Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) (36 page)

still almost as much mine as it was hers.

“Demanding and playful,” I went on. “Beautiful and deadly. A mighty

witch, always in command of your stolen power.”

She gasped, staring sightlessly up into space as her skin beaded with

sudden sweat. She balanced trembling on the verge of another titanic orgasm as

conflicting forces battled within her. I could see the moment when some part of

her realized what was happening, and threw what will she could still muster

into the balance.

“Yes!” She gasped.

The deadlock broke. All the power she’d taken from me flowed easily

into a new pattern, and crashed down upon the tangled knots of half-absorbed

darkness. Shadows chased each other across her skin, and for a moment her

hair lashed out in a blind attempt to strangle me.

Then it fell limp. Cerise lay there panting for a moment, as the magic

that filled her settled into its new configuration. When she finally opened her

eyes the unnatural darkness was gone.

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“You bound me to be myself?” She murmured.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Do you need anything else, before I seal it?”

A crooked smile stole across her lips. “Let’s go with: ‘But all my

sexy powers are yours to command when you want.’ So I can relax and let go

sometimes without having to worry about what I’ll do.”

I chuckled. “Done.”

She squirmed against me as the final binding settled over her. “That’s

so hot. Make me agree, Daniel.”

“Naughty wench.”

I started thrusting again, but this time I didn’t hit her quite so hard with

the flesh magic. She gasped, thrashed, her claws digging into the shredded

remains of my shirt as her tight channel began to work my tool again.

“Say it!” I ordered roughly.

Her eyes screwed shut, and her head thrashed from side to side. She

was almost there, but I wasn’t letting her reach her peak.

“Ah! Fuck! S-sneaky bastard! I… y-yes! Fuck, yes! Make me your

bitch, Daniel.”

I let her find her release, and found myself abruptly driven over the

edge as well by the impossible sensations emanating from her hot core. I

collapsed on top of her, panting for breath.

“Agreed, and sealed till we both recant,” I gasped, completing the

weave that would make the binding self-sustaining. “Fuck, you’re a handful.”

She snuggled into me with a smug grin. “Damn right I am, and don’t

you forget it.”

A soft whimper reminded me that we weren’t alone.

“Can someone… please… finish me?” Avilla pleaded from

somewhere behind me.

Our eyes met, and we both laughed. I moved aside, and Cerise rolled

onto hands and knees.

“Come here, Honeydew,” she said, her affectionate tone completely at

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odds with her still rather demonic appearance. “Kitten has a new toy for you.

I’m sure Daniel can give us a few minutes.”

“Yeah, I think if I come one more time my brain’s going to melt and

run out my ears,” I admitted.

“Same here,” Cerise agreed, to my surprise. “But I can’t leave my girl

hanging.” She pounced on the curvy blonde, and began kissing her thoroughly.

I turned away with a smile. I wanted to tell them not to take too long,

but I didn’t quite have the heart to interrupt their reunion.

The bodies on the floor brought me back to reality. Seven men and a

demon had left huge pools of blood spreading across most of the floor, but it

had long since dried. The remains of my clothes were caked with dried blood,

and so were my hands. How long had we spent mindlessly rutting among the

bodies?

A glance showed that Cerise was spotless. Either blood didn’t stick

to her anymore, or… well, best not to go there for now.

I busied myself examining the books and arcane materials spread

about the room. I found Grinder on the floor under a worktable, and Avilla’s

giant recipe book occupied a high stone podium. A lot of the other books

seemed to be religious in nature, but not all of them.

There was also a scholarly survey of major spellcasting styles, which

looked like interesting reading. One shelf held several books on summoning

and binding rituals, along with a catalog of magical creatures and the realms

they were believed to hail from. One of the larger tomes looked like a book on

air magic and weather control, which could certainly be useful.

I’d just cut the chain off that one and stacked it with the rest when the

girls joined me. Cerise was looking quite pleased with herself, and Avilla was

adorably mussed. I hugged them both.

“Think we can get away with stealing that priest’s bed until

morning?” Cerise asked hopefully.

Avilla giggled. “I wish. But we have to go.”

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “Too many monsters gathering. The town may

not be here come dawn. Speaking of which, either of you know what time it

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is?”

They both shook their heads.

“Damn. Then we’d better not waste time. We need clothes, and I

suppose we can spare a few minutes to loot this place if there’s anything else

you want. Cerise, we’re supposed to be meeting Oskar’s militia and the people

you and Avilla had recruited over at the granary by the harbor, which is where

what’s left of the 5 Margold is set up.”

“Those bastards?” She protested. “They didn’t lift a finger when we

needed them. Don’t tell me we’re hooking up with them.”

“They were in service to the Baron,” I pointed out. “Captain Rain

takes that seriously, but now that the Baron’s dead he wants to sign on with me

instead. Considering how much loyalty he was willing to give that idiot in the

name of a contract, I think it’s a good deal.”

“I guess. Wait, the Baron’s dead?” She pouted. “Aww. I wanted to

kill him. No one gets to paw my girl like that and get away with it.”

“I took care of it,” Avilla told her. “Daniel pinned him to a wall for

me so I could take my time.”

“Oh. Well, as long as you’re satisfied. That’s the important thing.”

I interrupted before the heated look they were sharing could lead to

another makeout session. “Cerise, are you stuck like that or can you make

yourself look a little more human?”

“Hmm. Let me try.”

She closed her eyes, and after a moment the aura of power that still

lingered about her faded. Her horns vanished, and her claws shrank and

flattened until they could almost be mistaken for fingernails. Her tail remained,

although it seemed a little shorter than before.

“That’ll do,” I nodded approvingly. “We’re done hiding what we are

from our own people, but we’ll have an easier time meeting strangers if you

can look relatively normal. I take it you’re stuck with the tail?”

“I can’t hide it with magic,” she said mischievously. “But if it’s

important I’ve got other options.”

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She curled the slender appendage up to slip the end inside herself

with a naughty grin. Then she flushed, and her eyes fluttered. Somehow she

managed to slide a foot or more of tail into her hidden depths, leaving the

remainder tucked neatly out of the way.

“Whew,” she said. “There. Give me a skirt and no one will suspect a

thing. Plus if I get bored I can just give myself a little thri-ooooohfuck! Wow.

You’re right, honeydew. This thing is wicked hot.”

I facepalmed.

Avilla giggled. “Told you. Careful or you might end up addicted to

yourself.”

“Cute,” I sighed. “But you can play with yourself later. Right now we

need to focus. We all need fresh clothes again, and if there’s anything else you

girls want to steal from this place now’s the time. We won’t be coming back.”

Cerise extracted her tail with a long, sensuous wriggle, and grinned at

me. “Sure thing, Daniel. Totally serious now.”

Avilla smiled at her demented partner indulgently. “I could fix our

clothes, Daniel. But my power is running low, and doing that instantly in this

place would pretty well drain me.”

“That’s easily fixed,” I pointed out. I put my hand on her shoulder, and

poured a modest stream of magic into her body. As usual she sucked it up like

a sponge.

“Warn me if you start feeling high,” I told her. “We all need to keep our

wits sharp right now. But I should be able to give you enough for that kind of

spellcasting without a problem.”

The girls shared one of those looks that was probably a whole

conversation. Avilla sighed, and left her lover’s arms to snuggle up against me.

“Thank you, Daniel. You have no idea how good this feels. But I have

to ask, where are you getting all this power? Cerise stole enough life force

from you to kill a hundred men, and the maids told me you’d barely finished

healing yourself when you left to rescue me. Is it wise to push yourself any

further?”

“I suppose it is about time I let you two in on that,” I mused. “I think I

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mentioned once that one of the elemental sorceries I gained when Hecate

brought to this world is magic itself?”

They both nodded. “Yeah, but I still don’t see how all of magic can be

an element,” Cerise said.

“It’s not ‘every kind of magic’, it’s ‘the stuff that spells are made of’.

Which is an odd way to think about things, I know. But understanding what

spells are made of, how that stuff behaves and where it ultimately comes from,

lets me do some crazy things. Like this.”

I fished my amulet out from under the remnants of my shirt, and held it

up.

“This thing is enchanted to put a barrier against physical attacks around

me when I want it to, and it automatically heals me whenever I get injured.

That last part has saved my life a few times now, because it works even if I’m

not in any condition to think about it. But the most important thing it does is act

as a power source.”

Avilla nodded. “I thought you must have something like that. But what

does it draw on?”

“Itself.”

I grinned at their puzzled looks, and went on. “One of the most

important discoveries that we’ve made back on my home world is that mater

and energy are different forms of the same thing, and if you understand them

well enough you can change things from one form to another. Some

transformations are a lot harder than others, but stuff like turning motion into

lightning or lightning into heat and light is easy.”

“But turning matter into energy is where things get interesting, because

transforming a grain of sand directly into heat would reduce this whole town to

a puddle of molten rock. Anything solid has fantastic amounts of power bound

up in its structure. So when I used my metamagic sorcery to create an

enchantment that gradually transforms solid matter into raw magic…”

“An unlimited source of power?” Avilla breathed.

“Effectively,” I agreed. “It’ll eventually eat itself, but that will take a

few centuries. There’s also a limit on how fast it can generate magic, but with

this amulet that’s high enough that it usually isn’t an issue. Other than that,

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yeah.”

“I want one,” Cerise pleaded. “Please, Daniel? I’ll be really grateful.”

I chuckled, and mussed her hair. “It’s on my list. I have to work out

how to make it so you can control the power feed, or it’ll force-feed you

power until you explode or something. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned

from this fiasco, it’s that I need to stop trying to do everything myself. The first

chance I get I’m going to gear you two up.”

That got excited smiles from both of them.

“Just remember to keep this a secret,” I warned them. “We don’t need

every wizard within a thousand miles converging on us to find out how it

works.”

“Of course,” Avilla said seriously.

“This is the kind of thing you take to your grave,” Cerise agreed. “Not a

word to anyone, unless we talk it through and agree.”

“Good. Now why don’t you find some clothes to steal while Avilla

works her magic? I expect the guards have all fled by now, but from what I

remember of that fight I don’t think you’d have any trouble with a straggler.”

“You got that right,” she grinned.

“Come to think of it, weren’t you supposed to be bound not to attack

them? How did you get around that one?”

“That half-assed thing? A binding I didn’t agree to can’t hold me for

long, Daniel. I was already wiggling out of it, but when the circle went down

my girl here popped it off me easy as pie.”

Avilla leaned against her affectionately. “It wasn’t that easy. But we’ve

put a lot of work into being able to free each other from hostile magic, and I

still had a lot of the power you gave me. I even managed to charm a guard, and

I didn’t think I was anywhere near being able to pull that off.”

“Makes sense. Well, good work, both of you. We make a good team.”