This is the fourth story about the adventures of Jack. I highly recommend you read 'For Your Eyes Only', 'Having Fun With Faith' and 'Call me Jack' first.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank JHB for his help in keeping this story readable. And as a final note, this story is mine so please don't reproduce it anywhere else without asking my permission first.
Revenge is best served hot
Chapter I
"While Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity both accurately describe the workings of their part of the universe, they only describe a part. Which means that our understanding is still not truly accurate. But the pursuit of the Unified Field Theory..." As the professor went on, most of the students listening were taking notes or pretending to do so.
Of the ones that weren't doing that and whose minds seemed to be somewhere else, even they had a notebook or laptop opened and ready as if they were going to start taking notes any second. Only one person didn't have anything on his table except his feet.
The fascinated look on his pleasant face belied his slouched position. Still, his posture would have elicited a comment from the professor if he had actually been able to see him. But Jack had no reason to allow that. He was just there to learn.
'Humanity really has invented a lot of new stuff while I was away,' he thought. Of course he already learned quite a bit in the scant months he was out and about but there was so much more, so he came here. Not to eat but to learn.
They had universities back when he was locked up but things had changed so much. And in other ways they hadn't. Simply feeling he could tell someone was really enjoying an apple outside in the sun and not too far from the apple-eater a couple was in a liplock.
Suddenly a new feeling screeched along his extended senses making him flinch. 'Pain, so much pain, how did I miss it?' He already knew the answer, but he simply couldn't believe he had missed it just because he hadn't been looking for some sustenance.
Jack deliberated on ignoring it and just listening to the lecture but now that he had become aware of it, it wouldn't go away. Buzzing away in the background Jack just had to know what had caused this much emotional pain. As a pleasure demon he preferred to stay away from pain but in this case that would mean leaving the university.
And he was curious. Given the distance there had to be a lot of pain. Jack wanted to know what had caused it. With a thought he flew up and towards the source, ignoring walls and floors as if they weren't there.
He arrived in little time and was about to poke his head in when he felt it. Masked by the human emotion he finally felt the presence of another demon for the first time since he woke up in this new century. His joy at this development was short-lived when he determined what kind of demon was in there with the girl.
'A pain demon, of all the demons I could encounter it's one of them.' This added a dimension of danger to satisfying his curiosity. Pain demons and pleasure demons didn't get along and in a fight, Jack's kind always was at a disadvantage. 'On the other hand, his presence is so weak I only felt it now. It can't be older than a year or two. Experience is on my side.'
Thus resolved he stepped into the small room and right away he wished he hadn't. Standing so close to the source it felt like he was standing right next to an erupting volcano in the middle of a blizzard. But that sensation was quickly forgotten as he beheld the sight before him.
The woman on the bed looked miserable and filthy, her eyes were red and puffy with bags under them. She was obviously exhausted, both physically and mentally. But that wasn't the thing that infuriated him, it was the demon before him.
"You never really thought I loved you, that I thought you were girlfriend material? Deep down you knew better. Deep down you knew you aren't worth loving, that you're just convenient. After all, how many people have gone through the trouble of actually loving you so far?" The demon said reasonably to the girl. He appeared like a young man, clean cut and somewhat handsome.
The demon was reinforcing the pain, letting it feed off itself to create more. Jack knew the process, he used it himself. But this was different, the demon wasn't feeding.
'He's just toying with her,' Jack concluded. 'And if this goes on, he'll create another pain demon.'
That was enough for Jack who now made his move. "Yo," he greeted the other demon jovially.
The pain demon whirled around and shifted into the form of a beautiful young woman with raven hair. She looked at him with suspicion. "You can't have this one. She belongs to Master, go fetch your own meal."
Jack didn't stop smiling at being misclassified, but he was intrigued by the mention of this 'Master' character. "Not even a little bit? It's not like you're eating it and there is so much. Not like your Master would notice anyway..."
The pain demon actually hissed and her hand became claw-like. "Master's property is not to be touched. He has plans for her, I am to eliminate any interference."
The last part seemed to be addressed to herself for after saying that she leaped forward, ready to rake her claws across his form. 'Like a human,' Jack noted. 'She wants to fight like a human, because she probably was one not too long ago.'
Jack didn't have that handicap. He just extended his arm, plunging his hand into her form stopping her cold. 'Now comes the hard part.' Because unlike a pain demon, he couldn't just use his food to kill his opponent. He had to claw her form apart with his own. It was easier like this, doing it from the inside.
The pain demon was howling a protest and begun to claw at his arm, slicing ribbons off but not doing much more than that. It weakened him and that made the woman's pain even more unbearable but he could weather it, just for a little while longer.
The pleasure demon was amazed at how easy this was going. His opponent obviously had no experience with this kind of combat or her own powers. She wasn't even trying to fight back, not really. Scratching his arm wouldn't really do much; she should have pushed his essence out of her form, if she knew how.
And then it happened. Her form grew still as her mouth gaped open. "Mas..." the rest was cut off as she simply dissolved into vapor that blew away on a non-existent wind. But Jack didn't pay attention to her demise, he was more interested in the image he received just as she fell apart.
The appearance of her 'Master', the one that most likely created the demon in the first place. It was the young man she had used to torment the woman on the bed. Taking another look at the young woman he delved deeper for something beside the overwhelming pain she was still exuding. And there it was, glimmering like only magic could. "A warlock," Jack cursed.
-------------------------------------------------Sonya knew she was going insane, the hallucinations alone were proof of that if the way suicide was starting to become attractive wasn't acceptable as evidence.
But she couldn't stop, it just kept hurting more and more. Even remembering the good times, few there were, just made it worse. For most of High school she had been overweight and awkward. Basically, a social leper. But things change so by the time she arrived at college she had become pleasantly curved.
She had been a little disappointed that she had ended up without a roommate but at the same time she liked the privacy. And she was making friends anyway, real friends. One of whom introduced her to the wonders of sex. It never rose beyond the level of friends with benefits but she had fun and so did he. It only lasted a month before they both agreed to go back to being just friends as they both were looking for a little romance. Something they knew they weren't going to find with each other.
Sonya thought she had found it with Eric Stone, a courteous sophomore who looked like he should be dating cheerleaders. She so wanted to take things slow with him, thinking this could be the real thing even if it wasn't going to last forever.
Somehow that intention had gone right out of the window after just a few dates. The sex had been nice even if Eric proved more selfish in the bedchamber. Things had gone really wrong after that however. They stopped going on dates and just went straight to the fucking and that was the right word for it. She had become a booty call, his dirty little secret. She started to spend less and less time with her friends because she didn't want to risk being unavailable to Eric. The stupid thing was, she couldn't say no or put a stop to it.
Even when she saw Eric kissing some other girl she didn't march up and break it off right there. She called him and confronted him in her room, actually hoping she could force Eric to choose her over that other girl. He hadn't and had just dumped her there on the spot.
That was 2 days ago and she couldn't stop crying, couldn't stop reliving the break-up and just how right her hallucination was. Of course the mere fact that she actually believed Eric was in her room jeering at her was only adding to her despair. She knew it wasn't real but the mirage wouldn't go away, it kept taunting her.
The world was crushing her, slowly and remorselessly with the window too far for her to reach so she could jump away from it. Then suddenly the hallucination was quiet. Sonya looked around but could find no trace of it. At the same time something within her relaxed. The pain wasn't gone, it just wasn't trying to push her down anymore. Instead of getting ever worse, it just seemed to remain stable.
It was such a relief that she actually smiled even though she still felt like someone had smashed her heart into a fine powder. She started lifting herself up when her vision got filled by a woman's face. "Feeling better?"
"Iaaah," she shrieked. Too tired to even try to restrain her reaction she almost fell of the bed when she pushed herself away from this new visitor. The woman just kept on smiling pleasantly. In fact, her entire appearance could best be described as pleasant.
Brown, shoulder-length hair framed an unremarkable face. She was wearing an evening gown of all things that showcased a very modest cleavage and a split revealed a single, long leg. But her choice of outfit wasn't the weirdest part of her, her eyes took that title. Iris and pupil seamlessly flowed into each other turning her eyes into black pools.
Yet they weren't frightening to Sonya, they were captivating. "Well, you should anyway. And from here on out things will only get better. A lot if you take my advice."
"Advice?" Sonya asked numbly. This was even worse. Before her hallucination just did its thing, it didn't really interact with her. But not this one, it was acting like it was real. 'It's official, I've lost it.'
