Kelsea couldn't get the memory of the Priestess' eyes out of her mind. Even as she ran between the curling unearthly fog, flanked on either side by tombstones taller than her head. Even as she ducked between a cleft that separated two entwined grave markers like the coiling spiral of interlaced vines. Even as she listened to the sounds of monsters making war upon mankind, and smelled the pungent stench of burning flesh and acrid smoke hanging in the air all around. Despite the madness that surrounded her, it was all she could think about.
The Succubus could visualize their copper hue, could picture the sharpness of her gaze, the hidden warmth reserved behind a screen of caustic disdain. Just thinking about it made her inner need rise.The woman whose humanity was a mere false facsimile could feel the heavy blush upon her face, the trembling shudder in her inner thighs, the burning heat of her nethers and eternal wetness that lay between her legs.
"I am putting my faith in you." Almyra had said. Such words, coming from a woman of the cloth, meant more to Kelsea than almost anything else in the world... save, perhaps three carefully chosen words that Roland had yet to utter.
Kelsea shook her head from side to side, cursing her wayward mind for dwelling on such trivial things in this dire moment. She had enough to worry about without picturing the way those astounding orbs looked when locked upon her own. Kelsea wanted to debase herself before her, to surrender her body to the gentle benediction of this woman whom she worshipped like the God she served-
"
Stop
." She commanded the darkest part of herself, grabbing a handful of her right thigh and digging into it hard with her fingernails, drawing blood through the fabric of her pants. Nothing seemed capable of halting her profane concupiscence, nor assuage her boundless arousal. Sprinting through the Cloister graveyard she shivered as she felt the biting anguish of her fingernails. Even pain was pleasure; Kelsea knew firsthand that mere physical torment was not at all an impediment to a Demon's carnal delight. If anything, it enhanced it.
There was cackling in the distance. Like prey noticing the sound of an approaching carnivore her head snapped to the right, peering through the inscrutable mists as she came up short in front of a few, ancient mausoleums. They seemed older, more weather worn and corroded compared to the stones all around. Their designs were boxy: sharp angled and severe. Judging from their size they did not seem to have been built to house humans within them. Kelsea noticed that their stonework was the same, pale white as that of the Inner Cloister's crumbling, stone walls.
Impish laughter carried through the night. There was a sudden, harsh scream, and Kelsea could hear farther away the shouting of men and the sound of battle. In the far distance, blue lights rose beyond the opposite side of the Inner Cloister's circular walls. They arrived from the same direction whence she had abandoned her lover, near the charred remains of the wall the hitherto unseen other Succubus had smashed a hole in. Kelsea bit her lip.
Shaking off the fearful malaise that the Imps instilled in her, Kelsea ran onwards. The graveyard took up the southeastern quarter of the Outer Cloister's area, a ramshackle collection of varying architecture and mismatched grave markers that were arrayed like ever decreasing notches of a measuring stick: the farther she went, the further she delved into the centuries. She reached the other end of the cemetery, coming to a rusted gate that demarcated the border between the living and the dead. At the fence line, the fog seemed to lift, or at least dissipate somewhat.
Rising up from the unearthly mists there appeared the looming monoliths of tall grey spires. As Kelsea's vision cleared she could see two-story buildings of far more solid build and makeup than that of the western half of the town. Instead of straw huts there were true buildings made of lashed logs filled in with plaster, and topped with slanted slate shingles. Though arranged in a somewhat haphazard fashion, she could make out the sight of shops and signs hanging high above the framed doorways. Having just come from the desolation left behind from the Imp attack, it was somewhat jarring to see a place so hale and whole, untouched by their barbarism.
Kelsea leapt the paltry barrier betwixt the graveyard and the mercantile quarter, glancing up into the sky and noting that the gloom of the evening had somewhat receded, revealing a dark sky kept in permanent obscurity by its trickling grey fingers. Kelsea silently prayed to Gosvin that he keep Roland safe for the night, till his holy light could rise on the 'morrow. She prayed for his sake more than hers - if indeed the prayers of Demons counted, or were even
noticed
by the Gods. She did it anyway.
As Kelsea slinked through the narrow streets, keeping an eye ever on the horizon for trouble, an immediate fact became clear to her: there were no Imps anywhere to be found. A mental map of the town lifted in her head, and she realized she was at almost the opposite end of the village where the wall had been punched through. Demons - never the subtle type - had foregone the flanking tactics of warfare and merely thrown themselves like a wave against the vastly outnumbered peasants of the Cult's community. If there was a single place that was safe from their presence in the Outer Cloister, it was here... for now.
Kelsea flitted from cover to cover like a nervous mouse in the realm of hunting night owls. She was painfully aware of the natural draw that her very being engendered in the Imps. To them she was the supreme prey: a creature
born
to bear more of their kind in an endless cycle of sacrilegious copulation and germination. She shuddered at the thought, wincing inwardly at the scurrilous twinge of excitement it brought to her inhuman side. The little voice that buzzed in her head was getting louder now, getting more agitated and inflamed.
They're waiting for you
. Grevich's voice said, though the thought was her own. It created a repulsive melody in her head.
They want you. Take them for yourself. Make them your tools
.
Tools for what? The question hung heavy in her mind as she glanced at the swinging signs that indicated a local barber-surgeon's shop, a bakery and a goods store. Kelsea didn't
want
anything; she'd never wanted anything resembling the things the voice imposed on her. Power was merely an abstract concept to her; rulership was a man with a sword who spat out rules that no one listened to once the vagabond had vacated the immediate area. What did she care for power, or dominion over others? Why did the voice crave things for her that she'd never coveted for herself? It was lust without depth, desire without meaning.
Her mother had always chided her on the ambiguity of her dreams. Kelsea had only ever known what she did
not
want to be: a person who sold herself to others based purely on the merit of her corporeal flesh. Her desires were insipid, her hopes little else beyond finding joy in whatever little nook of the world she could fit into. She worked for bread, struggled for security, and hoped for love... but she had no grand design to guide her, no abiding passion or skill that had driven her to commit great deeds or accomplish impossible tasks.
Perhaps that was why she had fallen so easily: her puerile aspirations had wilted in the unflinching crucible of Grevich's cave. He had moulded her, shaped her like malleable clay into this thing that wore a mask of humanity but only bore the barest hint of the person she had once been. As she searched in the dim lamp light for the tavern she had been told was there, she reflected on that old, existential question that had dogged her since she had first been cast out into the world by a bored and annoyed Grevich:
Am I still Kelsea? ...Am I still "me?"
That question had seemed to have been already answered by the simple nature of her biology. 'Kelsea' had needed to eat, she had needed to sleep. The girl she had once been had loved to hear the harmonious sound of a choir's tone, had lain in the sunlight and basked in Gosvin's blessed glow. 'Kelsea' had played like an older sister with the street urchins of Arjal, chasing one another and playing senseless games in the dark alleys of the red light district.
Whatever creature she was
now
, however, did none of those things. When she risked the bramble path of dwelling overlong on her past, she became caught within the cycles that now permeated her mind like a virus. Memories that had once been but warm recollections from childhood became warped, twisted and perverted... often quite literally. Instead of recalling the smell of her mother's hair, she imagined the smell of it mixed in the midst of sexual intercourse and frantic mating. When she thought of her small troupe of misfits and ne'er-do-wells dressed in filthy rags and sporting gap-toothed smiles, she pictured instead the lot of them naked, exposed to her like the slaves the voice in her head kept demanding her to make.
Not even her previous life was safe from desecration: memories were just another torpid fantasy to wile away the hours while the mortals slept; her very innocence was a stolen anguish. Until she met the roughspoken man with the deep blue eyes and mane of fiery hair to whom she was now irreparably indebted, the question itself had - in her mind - been a long buried corpse. She was a Demon. And a Demon needed to feed.
But now that Roland
was
here, the vexing query only grew in the back of her mind. Was she Kelsea?
He
certainly seemed to think so. The way he'd asked her for her name, when they had first met had jarred something deep within herself.
Perhaps it was pointless. As Kelsea at last found the entrance to the tavern, she reflected that she no longer knew what 'Kelsea' would have thought of the actions she now took and the choices she'd made since she had been forcibly transformed. Killing people, fucking people, controlling their wills... as she walked into the tavern and spotted the discernible silhouette of one of her victims the Succubus who bore a dead girl's name realized that it was a mystery, likely never to be answered.
An arrow struck the wall right to the left of her head, throwing all such thoughts from her mind in a flash.
Kelsea let out a yelp of surprise, jerking in place as the red feather shook from the force of the impact against the wall. Her blue eyes widened with sudden clarity as she realized just how close the arrow had come to striking her. She turned, staring wide-eyed at the man behind the barkeeper's counter as he held his bow aloft, still pointing at her though the arrow had already been loosed.
Carl, the boyish-faced mercenary, stared back at her, a hardness to his brow that only deepened once he caught her expression. He blew a spout of air from the corner of his mouth, his bow lowering only after he reached with his free hand to grasp the mug of ale sitting beneath the bartender's counter. Carl sized her up, his one eye never leaving her as he upended the wooden cup and chugged the whole of its contents in a single, protracted sitting. He smashed it down onto the countertop, letting out a hefty breath and wiping blithely at the suds that built in the corners of his lips.
"Should've figured it'd be you." He said, his voice free of malice but coated with disdain. He turned away from her, tossing his beloved weapon aside like unused kindling towards her general direction. It clattered down onto the floor, sliding beneath one of the few tables in the humble tavern, bumping against a rickety chair. The sound of gushing liquid told her he was refilling his cup from the tap.
"Carl." She said, ignoring the subtle glow that seemed to fall upon him from the roaring hearth to their right. It disturbed her that such an inconsequential detail could cause her thighs to tighten and her lower lips to moisten. There had been so little time to flee that the absent barkeep had neglected to snuff it out. The flames were beginning to die now, but for the moment it cast the room in a gentle, orange glow. "The town is under attack. The Imps are-"
"I know they're here, Succubus." He said, tipping the cup to his lips and taking a deep swallow. "A deaf leper could've noticed all the commotion going on outside." He took another swig.
She moved into the tavern proper, closing the heavy door behind her and bolting it from the inside. "Then what are you doing here?" She asked, staring at the back of his head and wishing for all the world that she could think of anything other than their illicit tryst above the cliff, two days before.
Carl let out a hearty laugh, ignoring her as he picked up another mug and filled it to the brim. Taking both in hand, he circled around the counter, putting them down upon the nearest table and collapsing into the vacant seat in front of them. He leaned back, planting a leg atop the table as it spasmodically tapped at the air. Carl gave a caustic grin, taking the first mug and pulling from it once again. Kelsea could hear the audible gulping as he spilled twin lines of gold down his sallow cheeks.
A blush of indignation rose to her face. The way he looked at her... it was like she was an object; a thing to be ridiculed. "
