Maiden of the Red Moon

Note: It's best to read the first two chapters before reading this chapter.

Chapter 3: The Bond

Dim light from dying candles hopelessly fought against the shadows. Arranged in a circle, the candle flames danced and flickered amongst each other. He sat in the middle of the circle, cross legged, drawing in as much magical energy as he could for the task at hand. He took a breath to steady himself and allowed his mind to dip into the Astral Realm.

He shuddered as the Astral Energies surrounded and invigorated him. He opened his eyes to find two sights before him. The Astral Realm, radiant and prismatic, layered over the dull colors of the Real World. He watched as a coruscating stream of energy flowed into the Real World, fading into grayness as it did.

Energy to change. Energy to manipulate. Energy to create.

Power.

Magic.

He sniffled. Bathing in such raw and unrefined magic from a place other than the Source was foolish, dangerous even, but the potential benefits were unmatched. He weaved the energies together through sheer force of will, layering spell atop of spell. Spells from dozens of disciplines and faiths, learned from centuries of study, all for one purpose.

To find her.

Magical energies, wrapped and warped into strands, came together in an elaborate tapestry of shimmering radiance. All of it bound to a small lock of hair. The hair was carefully tied together into a tight bundle and consisted of strands of various colors: ash black, chocolate brown, auburn red, and others. Hair, much like nails, blood, spit, or any other bodily fluids containing DNA, also contained spiritual anchors to it's owner. Links to the actual person. He could use that anchor to find her. The hair, a mix of strands taken from Lisa and the other sacrifices, long before they had merged to form Ishtar. A dozen anchors wrapped together by a massive chain. It wasn't enough to pinpoint her exact location. But, in theory, it would be enough for him to anchor her to a location within a certain distance.

The magic devoured the locket of hair, bubbled, and churned with brilliant motes of light sparkling outwards. He focused that light, that power, into a ball and directed it onto his hold on her. On his mark. The same mark that he placed on all his slaves. The magic reacted The magic built to a crescendo, a storm of primal energy, before simply...fizzing out and dissipating into the atmosphere.

Impossible.

For a spell of this power and magnitude to fail was practically unheard of. His spellwork was flawless, perfect. Not even the Thirteen could hope to match his centuries of knowledge. So why did the anchoring spell fail?

Unless...

Had she somehow bound her soul to someone?

Someone who she could use to conceal herself from him.

Anger surged through his veins.

How?

Who?

Who dared take his prize? Who dared to defy him? Who dared to take his prize?

"Master?" said a feminine voice, snapping him from the white fury of his anger.

He turned to Latila watching him from the corner. Naked save for the black collar wrapped around her neck.

A symbol of her slavery and his ownership. A symbol that should have been worn by Ishtar.

"Are you alright?"

His hands were on her neck in an instant, shoving her against the wall.

"Master!" Latila gasped, trembling. She was wary, afraid.

"Shut up." He growled, and his lips found her's.

Latila melted into him, all pretenses of fear abandoned in her lust. Her arms wrapping around his body. She opened her mouth and allowed his tongue to wrap around her's. Good. It was good that his slaves wanted their master. He pushed her down and Latila obediently knelt before him. Her hands deftly began to undo his trousers. His cock sprung free from its confines and was quickly engulfed by Latila's greedy mouth.

"Such a good slave." He murmured quietly, running his hands through her white hair. Her tongue wrapped around his length as she bobbed against his cock. Taking him deeper with each movement.

***

A goddess sat before Ray. She was, undoubtedly, the most beautiful thing that Ray had laid his eyes on. She had the kind of beauty that women killed for and men died for. Gorgeous green eyes that pierced through to one's souls stared back at Ray, framed by soft curls of auburn hair so vibrant that they looked as if they were flames frozen in place. Her alabaster skin was so pale that it practically glowed amongst the darkness. A splattering of freckles danced across her chest, yet they only seemed to accentuate her beauty rather than work against it. Her hourglass figure was slender and voluptuous, reaching that perfect ratio that so many women sought.

But Ray knew better. Beauty was only skin deep. Beauty hid what undoubtedly was the most dangerous being he had ever come across.

She sat behind ten layers of barriers and wards. A dozen shields held in place by dozens of wards that simultaneously worked with and against each other to hold the bindings in place. Not that she was trying to break out. In fact, she hadn't done much other than sit on the ground since Ray had brought her back from the wedding hall.

A visage of serene calm.

"Will this be enough to hold her?" Ray asked from the other side of the shields. He could still feel tremors of her leaking power through the layers of protection. Power that froze him in place.

"Dunno." Garuban admitted, "I've never tried to trap a being of her caliber before."

"Her caliber? Isn't she a demon?"

"I thought she was, but now that I'm close enough to observe her, I can safely say I have no idea what she is." Said the bracelet, a cheerful chuckle in his voice.

That wasn't a good sign.

"You seem awfully happy about being in the dark." Ray said quietly.

"Yup! Of course I'm happy!" Garuban said. "I'm a spirit of knowledge. I'm meant to gather and disseminate information. This is something entirely new! Something that hasn't ever been seen on this plane of existence! I'll probably go down in the history books."

Ray scoffed and refocused his attention on her. Their eyes met. His brown meeting her green. There was a sudden spark of energy that raised goosebumps on his forearms. "So, she's not a demon, any idea what she is?"

Garuban did an almost shrugging motion against Ray's wrist. "I recognize her Aura from the ritual. She's the one we were looking for, that much is certain, but she's not a demon. Not even close. That I can say with the utmost confidence. If I were to try to categorize her, the best way to describe it is 'a god, but not a god.'"

"What?"

There was an annoyed breath of exasperation from Garuban and Ray could have sworn he felt the living bracelet roll his eyes. "Look Ray. Humans aren't gods, right?"

"Right."

"And, from everything I can tell, she's basically human."

"Ok." Basically human, that's good. Better than a demon. Way better than a god. Ray could deal with humans, hell he could deal with demons. But gods were way above his pay grade.

"So, she's not a god." Garuban said.

"Right."

"Except she is."

Ray blinked. "What?"

"Look Ray, she's got a human vessel, that much is definitely true. So, she's not a god, but she has all the essence of a god shoved into her." Garuban explained. "So, she's a god, but not a god."

"What?"

The living bracelet took a breath of exasperation. "Ok, I'll dumb this down for you as much as I possibly can. Any dumber and I'll need crayons. Gods aren't meant to be on this plane of existence and humans aren't gods. What that means is that you can't take what makes a god a god and shove it into a human vessel."

"Which is what happened to her two nights ago?" asked Ray. "That ritual with the blood moon was to summon a god?"

"Not exactly. What that freak in the mask did was take a god and put it inside a human vessel. Except he screwed up. Taking a god's essence, their power and will, and placing it into a human is like trying to cram the entirety of the planet's water into a paper cup. It would burst."

"I notice a distinct lack of bursting from her." Ray commented, the girl sat there staring at him through silent eyes. Watching. Observing. There wasn't any malice in her eyes, nor fear, just careful curiosity mixed in with silent caution.

"Yeah, that's because whoever put Ishtar into her knew what he was doing." Garuban said. "A normal human vessel would break down under the god's spiritual weight and pressure. So instead of letting them break down, he created a new vessel by sacrificing thirteen souls and merging them into a fourteenth. The combined souls were enough to create a new body. This new vessel is strong enough to contain most of Ishtar's essence."

"Most of?"

"She's leaking."

"Leaking?" Ray asked. What was he getting at?

Garuban let out a frustrated sigh. "I already told you Ray, humans aren't gods, and fourteen merged souls don't make a god either. Her vessel isn't breaking down, but she's barely containing that power, it's slowly circling the drain. Sooner or later, the sink's going to empty." Garuban said.

A thought went through Ray's mind. A memory, so vague and faded, that he wasn't even sure if it was real. A memory of a woman in a darkened space, begging for his help.

"That man is horribly wicked. His plans for me, devious."

"And what happens when that energy leaks out into the world." Ray asked.

"Same thing that happens when a kid empties his water bottle onto a hot concrete floor. It returns to the atmosphere and disperses."

"Seems like a waste of time and energy to summon a god into this world just to have it lose all it's juice." Ray said quietly, he crossed his arms and thought for a moment. "Unless the summoning was only the first step."

He could practically feel Garuban raise an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Summoning a goddess, creating a new body, that's all advanced magic." Ray said. "A lot of hard lined, circumstances need to line up perfectly, one mistake and we're all fucked, ritual magic. So why go through all that trouble just to create a flawed copy? Unless you're only going to have that copy for a short period of time. That masked man wasn't some zealot hoping to worship her nor was he some horny idiot hoping to get his rocks off with some hot goddess sex. He's got plans and I'm betting that whatever plans he has, she's the key."

Ray turned back to Ishtar. So, all that was left to do was to figure out what to do with her. Obviously, the Masked Man was looking for her. Using her as bait to draw him out was risky...and idiotic. He had barely escaped with his life the last time they fought. He could try exorcising Ishtar from the vessel, but he had little to no experience in exorcisms. Especially exorcisms involving divine beings. Killing her to get rid of Ishtar's essence was out of the question. For better or worse, the girl was innocent. Her very being was composed of people who had been coerced into giving up their very souls to serve as a stepping stone to achieve some devious plan that Ray hadn't even begun to discern.

"You're a good man, Raymond Wolfe." the girl said from behind the barrier. '

So, she could speak. This would be interesting. "Not exactly." Ray replied. He sat down, legs crossed, to face her. "Should I call you Ishtar?"

The girl shook her head, tousling flaming red hair as she moved. "Ishtar is the goddess. I'm...something else."

"Do you have a name?" Ray asked.

Another shake of her head. "All of my previous... lives, they all had names. I'm all of them, but also none of them."

"So why not pick a name?" Ray said, sitting down to meet her eyes.

"What?"

"Look. You heard us talk. You know what you are, why you were put on this plane of existence, but you aren't defined by that. You aren't any of the girls who were sacrificed to create you. You aren't exactly Ishtar either. The way I see it is you are you. People are defined by their choices and actions, not by their origins. So you have a choice; something that I doubt any of those girls had. So, the first choice you can make for yourself is to pick a name." Ray said.

The girl blinked as if she didn't know what to say. There was a long silence, the only noise in the room being the soft electric hum of the refrigerator in the next room broken only by the girl speaking again.

"I am Lucy."

***

Something shifted in the air. No, something had changed. Not from around him, but from within him.

"Master?" Latila had taken her mouth away from his cock to look up at him, wrinkles of concern marring her pretty face. "Is everything ok?"

No. Everything wasn't ok.

He couldn't place it, but something had changed. The hold he had on her, on Ishtar, was... weakening? But how? She had no identity. She had no name. She had nothing to call her own, thus she had nothing to hold onto.

She was vulnerable. Tabula Rasa. A blank slate to be molded by the right hands. His Hands.

"Master?" echoed Latila.

He looked down at the demoness. Her perfect features were blemished by the vicious facefucking she had been receiving. Anger surged through him. His slave had stopped? How dare she! His hands found the back of Latila's skull and pulled her back down onto his cock, hilting himself into her throat. He groaned at the feeling of his cockhead once again engulfed by Latila's tight, fleshy throat.

He held her there savoring the feeling of her long tongue spiraled around his length. The sensation of his cock wrapped by her fleshy passage was nothing short of divine.

Divinity.

Soon.

There were some missteps. But he would find her. He would bind her.

Soon.

He pulled Latila away from his cock, letting her breathe for a second before pushing her back down. Demon, servant, slave. No, she was none of those things. Nothing, but a set of holes for him to use. A piece of meat for his pleasure. Latila choked again when his cock slammed into her throat. Her throat gagged as he pumped his hips upwards into her throat.

Yes, this was fucking.

Latila didn't even seem phased by his violent thrusts. She did her best to stroke his length as he thrust into her, lapping at the virile concoction of his precum mixed with her spit. "Master!" She gasped as he pulled her away. "Master."

He grinned at the sight of her. A tangled mess of hair, spit, sweat and precum marring her beautiful features. Yet somehow, she seemed more gorgeous to him. Beautiful. What good was a beauty that you couldn't defile?

"Fuck me, Master." Latila groaned, pulling her mouth away from his cock. She laid on the ground, presenting her ass to him, and opened her legs, her fingers spreading the labia of her pussy. "Please, I need it."

He grinned and knelt down, fingers grabbing her white hair to pull him close. "Such a needy fuck slave." He murmured, lining his cockhead up against her waiting lips. Her cunt immediately tightened around his member; desperate for more. "Should I reward my fuck slave tonight?"

"PLEASE." She gasped, she rocked her body back and forth, desperate to take him deeper inside of her. But she knew better than to impale herself onto him. Not without his permission.

Such a good slave.

He pushed himself into her. Latila's eager passage convulsing around him, zealously welcoming him back.

Latila moaned loudly. "Yes master. Thank you master."

He smirked and began to thrust into her. The smacking sound of his movement echoing throughout his throne room. Dark shadows, from dying candles, cast upon the two rutting lovers casting a silhouette onto the walls. A two headed, two backed, beast of lust.

Such a good slave.

***

Ray stepped out of the Waypoint into mist and darkness. The Thirteen's guards were already waiting for him. Two hulking individuals, decked out in ancient looking armor. Their faces hidden behind wooden oni masks, meticulously carved and painted. Ancient masterpieces. They stood guard before a massive set of black double doors. Dozens upon dozens of runes carved onto the ancient wood.

"Looks like they're already waiting for you." Garuban said, there was a quiet, nervous tone in his voice. "Think they'll be upset to see you?"

"Considering they tried sending me into a trap...probably." Ray grunted. He walked over to the guards who immediately barred his path with their long, bladed polearms.

The two craned their heads down to look at Ray. From this close, Ray could see the empty polls of black. These guards were more constructs than anything. Human shaped, yet not human.

The guards parted for Ray, allowing the massive doors to open. Ray and Garuban stepped through expecting to find mist and emptiness. Instead he was met with the Thirteen themselves. As always, they sat upon their high stone thrones, looking down upon all who approached. Their faces were hidden by robes so white that it practically shone in the darkness. Electricity crackled in air from magical energy so dense and thick that Ray could feel it clattering against his teeth.

"Raymond Grayson Wolfe, Hunter. Garuban, Spirit Guide Construct." Boomed the Thirteen their voices were a car crash, a tornado, an earthquake all rolled into a singularity that reverberated throughout the room. "Once again you have come before us demanding information. Once again you show your insolence."

The power of the Thirteen was on full display now. A thundering maelstrom of angry energy attacking Raymond from all sides. Lightning surged through his skin. Flames boiled his blood. Thunder boomed in his ears.

He could feel his legs tremble under the sheer might of the Thirteen.

This was power.

Power that had shaped the planet. Power that had guided the course of human existence. Power long forgotten. Power so terrible that humans like Ray could barely even stand in such presence. Ray's legs trembled, struggling to stand against the sheer weight and pressure of the Thirteen's power. But stand he did. Fingers formed into a tight fist, fingernails dug into the palm of his hand, stabbing pain into his mind. He concentrated on that pain letting it distract him from their power. He focused that pain into a ball. And then under such immense strain, through the pain and haze, a memory returned to him.

A memory of someone lost to him. Someone precious. Killed by something...human yet not human... Her throat torn out leaving a bloody mess.

He focused on that memory. Then on the sadness that came with it. Then finally on the anger and rage from his powerlessness to protect her. And that was enough.

Never again.

"ENOUGH!" Ray shouted. His voice echoing through the storm.

And suddenly the storm ended.

"Esteemed members of the Thirteen, founders of the Hunters, Guardian and Protectors of Mankind, I have completed the task you have given me and I come before you to ask you to fulfill your oath." Ray said, his voice steady and unwavering, even against the power of the Thirteen.

"Once again you have come before us demanding information. Once again you demonstrate your insolence and disregard for the Order of the world." Spoke the Thirteen voices.

Ray shook his head. "And once again you show your fear and cowardice. Did you honestly think that I wouldn't know that you were sending me into a trap? You tried and failed to bury your secrets. Now I come to you once again asking for answers."

"What do you know of our work, of our duty to the world? Of our battles? You stand before us, uncorrupted and unscathed because of the battles we hold outside of this thing you call reality. You may protect your territory from monsters. But we protect your reality from things that you cannot even begin to comprehend. We are the lighthouse in the darkness. The shield that stops the arrow. The structure that shelters from the storm. So, we say again to you, Raymond Grayson Wolfe, who are you to judge us?"

"Indeed. I don't know. I don't know the battles you fight. I don't know the enemies you have. But you don't know my enemies either. Nor do you know what I've seen. Women, children, the weak, preyed upon by the things that they don't see hiding in the shadows. I took an oath. To fight in the shadows so others can live in the light. To cut down monsters before they can hurt others. And I have followed those oaths for the past ten years. I may not know your battles. But you don't know mine either. I have fought for humanity since the day I swore my oaths. I have cut down things in the dark so innocents may live in the light. So, why don't you stop wasting my time and tell me what I need to know."