Dead and Horny

Hi all! Here it is, Chapter 10 of Dead and Horny!

This chapter is the shortest one in the book because it's the calm before the storm, so buckle up. There are only two chapters after this one!

I want to thank everyone for your kind words and feedback over the last several months. This started as an attempt to give you some sparkling fresh content during Covid, but it's also given me some breathing room in regards to writing my main HFHM storyline.

Some final revelations coming up! I hope you enjoy this chapter, and thank you for being awesome!

The After-Party

Lily's mind flitted about like a bird in a cage, unable to focus long enough to reform her body. The darkness of her mind transformed into smoky clouds that curled around her like snakes as she plummeted through the Dreamscape toward destinations unknown. Occasionally she would see her own hands, or even her legs, but her non-existent insides felt like they were on fire.

The smoke parted and she slammed into the cold marble tile of the Black Palace hard enough that the floor shattered like glass, sending her through the floor and into the level below. This floor was identical to the one above, but the world became black and white, as if her landing had knocked the color clean out of it.

When she stumbled to her feet, she saw Tristan coming down the stairs toward her in a silken robe, his crocodile grin revealing all of its teeth. She growled and held her hands out in front of her, her fingertips wavering in and out of existence as she tried to concentrate. Had she already reassembled herself? She was disoriented, and everything felt wrong, somehow.

"You tried to have me killed," he said, only the voice wasn't his, but Aladdin's. When Tristan's foot touched the floor, a golden wave of light blossomed outward and gave color to the interior of the Black Palace, which then warped and became a different castle from another lifetime ago. His skin peeled away as her present triggered the past, and he completed his metamorphosis, Aladdin now standing over a younger version of herself. It was another memory, and she growled in frustration when she realized that she was stuck once again in a bad dream.

"I did," said Lily of the past, who was crumpled on the floor. Her wings had been torn up, and she was held to the floor by a golden chain that connected to a collar around her neck.

"Not this one," Lily shrieked, suddenly realizing where they were. It was bad enough that she had to relive all of her worst moments, but Mike's soul was the one that was actually chained to the floor right now, and she suddenly couldn't catch her breath, knowing the pain that was about to be inflicted.

"But why, my beautiful flower?" He knelt down in front of her and lifted her chin so that their eyes met. "Haven't I been nothing but good to you?"

"No, you haven't." Lily spat in his face. "My only regret was that my plan didn't work."

Aladdin let go of her chin and stood, then swung his boot up and into her jaw.

"I gave you immortality," he told her. "I gave you the power to be any man's desire, to hold someone's attention with a look, to seduce with a glance. Each of these gifts, by itself, should be enough for your fealty."

"Fuck off," she spat at him, then tried to stand. He pointed at her with two fingers and then swung his hand down, and the chain shortened into the ground, preventing her from standing the rest of the way.

"Oh, I'm afraid you and I shall never see eye to eye again. But you have my curiosity." He sat on a silver throne so that he could look down on her. "All these years, you have done my bidding without question, so why now? Why whisper my location into the ears of my enemies? Why the sudden desperation to, as you told them, end my pathetic existence?"

Lily knelt down by her former self, knowing that Mike could hear her. "It'll be okay," she told him, then turned her gaze on Aladdin. She knew exactly why her mind had gone to this memory, and it was because of what had happened in the Black Palace. Tristan was just a weak copy of Aladdin from so many years ago, back in a time when he probably could have been stopped.

Lily of the past shivered, struggling to avoid the answer, but then hung her head. "It's because you humiliated me," she muttered, then tilted her eyes toward him. "Back when I fucked up that attempt on the pope. Pious bastard, if Meridiana hadn't succeeded with one of his predecessors, he wouldn't have been expecting it."

"Oh? I do find this interesting." He leaned forward in his seat. "I've humiliated you so many times before, so what makes that time any different?"

"You know why!" She spat at him.

"Indeed. Such a simple thing to get so upset over, but then again, I've never understood the whims of a woman. Perhaps I should indulge myself in it again?"

Lily shook her head. "Please, no, anything but that."

Aladdin laughed. "Why bother begging? You have to obey me." His face became serious, and his fingers curled into the ends of his armrests, gouging out the metal with his elongated fingernails. "So obey."

Weeping, Lily tugged at the fabric of her boots, sliding them away from her body. Thick, tangled fur appeared about halfway down her calf, and the boots came off completely, revealing that her feet were little more than elongated hooves. She stood defiant, her lower lip trembling as Aladdin stared at the one part of her body that couldn't be changed, only hidden.

"Every bit of you is perfection," he told her, then stood. "Except for one."

She looked away, her eyes shimmering. "You made me take them off for an entire day, then whored me out to a village. They all saw my demonic legs, and knew me for the monster I am. That's why I wanted them to kill you."

He clucked his tongue. "Interesting. You don't like the sight of your own feet?"

"I don't like that they remind me of what you did to me. It's the one part I can never change."

"I granted you immortality." His voice was dangerous now, but Lily didn't care. "There's always a price."

"My soul was the price," she whispered. "No matter who I become, I will always be a product of your spite."

"Hmm." Aladdin stroked his beard, which he had grown in the last decade in order to hide his appearance. He walked around her as if appraising a statue, pausing only long enough to pinch her or run his finger along her body. "You are my servant. It troubles me that you can even consider such a betrayal."

"I may be your servant, but only because you are the owner of my heart." She sneered at him now that he was in front of her once more. "Whoever holds my heart is my master, which means that there will be a day that someone else owns me. And if I get the chance, I will ask them to let me rip your face off."

This drew a laugh from Aladdin. "Do you truly think you could hurt me? After all, we were in love once."

"I don't feel love for you. Not anymore." She shivered in the cool air of the palace, her cloven feet clicking against the marble floor.

"And you would be free of me?"

"I would." She glared at him, her eyes glowing like hot coals. "Free of you forever."

"Then let us play a game." He sat back down on his throne. "Since you are feeling so...empowered. I don't like that you have the freedom to encourage others to do me harm, and I worry that any set of commands I give you may eventually have a loophole for you to exploit. I also don't like it that you seem to think I am beneath you, just a temporary stop on an immortal journey. You and I are forever, my dear Lily, and nothing will ever change that.

"Let's make a deal. In your current...hideous state, I think it would be impossible for you to get me off. If you can make me come before daybreak, then you are free to take my soul just as you would any of your victims. Once you have taken my soul, then you can have your freedom."

Lily lifted her head. "You're aware that such a deal would allow me to break my pact with you, right? Putting your soul on the line is the strongest kind of magic, and will supersede any prior agreement. Being my master won't protect you, and I will keep you for all eternity in my asshole, and make you clean it with your tongue."

"Such foul language. Of course, I'm aware. Souls may be plentiful, but they are a powerful currency to a demon like you. It's the most valuable thing I can offer, after all."

Lily narrowed her eyes. "And what happens if you win?"

Aladdin narrowed his eyes. "You will never again make any attempt to subvert me. You will be an obedient and loyal slave in all regards, and you will certainly keep a civil tongue. Is that understood?"

Her eyes were now ablaze with fire, and she let out a maniacal laugh. "Despite my deformity, you've always been quick to finish. All that lust for power, yet you never spent much time learning how to be a marathon runner."

He chuckled. "Why don't you use that dirty mouth of yours on my dick?" With that, he shifted his robes aside to reveal a massive, magically enhanced member. Dark energy crackled along it, and he waved it around. With his free hand, he snapped his fingers, causing the golden chain to snap.

When Lily walked across the floor, her cloven hooves clicked on the cool tile. Her wings had disappeared, but her tail was coiled around her waist like a belt. The air around her shimmered as a result of the heat along her skin, and when she reached Aladdin, she knelt down and opened her mouth wide to reveal a pair of fangs and a forked tongue.

"Since you seem to enjoy my demonic side, why not take it up a notch?" When she inhaled him into her mouth, Aladdin grinned, and his eyes turned a dark purple color.

"It was a bullshit bet," Lily explained for Mike, walking around the scene that was unfolding. Just because he was stuck in the dream didn't mean he shouldn't know what was going on. After all, it wouldn't just be the events that he would experience, but her thoughts and feelings, and she didn't want him to live with false hope. "What I didn't know at the time was that Aladdin no longer had a soul to claim. This was the moment where I fell to my lowest. This first time, he only lasts twenty minutes, and when he came, I tried to pull his soul from his body, only to discover that I couldn't find it. Hours will pass, and I use every part of my body to get him off while he laughs at me, knowing that I don't understand why I can't take his soul."

When she reached her hand out to touch her past self, it actually connected. She stroked her own cheek and shook her head in sadness. Mike's soul was about to see this first hand, to experience the degradation of being forced to service Aladdin all night. He would call her names, make fun of her, and treat her like shit until the rays of the dawning sun would scatter through the nearby window, illuminating them both.

"He didn't have a soul." She now stood next to Aladdin. "After this bet, I found out that he exchanged his soul for immortality. And do you know how? There are only a couple of rules if you join his society of evil assholes. One is that all knowledge must be shared. True, everyone is still entitled to their secrets, but spells and rituals are meant to be exchanged when discovered. But the other big rule is that you don't fuck with the ancient ones, those beings who live outside of time and space. Anyone with knowledge of them knows that this is common sense, but there's more to it than that.

"He found a way to communicate with one of them. They don't have names, not in the sense that words can properly communicate. It's a specific feeling, almost like trying to describe the color red to a blind person. You can dance around it all you want, yet never make any headway. So, this asshole opened a door to the other side and handed over his soul to one of these beings for safe keeping. It was a trick on his part, because now his soul is stretched across time and space, kept safe from crossing over. Maybe it's a chew toy for an elder god, or its fucking teddy bear, but the agreement was that as long as this being has his soul, he cannot be destroyed. That's why he doesn't want to others talking with them, because he's afraid that they will learn his secret and maybe even surpass him."

Down below, she could now hear the sounds of her past gagging on a massive cock. When she looked back at Aladdin, his eyes had rolled back in ecstasy.

"What he didn't know was that making this bet freed me, in a sense. You see, because he bet something he couldn't hand over, I was allowed to continue being my loveable self, to try and stymie him at every turn. He stuffed me back in my ruby and allowed the others to use me as they saw fit. I was a toy that no longer interested him, that couldn't keep his attention. But the one thing he did know was that I would try to betray him the first chance I got. When you bet your soul against me, it broke his ownership, and now he knows that I'm out there, waiting to fuck up his day."

She stood for a minute to watch the scene before her, her breath suddenly caught in her throat. Without thinking twice, she knelt down and unzipped her boots, then stepped out of them. The fur of her legs was darker than before, and smelled of a burning campfire.

"I can't stop this from happening again," she explained. "But I'll be damned if I have to watch you go through the same things that he made me do."

She touched her former self again, and then gave her a hard shove. Mike's soul fell onto the hard tile as Lily scooted sideways to take his place, to relive the humiliations that Aladdin had brought down on her a second time. It wasn't even a hard choice, and as she took Aladdin's cock in her hands, she looked over at Mike.

"I...this isn't going to be pleasant." The dream had frozen, but she could feel it struggling to resume. "You can leave, or go for a walk, this will be awhile."

"No." Mike moved over to her and took her by the hand. "If you have to struggle through this again, I'll stay."

"Mike, I..." she closed her eyes against the intense pressure of the flashback. She didn't know how to tell him that she didn't want him to see her humiliation, but she desperately wanted him to be there for her after. Her inner turmoil was causing the dream itself to strain, and then suddenly it snapped back into place.

"That's right, use that tongue," Aladdin commanded. "Let's see what you've learned from centuries of being a slut."

"I am so tired of this guy." Mike stood and contemplated Aladdin with his hands on his hips. "I am so tired of watching you suffer. And I am very tired of looking at his smug fucking face." He balled up his fists and took a swing at Aladdin, and Lily was surprised when his fist connected.

Aladdin was knocked backward onto the floor, letting out a grunt of pain. He put a hand to his face and pulled it away to reveal that blood was now running down his nose.

"Mike! How are you doing this?"

"Does it matter?" Mike walked up to Aladdin and gave him a kick, sending him back down onto the ground. "Why bother questioning the logic of a dream? These memories belong to you, not the other way around. You shouldn't have to relive them unless you choose to."

"Mike Radley." Aladdin stood and his features rippled, transforming him into a middle eastern man in a business suit. "I see that—"

"Not interested." Mike kicked him again, knocking him to the ground. "You aren't really him, you're just a shit memory trying to reassert yourself. Besides, I figured out that you and Amir are the same person forever ago, so none of this dramatic reveal nonsense."

Lily gasped when Mike knelt over Amir and strangled him. It was true that Aladdin had long ago given up his given name in an attempt to hide the controversy around all of the world's major djinn vanishing at once, as well as give him a fresh start.

Mike balled Amir up like a piece of paper, his body squishing down as if made of foam. Once Amir was crumpled up into a small sphere, Mike popped him into his mouth and bit down, chewing noisily while blood ran down his lips.

"Tastes like an asshole, too," he mumbled around the edges of his mouth, then swallowed.

"You...just ate him?"

"I did." Mike came over to Lily and smiled at her, then held out his hand to help her up. She took it, and was now face to face with him, his eyes only inches from her own.

"This isn't like you," she told him, her arms around his waist.

"And being the damsel in distress isn't like you, but here we are." He pulled her in for a kiss, and she felt the heat of hellfire flow from his mouth into her own, warming her up from the inside. The Dreamscape shivered around them and became a blank slate, and she closed her eyes to bask in the moment. It could have been minutes, hours, or even days for all she knew, for time was so hard to track.

When the kiss broke, he touched her cheek and then caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger. "All these human emotions that you're feeling can be overwhelming, but there will be plenty of time to explore them later. Right now, I need you to do something."

"Anything." She searched his eyes, curious what his request would be. He leaned in until his mouth was right next to her ear, his breath tickling the hairs of her neck.

"I need you to go back to the Black Palace," he told her. "Find Dana, make sure she's safe. Then go back inside that building and fuck up that little dragon man. Teach him that you're nobody's bitch. Let out all that rage. Be the demon I know you can be."

"Mike." She whispered his name like a prayer.

"And once you're done," he told her, his voice barely a murmur. "I want you to bring that pretty little ass of yours home."

He gave her a pinch on the butt for emphasis, and the dream popped like a bubble.

🏝️🏝️🏝️

Cyrus watched Dana carefully, wondering what she was about to tell him. He could tell she was choosing her words carefully, and imagined that he would only be getting partial truths at best. Still, he was alive, which meant whatever she had planned, he may still have a chance to prevent it.

"It's a long story, and I don't have all the answers." She turned her eyes out onto the water, and Cyrus relaxed a little. Dana had a predatory gaze that unnerved him, and it was a relief to be away from it. "I was killed by a necromancer. He used his magic to lock my soul to my body, so I can't die, and my soul can't move on."

"A necromancer?" Cyrus was now very concerned. The Order actually had a couple of necromancers who worked for them, but they were heavily monitored. Their main purpose was research, whether it meant reviving a corpse to ask questions or assembling a meat puppet to train knights and mages in hand-to-hand combat. "Where is he now?"

"Dead."

Cyrus grimaced. "You can't be sure of that. A necromancer has any number of tricks, and—"

"Oh, we're a thousand percent sure. Lily killed him, she fed him to a mimic to make sure he stayed dead."

"A what?!?" He stared up at the piece of furniture holding him in place and a cold sweat broke over his body. Mimics had been around for centuries, and the Order had disposed of quite a few. They were little more than beings that existed to eat absolutely anything that came within reach. Mimics were considered to be the same threat level as a succubus because they could hide anywhere for years without needing to take a single bite.

"I wouldn't worry about Tick Tock. He's only here to help me. You've already met, by the way. He was the engine in my motorcycle."

"Who are you?" he asked, his voice now high-pitched. "You claim that you were killed by a necromancer, yet you own a succubus and have tamed a mimic."

"I don't own anybody. Lily and Tick Tock are my friends, and they came with me to help." She flicked a small stone off the rocks where it landed in the water. "I was actually just an innocent bystander who got caught up in a much bigger world. That asshole up there has a magical artifact that may help bring me back to life, but we didn't expect him to be so dragon-like when we got here."