Night Bound - Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Azrael's gazed upon Wil's sleeping form. Wil was lying on her stomach, her hands clutching at a pillow she had half-dragged under her. He was hypnotized for a time by the serene expression on her face, and he smiled softly at her peacefulness. His eyes roamed across her body now. Delicately he dragged down the silk sheet that covered her, until he had exposed the length of her lithe frame, exposing her back down to the crack of her buttock. Azrael lay next to her on her bed; both of them were naked. She clutched at her pillow as a child would a teddy bear. It was how she always slept, Azrael reflected. Always snuggling her pillow to her - never anything alive, just a pillow. His hand began to lightly caress her shoulder and upper back. She stirred under the touch, sleeping still, and swallowed a couple of times before settling back into slumber.

"Time to wake soon, my dear," Azrael whispered. In his experience Wil had never been a morning person. She was barely recognizable in fact, until she had imbibed this magic beverage called coffee. He had actually thought it was a genuinely magical elixir when he had first seen it's transformative powers. But eventually he had accepted that it was a mundane, earthly thing.

Azrael's hand ran down her shoulder blade, over her back and disappeared under the silk sheet as he began to softly massage her ass. Wil murmured out loud under the pressure, and snuggled the pillow closer to her, pressing the soft bundle against her face and chest. She was drifting closer to consciousness - Azrael could see the change in her aura.

Azrael sometimes spent hours laying watching her sleep. He didn't actually need to sleep himself; sometimes he did, just for the sensation. But he loved to watch her aura, her soul - peaceful and still. So much potential, and he was so close to possessing it.

And then she was awake. Wil's eyelids cracked open and she squinted against the light while squeezing every muscle in her body tight to stretch herself. She had a little smile on her face as she gave a satisfied, early morning moan.

Give it a second, Azrael thought, and tried to present his most kindly, reassuring face for her.

Wil looked up at him, blinking still, and was blank for a moment. Her eyes went wide as awareness and memory came flooding back. She gave a startled yelp. Wil sat up sharply, oblivious to her nudity, and stared down at her forearms. They were unremarkable in nature, but she stared round-eyed at them as she held them out for her inspection. Then she looked up at Azrael, disbelief written all over her face. Unexpectedly, Wil gave another cry and, scrambling to pull the sheets away, exposed her long, tanned legs - running her hands over them as though looking for something. Finding no imperfection she looked up, staring at him, intense and haunted.

"You bastard!"

Azrael smiled warmly and looked mildly quizzical as Wil scrambled off the bed. The slim woman landed gracefully on her feet, and backed away till she bumped into the wall.

"You bastard," she repeated.

This reaction, Azrael thought, was worth the price of admission alone. He sat up, propping himself on one hand. "Wil, darling - what is the problem?" Now he looked bewildered.

"How could you fuckin' do that to me?! How could you?!" she snarled, mixing betrayal, hurt and anger in her voice. "How the fuck could you?"

"I'm...I'm sorry, Wil," Azrael said, the picture of innocence. "But I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. I remember we had dinner, you drank quite a lot, and then you had to have a lie down."

"I don't drink." The reply was almost a non sequitur, as though she was trying to fill up time while her mind caught up with events.

He smiled knowingly. "Of course you do, babe, and when you do, well you know how you get all silly."

She scowled at him, but didn't reply; instead she was examining her forearms while calming her breathing.

"Did you have a bad dream, my love?"

Wil just stared at her forearms, then slowly slid down the wall, till she was sitting with her back against it and her knees under her chin.

"A dream? You're tryin' to tell me that was a fuckin' dream?"

"What was a dream?"

"That thing where you beat the livin' shit outa me, you sadistic fuck!"

"Hmmm, me, assault you? Well, as you are obviously unharmed we're just going to have to assume it was a dream."

Wil just glared at him. The muscles in her jaw twitched as she bit down in an attempt to control her emotions. She wrapped her arms around her legs and squeezed the tightly closed as she regarded Azrael, saying nothing.

"Did you know that dreams are often trying to tell you something?" Azrael went on, his voice thoughtful. "Say, what do you think that dream was trying to tell you, babe?"

In the depths of her dark eyes something seemed to boil, a rolling cloud of nebulous, maleficent emotion swirled. They maintained eye contact for long seconds before the tension eased from Wil and she slumped subtly, almost undetectably.

"I think," she began with a stiff, forced smile, "that the dream was telling me that you're the boss here."

"'The boss'? Are we sure that's the word we use?" His voice was still pleasant but contained a hard edge at the same time.

There was another long glaring pause before Wil replied. "I meant, you're the Master."

"Excellent. I don't think that's a dream you should forget in a hurry."

Wil gave me a final angry scowl before looking away. She stared over the tops of her knees at some spot on the ground between them. Azrael glanced casually around the room, as though inspecting the decor, then returned his attention to her.

"What are you thinking about?" he began after what he judged to be a sufficiently long gap in the conversation.

"How do you know that I'm thinkin' about anything?"

"Because that's your thinking position."

Wil's eyes flicked to her knees for a moment. "Not necessarily."

"Don't be a child."

"Fine. Maybe I was jus' tryin' to work out what the fuck is going on here."

"We're home, baby. In my dimension. Which is your dimension too."

"You're dreamin'. No wait, I'm dreamin'. At least I fuckin' better be." Her eyes were on her wrists. "This ain't my body. I can tell."

"No, Wil, it's..."

"Could you shut up for a moment?"

Wil rocked back and forth ever so slightly as she thought, while Azrael watched her patiently, smiling benignly still.

"OK." There was a pause before Wil carried on. "OK. So those bastards bounced us and you did...something to get us outa there, and shot me back to Elizabeth's time. And I got stuck in her body. Was that the plan?"

"Of course."

"Liar."

Well, it was essentially the plan. I didn't realize the original soul would still be in there with you. So it took a little bit longer to find you than I anticipated."

"Didn't realize she'd be in there with me?" Wil echoed. "What - you expected Elizabeth to go somewhere? Where?"

He shrugged and made a face. "Who knows? Who cares?"

"You were going to kill Elizabeth? You bastard!"

"Your newly acquired sense of morality is both heart-warming, and is making me feel slightly ill."

It was Wil's turn to make a face.

"And," Azrael continued, as though this would clear his name, "I had no idea where you'd end up. I had no idea that that short, blonde insect even existed! Though she may prove entertaining yet." He picked an imaginary piece of dust from the silk sheet.

"You harm one hair on her head and I'll...." The threat remained incomplete.

"Yes, my love? You'll do what?" Azrael inquired pleasantly. And when he received no response, "I thought as much. In fact, I have a feeling this little humanistic phase you're going through is not going to last when the time comes for actual action, rather than these impressive words. You always placed great value on self-preservation after all."

Wil stared at him, her face hard, before breaking eye contact and scanning the room - her eyes flitting from one thing to the other. With one final glance at Azrael she stood up, making no effort to conceal her nakedness, and marched across to where she had spied her trousers. Her clothes appeared to have been cast casually about the floor.

"You don't know me," Wil struggled into the tight breeches as she spoke. "You just think you know me."

"Is that right, Psycho?"

Wil froze, her pants half covering her ass as she stood there with glacial stillness. Then she came to life again, pulled the tight leather pants up and began securing them at her front.

"Where did you hear that name?"

"Why I pulled it from your mind while you were sleeping."

She turned and stared at him, apparently unconcerned that she was topless. Azrael took the opportunity to run his eyes over her breasts and muscled torso.

"Mmmm, you're not shy are you, baby?" Azrael murmured approvingly.

"There ain't nothing here you haven't already seen. And answer the fuckin' question - where did you hear that name?"

"I told you - from your memories."

"Bullshit! You heard it somewhere - maybe I mentioned it in passing, maybe you did some snooping behind my back. Yeah, 'cause that's how it works, isn't it? You're fuckin' good at guessing games. You take a little bit of information and then make some bullshit guesses about it, and drop it in the middle of the conversation an' see what happens."

Wil had found her top and was struggling into it. "And," Wil continued on as Azrael opened his mouth to speak, "why do you have to dress me like a whore? This is not how I dress! It's embarrassing - fuck knows what Elizabeth must think of me."

She was lacing up the figure-hugging leather top now. Azrael opened his mouth to speak again, and was immediately cut off again. "I mean, this is the most decent thing I could find in there." She jerked her thumb in the direction of the room's long wardrobe. "Most of the stuff in there is downright unwearable - it's disgusting. I don't dress like this. It aint' me!"

"Maybe, but it is how you'd like to dress. In your fantasies."

Wil shook her head at him. "You don't know me at all," she asserted once more.

"Really, baby? You know what I think?"

"Do I care?"

Azrael continued, ignoring the rebuff. "I think it's you that doesn't know yourself. I thought we proved that a while ago. Remember Carter's daughter? You had some fun there, didn't you?"

"Fuck you! That was you - not me! I barely fuckin' touched her."

Azrael laughed softly. "You are the queen of denial!"

She turned at his laugh, considered for a moment as an irritated flush came to her cheeks, then turned back again.

"Them - the bad guys." Wil changed the subject, as though unwilling to be sucked into an argument. "They can't follow us here?"

"Nope." Immediately after saying that Azrael glanced to one side and thought. Very probably not.

"Terrific."

"Don't sweat it, my love. I'll protect you."

"Yeah, sure. Like last time, when those two bastards caught up with me and Liz. Thanks for your fuckin' protection."

"I saved you," Azrael sat up as he protested.

"Bullshit, asshole. I saved me!" Wil jerked her thumb at her chest. "I always do. You," her finger stabbed at Azrael, "were gettin' off."

"I sense there's some issue you need to work off here."

"You insensitive piece of shit bastard! You let them torture and rape me! While you watched!!" Wil's voice had risen almost to a shout. Azrael raised his hand in reply.

"No, baby. They cut off the connection before I could get a fix on your exact location. It just took a while to find you is all."

"I don't believe you - the timing of your entry was too perfect. You went in after I had done all the hard work and taken those sacks of shit down!"

"You never complained about the perfection of my timing before, baby." He went on quickly when Wil's scowl deepened. "Well, maybe I caught the last little bit of the show. And maybe I didn't want to interrupt you, as you seemed to be enjoying yourself."

Wil just stared at him, her snarl back in full force. "I was not enjoying...that! I was doing what I had to do to survive."

"Why not, babe? Wasn't it as good as when I did that to you? Are you going to tell me that you were doing what you had to do to survive then too?"

"Maybe I was. And then was different - this is about loss of control, and...and a breach of trust. I can't believe you can't see that!"

"Of course I understand that, Honey. And you have to believe me that I did everything I could."

A smile spread across Azrael's face. "Hey, Wil - we're having an argument."

"We're always havin' an argument. That's why our relationship is over."

"Don't say that, babe. And I mean this is out first little argument in your new home. Isn't that sweet?" he said, his voice quiet and soft again. "And it's beginning to turn me on."

Azrael slid off the bed and stood up. His erection jutted in front of him, steadily growing and drawing Wil's eye to it. She had taken a small step back as he had moved, but immediately stopped herself and stood firm as he approached, her hand balled into fists at her sides.

"No, Azrael."

"No what?" He stopped just short of her, his rigid cock almost bridging the gap between them.

"No, I do not want to fuck. I told you it's over."

"I think you do. I know you do."

"No I don't. And you know it don't count unless I say yes."

Azrael smiled knowingly.

"Same old, Wil. Wants the best of both worlds - wants the pleasure without the commitment. Well it's not gonna happen, baby. I won't take you until you beg me to do so. Not until you crawl to me on you hands and knees and beg me to fuck you. Which you will do in the not too distant future."

"Dream on, Pal. Dream the fuck on."

Azrael's smile broadened as Wil's scowl deepened.

"Until that time, how about you do me a favor and...suck my cock?"

Wil's hands went to her hips and she looked away in disgust. She shook her head a couple of times as though debating something with herself.

"Will you leave me alone if I do?" she said, looking back at him suspiciously.

"Of course, my love. Some peace and quiet will give you a chance to think and come to your senses."

The suspicious look remained. There was a pause.

"Fine," she said. "I'll suck the stupid thing."

Wil got down on her knees.

---

The room's familiarity was taking on a haunting aspect. To be presented with such a perfect facsimile of something that was so intimate, so familiar, yet to be aware of it's artificiality, it was.... Words failed Elizabeth for a moment. It was almost sinister. She stopped the slow circuit of the room, taking in every aspect of her setting, and faced the mirror. The words of the deranged butler flooded through her troubled mind. It was all she could do not to reach up to her neck and seek confirmation of the sensation she had experienced in the dining room - the touch of a thing that could not be there. Elizabeth fought back the growing awareness that something was very wrong here.

The mirror called her. She needed the comforting reflection of her bare neck to drive away these mental phantasms. With a deep breath the small blonde strode to her dresser and sat down in the chair.

And she looked.

And she saw nothing.

Nothing around her neck anyway - which was the first place her eyes had gone in spite of her resolution not to be so silly. Elizabeth looked into her own blue eyes and sighed.

"Oh, what are you doing? This is madness! Can't you see that?" Elizabeth's reflection told her in sync with her own voice. "This whole situation is so mad, the people here are so mad, you are letting it drive you mad too!" She clasped her bare neck and closed her eyes, the breath issuing from her in a low hiss.

Feeling calmer now,

Elizabeth stood and looked around. A thought came to her and for a time she considered acting upon it. Shrugging, Elizabeth gave in and strode across to the window. She looked out upon the moonlit scene beyond that glass barrier and reflected upon her situation. There were thoughts buzzing in the back of her mind, unpleasant truths that she did not wish to acknowledge; thoughts about the eldritch occurrences of late. There must be a rational explanation for everything that has happened here, there must...

Elizabeth stopped, cut short by an awareness that seized control of her perceptions with an urgent, breathtaking abruptness. It was not right! The scene outside that window was simply not right. At first the stillness of the scene had been calming - now it was eerie. Nothing had moved since she had been looking out there. Not even the clouds.

Perhaps it was just a very calm night? It was with a certain trepidation that Elizabeth fumbled at the catch and opened the window - needing to see out there unimpeded by the distortions of the crude pane of glass.

She leaned out as the frame swung open and took a deep breath. The air was unremarkable. Which was also wrong. The air outside tasted exactly like the same as the air inside, not sharp and cold as one would expect of night air.

A quizzical furrow marred Elizabeth's brow and her eyebrows were raised in accompaniment to the mannerism. This really was very odd indeed. There was something she had to do now. Something that her mind was telling her was necessary. But she did not want to do it, as Elizabeth desperately wanted to stay in her comfortable world of denial. But she could not hold back the truth any longer. And so she reached her hand out into the night.

There was a dull "thunk" as her fingers met a solid object. Elizabeth gave a startled cry and snatched her hand back.

"Good gollyfuck! It's a painting!" she gasped in confirmation of her fears.

She ran her hand over that smooth, silken surface - a couple of feet outside the house. It was unbearably lifelike. Whomever had painted this must have been a master; possessing skills far beyond that of a Michelangelo or Da Vinci. She continued to gaze open-mouthed at the life-like perfection of the painting, the verisimilitude of the work clashing with its unnatural stillness.

Elizabeth wrenched herself away from the perfect horror of her bedroom window vista and staggered to the dresser again. She collapsed into the chair and stared into the mirror, her heart filled with dread. For long seconds there was nothing remarkable in her reflection, save for her wide-eyed, paler-than-usual visage. Then, under her intense gaze, a sparkling shower of orange dots began around her neck. Elizabeth gasped and resisted the impulse to touch the occurrence. The sparkling increased in intensity until the effulgent dots merged into one another to form a band encasing the smooth skin at Elizabeth's neck. Gradually the preternatural luminescence died away to leave a horrifyingly familiar vision - of an otherwise unremarkable, unadorned leather collar. Now her hands crept to her throat to feel the solidity of the vision under her fingers. It was real. It was a nightmare made real.

"Oh no!"

---

It was her door again. Wil stood in the corridor and stared hard at the scratches she had made on her bedroom door. This was the fourth time this scene had repeated itself - Wil staring perplexedly at those marks, wondering how on earth she had managed to walk in a circle. The problem was, she reflected bitterly, that she was not on earth.

"Fuck it!"

The hissed curse echoed down the long corridor. She would never find Elizabeth's room at this rate. Wil had snuck out of her room ten minutes after Azrael had left. But somehow she managed to find the dining room every attempt and then further exploration always lead back to here. Somehow. A grimace of angry frustration swirled across her, before she took control of herself.

"Stay cool, Murray," the instruction to herself was barely audible. "We gotta stay cool if we're gonna get outa this one."

Wil began to move again, her long loping stride taking her swiftly down the corridor. She paused briefly by each door she passed and twisted furtively at the doorknobs.

They were all locked - just like the last four times she had tried them.

Cautiously she crept down the corridor, hugging the wall while muttering something unintelligible to herself.

---

The tall figure had stopped at a three-way intersection when a door some distance behind her swung open just a crack. The woman did not appear to notice that one of the portals she had so recently tested and found locked had opened, apparently of its own volition. Instead, the dark-haired woman looked left then right as she debated with herself.

The door closed, shutting with the barest snick and then, a few seconds later, the next door up the hallway opened, just a little bit, like before. The woman was facing down the left-hand corridor, apparently having made her choice, when this door too closed.

Without warning she impulsively spun about and marched determinedly down the right-hand corridor. The next door along, the one closest to where the woman had just been standing, crept open. There was a brief pause before the door jerked wider open - as though surprised to find the corridor empty.

Then the wooden portal shut with a quick movement.

---

Wil crept along the corridor, still muttering to herself. She spun around, landing on the balls of her feet and facing the way she had come from. Did she just hear a door close? Wil strained her hearing, but the silence was complete and total.

"Stay. Fuckin'. Calm." The command was whispered yet harsh.

Wil checked the door on the right side of the corridor. It was locked. She crept onward until she was at the next door, on the left-hand side. It too was locked.

"Shit."

She moved on.

---

The door the woman had found locked a few second before opened a crack. The inch of separation between the door and its frame revealed an inky darkness, an impenetrable nothingness from which a malevolent intelligence regarded the human being in the light. The door closed.

The next door along the corridor, closer still to the cautiously moving figure, opened with an unnatural silence. Then, after the briefest pause, that door too closed and another opened. The sequence of opening and closing doors was gaining upon the woman.

This door closed just as the tall female turned and looked back the way she had come with a quizzical expression. She moved on, pausing to try another door and finding it locked like all the others.

In view of the previously rapid sequence of activity from the doors, the lack of further movement held a tone of pregnant expectancy. It was almost as if a plan was being formulated.

---

"I swear this fuckin' place ain't natural - but no surprise there," Wil muttered to herself as she crept along. "And it sure ain't like no house I've ever seen - it's more like a fuckin' tunnel complex. It's..."

The sentence was never completed, as the door in front of her was open, just a crack. After finding every other door in the house locked, finding one that was not only unlocked but also open was surprising to say the least.

Wil stared at the door for a moment, unsure. There was no light on in that room - there was only an utter darkness within. Every fiber of her being was screaming at her to run, but she did not. A combination of obstinate refusal to give into her fears and curiosity held her there.

Her foot moved to take her first step closer to the inviting doorway almost without conscious direction. And once started, the process could not be stopped, until she stood before that dark portal.

Wil reached out and grasped the edge of the door; slowly she opened it wider.

There was nothing there. Literally. The blackness was so thick - so complete - it almost felt like a wall.

"E...Elizabeth?" Wil's voice disappeared into the illimitable gloom, smothered and lost forever. "Elizabeth? Are you in there?"

She shuffled closer, until she was inches from the threshold that divided dark from light. Surely Elizabeth couldn't be sleeping in there? The darkness was suffocating. There was no reference point for the eye to latch on to - it was as though the world stopped and a void began.

Wil sighed and relaxed slightly. "Don't be stupid, Murray," she chastised herself, "It's just a fuckin' dark...woah!!"

---

Azrael strode happily down the hallway, humming tunelessly to himself. He rounded a corner, sliding his hand down the oak paneling as he went, and pulled up abruptly at one of the doors lining the passageway. With barely a pause he opened it and stepped through.

The door proved to be an exterior one, for it revealed a drab, damp scene. Azrael - no longer human looking now, but instead a hulking, eight-foot tall, red-skinned demon - trudged along the gravel pathway that soon disappeared into a forest. There was a very light rain upon the air, barely more than a mist. Azrael gave the briefest of glances behind him at the doorway standing forlorn and alone in the middle of the field, before turning and following the path into the forest.

The forest was a gloomy, somehow disturbing collection of unnaturally twisted trees rather than a forest in the conventional sense. It was as though the trees has gathered together to form a group of malformed individuals and never gelled into a homogenous collective that could be called a forest.

Things scurried and slithered within the shadows cast by those living wooden aberrations - things that watched with greedy, fearful eyes as Azrael passed. A few hisses - low, hate-filled and threatening - sounded from the moldering undergrowth as he passed. But he returned each challenge with a savage glare and hiss of his own that proved enough to send the occupants of the foliage scurrying off in the darker depths of that malignant grove.

After about ten minutes of Azrael trudging - still humming happily in between savage glares and hisses -along the forest path, a clearing in the trees hove into view.

In the middle of this clearing sat a large wooden structure, an Inn as it turned out. Lights were visible at the building's windows, smoke drifted from the chimneys and a hubbub of voices could be heard from within.

Azrael paused at the entrance just long enough to slip the hood of his cloak over his head, then opened the door and stepped into the cavernous barroom with its thick atmosphere of drink, drugs, sweat and noise.

The patrons were a polyglot bunch - an eclectic assortment indeed. Despite the variegated nature of the clientele, they all had one thing in common - they were all demons. It was impossible to simply characterize these creatures, as they came in a bewildering array of shapes and sizes: some scaled, some not, some with wings, some with tentacles instead of limbs or tentacles growing from odd places in addition to their limbs. You name it - it was here. However, most possessed some combination of fangs, claws, spikes and such the like as to make passing through the crowd a dangerous business. One drunken stumble could get you impaled on someone's spiked back, as Azrael had just observed happen.

He slipped easily through the patrons; Azrael was not the biggest creature in the room, not by a long shot, but something about his presence and the confident way he moved caused most of the crowd to subtly make way for him.

He spied the Innkeeper engaged in conversation with a man - a big man with thinning red hair - but very human-looking nonetheless. The bartender, a long, lithe demon covered in purple scales of varying shades, nodded animatedly as the pair discussed the finer points of owning and operating a drinking establishment. Azrael glanced at the man, curious for a moment as to what a human would be doing here. Then, with a stab of unease, he saw and felt the waves of power rolling off the redhead. Whatever dimension that creature was from, he decided, it was not Earth. With a slightly hurried air, Azrael moved deeper into the crowd.

Soon, Azrael told himself, I will be the one with the power, and they will all worship me.

As he disappeared amongst the sea of bodies the demon Innkeeper and his conversation partner looked up, staring for a moment at Azrael's broad back. Then they gave each other a knowing, raised-eyebrow glance, before settling back into their conversation.

Azrael showed not the slightest sign of disquiet as he weaved through the Faustian nightmare that was the crowd. He paused briefly to join a circle of onlookers who were shouting excited support at two small creatures locked in a vicious death struggle. It was not long before one of the beasts triumphed in a spray of ichor and cries of either disappointment or triumph went through the crowd. Azrael moved on as wealth began to change hands - he had a meeting to make tonight.

The cloaked, hooded Azrael spied his man seated at one of the table and made his way to him.

Another was there, female, scantily clad, with green, scaly skin and three pendulous breasts. She was leaning over his contact, who appeared near mesmerized by those mammaries. Azrael reached the table and casually hurled the female away by the neck. She fell to the ground amidst a crowd of disturbed patrons, some of whom spilled their drinks on her - accidentally or accidentally-on-purpose. The green-skinned demoness snarled at her attacker in surprised rage.

"Who in Karg's name do you think you..."

Azrael cut her short. He snarled back at her, his powerful, eight-foot tall frame towering over the green demon on the floor as he exposed canine incisors. "Be gone, whore, before I disembowel you with your own jawbone!!"

She recovered some bluster, but disappeared into the crowd as quickly as her unsteady legs would carry her, muttering obscenities under her breath.

"Sorry about that. But I am pressed for time. She had nice tits though, didn't you think?"

Azrael grinned at his contact, still happy.

"That she did, my Lord.

Probably a few dozen diseases too. You probably saved me from myself."

He smiled back, politely rather than happily. "Can I get you a drink, my Lord?"

"No thank you, my man."

Azrael waved away his offer. His contact was a non-descript figure, relative to the other patrons of the Inn, that is. He was of average height and build by human standards, with brown hair of medium length and dark brown skin. In fact, he looked remarkably human, apart from the dark orange eyes and small, curved horns projecting from either side of his neck. His tunic and cloak were likewise brown.

Azrael kept smiling happily. There was an activity at the table behind the brown man and Azrael's eye fell on it as he sat down.

"My Lord seems particularly pleased tonight. Is he glad to be back in the demon realms?"

"What? Oh! Partially, Zaph, partially that. But mainly because I just got some really great head from someone very special to me. I tell you Wil Murray sucks dick like nothing else in creation does. Did you know that?"

"I was not aware of that fact, my Lord. I am happy for you however," Zaph replied blankly.

"Of course you are."

There was a female tied to the next table and it appeared the rest of the Tavern's patrons were helping themselves to her. The bound woman was secured at the neck, wrist and waist to the rough wooden table, while a large demon stood between her legs and pounded into her vigorously. She could make but little protest in spite of being fucked so harshly, as there was another female sitting on her face - obviously receiving the ministrations of the victim's tongue. The table shuddered and groaned with each powerful thrust into the bound woman, and the demon mounted on her face whooped and pretended to be riding a wild animal in response to the tables movement.

"What did that one do?" Azrael indicated the victim with a slight movement of his hand.

"Hmmm?" The brown-clad man turned. "Oh! That one dropped her bread in the fondue."

"Seems a bit much for dropping a little piece of bread."

"It was the third time she'd done it tonight."

"Ah! Well that's fair punishment then."

"He's next." Zaph jerked his thumb.

Azrael looked and saw a man being restrained by one of the Inn's bouncers. It took a couple of seconds before recognition dawned.

"Marzak!"

"Excuse me?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing - I just recognized someone. So," Azrael was thoughtful now, "I have a feeling I know who that..." He raised himself off the seat slightly, trying to get a better view of the bound woman.

The creature sitting on the bound woman's face was grinding it's hips onto her face and gave a cry as it began to climax. No, better make that he/she, Azrael realized as the demon slid it's cock out of the woman's mouth and paused to spew a strand of semen over her face. Breasts and penis equal hermaphrodite. The next patron in the queue - who definitely had no male genitalia despite being prodigiously muscled - climbed onto the table and pressed herself onto the bound woman, urging her to work. Immediately she complied and began eating the newcomer enthusiastically.

Azrael sighed and sank back into his seat.

"Problem, my Lord?"

"Nothing I can't take care of. Now, to business - tell me what you have seen. What is the state of the front lines?"

"Of course, my Lord. I first reconnoitered the forces of Lord Mort..."

"Why him first?"

"He has regular prayer meetings in your honor, my Lord. A commendable display of devotion, to be sure, but it does make his sentry changes predictable."

"Ah-huh. Apparently loyalty and brains don't mix. But then that's why he's the minion and I'm the man."

"Doubtless so, my Lord. However, it seems that..."

Zaph presented his report, answering Azrael's questions as required. Azrael himself was attentive, but occasionally was distracted by the activities at the next table.

The crowd had finished with the vound woman, as she'd been rolled off the table and sat in a heap on the beer-sodden floor. The male victim had taken her place and was now tied face down on the table and was being vigorously fucked anally while being forced to give oral service. More drunken revelers cheered the scene on until it was their turn to take their pleasure - the queue never seemed to shorten. A smaller demon, an imp, had pushed the discarded female onto her side and mounted her from behind. Her body rocked back and forth under the abuse - naked, semi-conscious and helpless.

Azrael demanded of Zaph that they move to another table after a huge demon began whipping the bound man with his triple-lashed tail - the 'crack' of it made conversation too difficult and tiny flecks of blood were flying over to them.

Eventually Zaph had delivered his report and Azrael was satisfied. He bade the man goodbye. Then Azrael sat by himself for a time, deep in thought, not even paying attention to the prostitutes who occasionally tried to engage him in conversation.

The End ?

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