Graf's bedroom and again while dying. It oozed from beneath his shoulder blades, blossoming out through the air like blood in water. It was a large undulating mass of blackness. Within the ill-defined curtain of night some structure emerged that were akin to tentacles, which allowed him to cocoon himself in the darkness or flare it outward like a billowing wall. Instead of permitting flight, the tentacles within could grapple or brachiate.

Besides the two dark masses undulating out from either shoulder blade, he was naked. His frame was svelte without being thin. His cock jutted out from between his legs, swaying from side to side of its own volition. It was becoming more snake than penis with colors mixed from angry purple and violent red. While he didn't have a tail, his penis was similar to one. His control over it was beyond anything natural. The head of his penis was a thick shaft that opened to a four fanged mouth. The fangs glistened with an oily aphrodisiac.

He wrapped the tentacles around his arms, chest, and legs creating a black suit of writhing darkness. His face was exposed but the rest of his body was fully sheathed in the infinite dark.

Rhea has put a ward around his bedroom. It was a childish thing to him now. His dark eyes picked out the web of dark essence networked around the perimeter of the room. Raising a palm he could feel its resistance pushing him back. The true heart of the dark is absence; it is nothing but the nothingness existing where nothing else exists. He could now remember the seal governing this essential nature, Negating That Which Is For What Never Was. Except that name was compressed into a single Word in his mind. He needed a slight manipulation of that seal to negate the ward. He also had to speak its name, a word which was not a word at all. His hands worked several passes; his fingers contorting in a pattern of abnormal movements. He consumed just a drop of dark essence. He had a whole handful remaining, not that such things could be measured in that way.

Gideon was ready for the shotgun blast as he opened the door. What else was Jake good for? The tentacles around his right arm and torso unwrapped themselves and billowed out, absorbing the round of iron flechettes.

Rhea reeked of greed and lust, leering at the nubile body strapped to the four corners of his bed. She wanted to touch Angie's body. Run her gnarled hands along the giant hill of Angie's belly and down to the valley below. Rhea also hungered for the coup radiating essence in Angie's belly. Rhea wanted the thing within Angie just as much, if not more than everything else. She wanted a child and a tool of power for her own. Gideon sipped her dreams like they were a glass of the Maximo Extra Anejo. Her vices were a delicious bouquet playing over his tongue. Rhea was so absorbed in her dreams, she didn't react when the door opened.

Jake was sporting a boner leaking pre-cum and tenting his pants. Jake's eyes kept sliding back towards Angie's naked body. Gideon could smell Jake's need. Layers of unrequited desire and obsession formed a stalker's wedding cake. Gideon ate it up.

Bill was the only pure one in the room. He wanted his niece safe and unmolested. There was nothing for Gideon to manipulate there, but Rhea and Jake were easy. He flicked one of his fingers in a quick pattern. He invoked a Word. He took their darkness and pinned them to the ground with it. Jake dropped to his belly but managed to retain his grip on the shotgun. Rhea collapsed into a heap on the bedroom floor. She moaned, but no words were able to escape her withered lips.

Gideon watched Bill look at the shotgun in Jake's hands and then back up at Gideon. A smile crept over Gideon's face. "Sure, why not?"

Angie's eyes shot open, and she hissed. The iron chains wrapped around her wrists and ankles ground against each other. They rattled and clanked. His bed groaned.

"But, I'd hurry up, Bill. Angie will be loose soon, and I'm not sure who she's going to try to kill." Gideon wrapped the tentacles around his body again and crossed his arms over each other. Wisps of darkness escaped from his body. He imagined the effect was quite imposing.

Bill took seconds to work his mouth, wetting and yawning his lips open several times. "We...I didn't." He sighed, looking down at his hands. He dropped to his knees, bending his back. "You don't know what it's like. We, we are the shit on the boots of gods. Shit."

"I respect what you did for Angie, but she's mine now." Gideon laid a finger on Angie's barefoot, caressing the tops of her toes. "Everything I touch is mine, Bill, and I don't give a fuck if you are the shit on the bottom of my boots or not. I don't have the time to waste on you. Wait outside. We'll see what Angie has to say when I'm done."

"Ye...yes sir." Bill was slow to rise to his feet. He swayed, his back hunched over so that his knuckles swung below his knees.

"And close the damn door on your way out." Gideon dismissed him with a gesture and gave Bill no further heed.

Bill's response was a whisper that Gideon ignored. Gideon turned and looked at Jake. "What do you think Jake?" Gideon eased the weight upon Jake enough to allow speech.

"You bastard."

Gideon laughed. "I am, yes, but what's your point?" He walked over and took the shotgun. He didn't feel the fear he'd expected. There was no anxiety holding what had been used to make his body into a pulpy mess. It was just that there wasn't much of his lesser self left. Only tatters clung here and there. He could recall his old life, but those memories were distant. He was looking at someone else's home videos. It wasn't his year book. He'd been 'a nobody' wishing for something, and he'd gotten his wish. Who in their right mind would dwell on the crap that came before?

The shotgun made an impressive schunk-schunk sound when Gideon cocked it. While it didn't have any hold over him, he watched Jake cringe. Perhaps it was the barrel pressing against Jake's cheek. "What is it Jake? I thought you loved this. You certainly took a great deal of pleasure with it before."

Tears welled up around Jake's eyes. He sniffled back snot. "I..I don't kill me, p-please." His breath came out in stuttered pants. His body tensed up like he was about to be hit.

Gideon looked down at the shotgun and laughed. "With this? No, Jake, I don't plan to kill you, no matter how much you beg for it. True, you left me for dead-"

"I...she...we did."

"I'd been wrong, I realize now when I thought that deal with Lucy had awakened me." Gideon let one of the tentacles on his back take the shotgun. Another tentacle helped to snap the gun half. The pieces clattered to the floor. "That had been a glimpse, a sip. You put one extra shot into my face, didn't you? Just to be sure there at the end." Gideon ran his hands over his face. It was rough scabs, but not the bloody pulp it should have been. "In a way, you helped me. It's called the Little Death. It's necessary to pierce through the lesser self." He shrugged, bending down to pat Jake on the shoulder. "I figured you deserved that much at least."

"What?" Jake said, struggling against the weight pinning him down. "I don't...it doesn't make sense."

"Rhea does," Gideon said, his dark eyes flickering to the old crone. "It was as much for you as for her." He still watched the old bag of bones seethe, even as he addressed Jake. "Well, I wanted you to know that you did as good of a job killing me as you did keeping Angie. And that you shouldn't trust old women who claim to be wise, because it's a con."

Because getting in the last word always made him feel better, Gideon cut off Jake's ability to respond. Jake could stew on that. Gideon watched Jake struggle to speak for a few breaths, until Angie's struggles on the bed brought him back up to his feet. "Hold on, I'm not finished rubbing this in." He patted Angie on the thigh, running his hand up and down a few times like he was strumming the strings of a guitar. Angie started panting and worming her pelvis closer to his fingers. Of course the chains on the bed made that difficult, at least until Angie broke either the chains or his bed. Gideon didn't like the odds against his bed, and he was still fond of his bed. So he continued stroking Angie's leg as he addressed Rhea.

"Now, stop me if I get any of this wrong. Like the rest of this group, you stumbled into all this mess when you were young, but you figured out how not to be the shit on the bottom of some god's boot. You had a little of what I've got, but not much. Still, enough that you could draw some of the dark essence by..." Gideon tapped his lip with his other hand, "Lust. You made some sort of agreement, and though you wanted sex, each time you denied yourself it you recouped a trickle of power, but the trick was you could never partake. Otherwise it wouldn't be much of a sacrifice." He rubbed his chin, which was painful but at least his hand didn't come away covered in blood. "You went your whole life cutting off the sole reason for our births in the first place. Then you saw an opportunity, trade me to or kill me for Isabella. She'd reward you with more essence than you could acquire in a lifetime. No, I'm not going to let you speak, not yet anyway. Just nod if I got the gist right."

That was about all Rhea could do, and she did it with a small jerk of her head.

"So it's going to suck then when you both fail Isabella and have sex for the first time in your life, huh? I suspect an orgasm would do, which you could do for yourself. However, by the time I'm done, I'm sure Jake will be happy to bang you for me."

Now both of his prisoners had wild looks in their eyes.

"Oh, it's cool to kill me, but I'm not allowed to punish you?" Gideon arched an eyebrow and shook his head. He took a breath in and held it, feeling the pressure in his lungs. It was a small exercise but holding his breath helped to focus on all the seals within the body. He had certain abilities that were inherent and passive, like being lucky and immune to poisons. Also others got caught up in his own arousal. That's how he'd almost incited an orgy during the poker game. He had leverage over them now. There were cracks along the vices that he could manipulate. Those were all basic or core functions that took very little of his dark essence.

He could manipulate no seal in the human body that would violate someone's free will. Such a thing was impossible as far as his new memories were concerned. However, if there was the smallest spark, he could amp that up by a million times. There were a host of new memories that he drew from. His right hand flickered through manipulation of the seals governing blood flow, stamina, and smell. He also worked on the minds of both Jack and Rhea, dredging up a tidal wave of sexual fantasies and memories. He did all of this with one hand in three minutes. His knuckles ached with the intricacies of the gestures.

It shouldn't be possible to twist his middle finger across his palm while hooking his pinky finger around his forefinger, but he did that and a host of other gestures while uttering words that were so old they had no recognizable sound. They might have been progenitors at the root of all language. It wasn't a caveman's grunt. It was like all the words in all the languages ever voiced or imagined for a given concept like "flowing blood" smooshed together and spoken at the same time. It was the dark essence that made it possible for his hand to invoke and his mouth to utter these impossibilities. Motes of his essence peppered the whole room like a fine mist.

The coup in Angie was not where it need be. If it stayed in her stomach, Gideon had no doubt Angie would be giving birth to whatever dwelt within her through her mouth. That was something she wouldn't survive. But the thing inside of her wouldn't relinquish the coup unless he distracted it.

Spirits were perverted, tumorous growths upon the cast off remnants of someone's lesser self. Some called them ghosts or wraiths. There were worse things in the recesses of Purgatory. They all wanted one thing, to be back in the game. Fetters of unfinished business or desperate need could become so strong that sometimes a lesser self would linger. It wasn't natural. What happened over time wasn't pretty, but even snake venom had its uses, if it could be harvested without being bitten.

It must have been Bill that had laid a sheet over Angie's pelvis. Otherwise her entire body was laid bare to him. Her hips bucked and lifted most of her body off the bed. His left hand was stroking along her knee. Her skin reminded him of a warm loaf of bread. He knew from past experiences that plunging his fingers into her was like the warm, gooey center of a loaf fresh from the oven. Instead he dipped his hand under the sheets and stroked along the top of her thigh. The way to win this game was to make her want it so bad she could think of nothing else. Only then could he strike in the space between cresting and plunging.

Her eyes snapped open and tracked him. "Hungry," she said. "Fuck. Fuck."

Gideon really hoped her old personality would return, he wasn't into the village idiot routine. He smiled up at her raised head. "We'll see."

Another voice, not spoken but heard, hissed. "Now. Now. Now."

The iron chains groaned; his bed creaked. Now that the spirit within Angie had access to more power than he did, Gideon wasn't confident that he could contain it. It was a cancerous thing, and he needed to transmute it into something useful. Host and tool needed to become whole.

He swung his legs over her waist and wrapped his hands around her wrists. Tentacles descended from his back and wound their way around her legs. "You will submit."

"Fuck. Fuck." She said, grounding herself against him. He was naked. Only the sheet served as a thin shield between what she wanted, and what he couldn't give her yet. Her pussy was soaked and the sheet clung to her like a second skin.

Two more tentacles slammed into the floor, boring through carpet and wood. They flexed, giving him stability and leverage. He pushed her body back to the bed. "If you can't listen, you are going to get punished."

Her head tilted back and laughter erupted from her throat. The other voice that wasn't there but could be heard hissed into his ear. "Bad! Punish. Punish."

Gideon grinned. He released his hands from around her wrists and replaced them with more tentacles. The infinite darkness attached to the tentacles billows around them like a school of jellyfish. They could have been in the deepest depths of the ocean. Still he could see.

His hands brushed her wrists and biceps. She had soft curves that he traced along her chest. He ignored her large breasts, puckered with excitement. He stroked her swollen belly. He could feel something angry swimming inside. The thing pushed back against his hands. Gideon tilted his head and blew a cool breath over Angie's tits. Her whole body shivered.

He turned his dark eyes to watch the effect this was having on Jake. He warred with envy and lust whereas Rhea was a cauldron of lust and hunger.

Angie looked up at him with her normal eyes as Gideon lowered his lips over hers. Their lips smashed into each other. He bit her lower lip, pulling it out and nibbling on it. As it snapped back, Gideon's mouth dove forward. Angie arched her body and sought after his mouth. Gideon kissed around her lips and down her jaw line.

"Fuck yes baby," Angie hissed, wiggling her body against his. His cock teased her labia, tracing aphrodisiac along the wet folds of her flowering sex. Like a gardener misting his favorite rose bud, Gideon's cock worked to engorge and enclave Angie's pussy. "Fuck me damn it!" She shouted. The bed groaned against the strength of Angie's struggle.