Wrath James White presents Poisoning Eros I & II (23 page)

Vlad was still staring at her as Gloria flexed,
marveling at her new body, the phenomenal strength in her demonic
muscles and sinews. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Vlad
licking his fat lips, lusting after her, stroking the pudgy organ
in his tight pants. Even now, her sexuality, the fact that everyone
wanted to fuck her, was still her greatest asset. For once, she
told herself, she’d have to find a way to use it rather than be
used by it.

Gloria kept her head turned away in disgust. She
needed to find out her limitations soon but she knew better than to
ask Vlad. He was a master of lies and deception and would twist any
weakness she showed to his own advantage. Even after ripping that
kid apart with her bare hands Gloria was still feeling strangely
fragile. Better to just follow Vlad’s lead … for now.

“You’re still quite the human, aren’t you?” Vlad
said, tongue playing with the unlit end of his cigar. “You’re a
fucking
demon
, girl. Don’t you know what that means?”

“That I could crush you?” she said, still testing
him.

Vlad threw back his head and laughed. “Noooo …” he
crooned in an annoying singsong way. “Not even close. But you could
crush them.” He raised his hand and swept it from one shoulder to
the other, indicating the small cowering crowd at the altar.

“But why would—”

“No, no, not
them
, not literally. They
represent the mindless sheep who
will
follow you. The ones
who don’t?
They’re
the ones you’ll crush.”

“You really are a sadistic little bastard.”

“No, Gloria, I’m an opportunistic little bastard.
But you. You’d better learn to get over that nasty humanitarian
streak of yours if you want to survive.” He puffed hard on the
cigar, which had since extinguished. “No! Scratch that. Not
survive—conquer! If you want to rule here, you’d better get your
head out of your ass.”

Rule?

There was something odd about Vlad’s little plan.
Since when did Vlad care about conquering? He was just a weak
manipulative little man, a bootlicker, a con-man. He wasn’t the
type to be a leader. That wasn’t his thing. He was a bottom-feeder
and an opportunist, a schemer and a planner who always made certain
to stay out of the line of fire. That’s why he needed her. He
wasn’t the type to lead a battle. He was a vulture that scavenged
off the remains of dead warriors and kings. He would put her up
front to take the slings and arrows while he sat back pulling the
strings and reaping the rewards.
But who was pulling his
strings? The Masters? And why her? She wasn’t exactly a warlord
either. What was he up to?

“
And the Masters?” she asked,
having a difficult time taking her eyes off her own glistening
skin. So much to take in. so much to experience and
admire.

“What about them?”

“We’re supposed to be collecting souls to bring
back. How does ruling the planet fit in?”

“You ask too many questions.”

I hit a nerve?
she thought. A self-satisfied
smirk exploded onto her face.

Gloria hated to admit it but she felt good in her
new body. She loved it. Even knowing that she was here, on earth,
in this form, at the whim of devils, she felt in control for the
first time in a long time. She felt like she was once again a young
desirable woman at the height of her sexual attractiveness, the
same sexuality and power she’d felt when she’d first entered the
sex industry. Like she could have any man she wanted, any
thing
she wanted. It was a feeling she’d almost forgotten.
This body, this cloak of demon flesh was a vast improvement from
the drug-, disease- and age-ravaged body she’d been encumbered with
during her last years of life. She raised a taloned hand to push
back her hair, an old habit but one that could now cause serious
damage. Her claws raked her skin, got tangled in her hair and
didn’t remotely have the impact she would have liked.

Vlad chomped down on the unlit cigar and grinned.
“Maybe you think I’m fucking around here.”

“I don’t care. I just want to get this over with and
get the hell out of here.”

“That so?” He sounded truly curious, but she
suspected he was full of shit. “And where were you planning to
go?”

“Back to hell. To … I thought, to be with them.” Her
voice wavered and grew quieter with each word. “To, um, be one of
them.”

“Ah. I see. Is that what you thought?” He shook his
head. “I can’t figure out if you’re stupid, or just naïve. You’re
pathetic either way.”

“Just leave me alone! I’m not interested in anything
you have to say.” She shoved her way past him, strutting along rows
of highly polished pews, across a tiled mosaic floor where her
taloned feet clicked a symphony of her passage.

“I thought you might feel that way,” he said
quietly, too quietly, so unlike his usual boisterous way, and
Gloria stopped abruptly, turning back to look toward the altar.

“For whatever reason, you give a damn about these
mindless siphons. Good for me, since there are just so many of them
around. And I’d be willing to bet that fucking up just one of them,
maybe the youngest here, will
really
fuck with your head.
Hmmm? What do you think? Have
I
hit a nerve?”

She turned completely to face him. For a moment she
considered bluffing, pretending she didn’t care about their fate
but something about his choice of words:
Have
I
hit a
nerve?
They were her exact words, the ones she’d thought.
Can this freak read my mind?
If so, there was no point in
bluffing. He’d know she was faking. But why did she care? Hell, she
was a demon! Why was she still cursed with compassion for the same
fucked up species that drove her to drugs, porn and prostitution?
Why did she still give a fuck?

Gloria knew she wasn’t prepared to witness any more
innocent deaths should he call her bluff. She’d been to hell and
the idea of sending anyone else there was one she couldn’t accept.
Vlad had nothing to lose. He’d never had much humanity. He’d always
been a predator, a parasite, but she had everything to lose. Even
beneath the layers of infernal flesh, she still had
her
humanity.

Vlad stuffed the remnants of his cigar into his
shirt pocket, very slowly, exhaling grandly as he moved closer to
the altar. “I don’t like the way you’re behaving,” he said, as if
addressing a child. “I need to believe you’ll obey me.

“
So,” he said, stepping quickly
back onto the altar now, faster than she had ever seen him move,
“every time you disobey, they’ll suffer for it.”

He grabbed the first worshipper within reach and
clamped his hands around the throat of the hooded figure.

Gloria had almost forgotten they were there, they’d
been so quiet. She took maybe two steps toward the altar before
Vlad shouted for her to stop.

She stopped.

“That’s better.” He pulled back the hood and
revealed the face of a terrified girl, maybe all of 17, her long
dark hair spilling over her shoulders.

“Please,” the girl begged, scratching at Vlad’s
hands. “I don’t want to die!”

Vlad turned his head back to face Gloria. “She
doesn’t want to die. What a surprise.” He turned back to the girl.
“Not even for your demoness? You aren’t willing to sacrifice for
your master?”

“Please!” the girl cried, beating her fists against
Vlad’s two-fisted grip around her throat. “Can’t … breathe …!”

Gloria tried to force herself not to care. She tried
to think of all the hell, literal and figurative, people had put
her through over the years. She tried hard not to see herself and
her daughter in the face of the terrified young girl.

She failed. “Let her go, Vlad!” Gloria moved another
couple of steps toward the altar.

Vlad roared, squeezing harder, choking the life out
of the wide-eyed girl. The crunching of her neck bones ricocheted
off the church’s stone walls. He dropped her lifeless body at his
feet.

Gloria leapt across the altar, connecting with Vlad,
knocking him onto his back. She pummeled him with her fists, raked
her claws across his face and neck, tried to tear his head from his
shoulders. Blood spurted with each slash, great gouges of skin
hanging from his cheeks, one eye dislodged from its socket and
hanging by a fleshy thread.

He lay there silently, trying to block her attack,
his arms folded across his face. She continued the assault until he
lay still, until she had no strength left to continue. With great
effort she crawled away from his still body, amazed it had been so
easy, that he had simply taken the beating.

He raised his badly beaten head and sat up. “Feel
better?” he said, though speaking was difficult with his lower lip
torn from his mouth. Despite the attack he grinned, revealing
bloody nubs where teeth had been. His nose was mashed flat and was
closer to his ear than the center of his face.

She knew she couldn’t kill him—couldn’t kill any
demon—but she hadn’t expected him to recover so quickly. This was
going to be hard, she reasoned. Maybe impossible.

“You love to learn the hard way. You always have.”
His face began to change, to regenerate. Gone was the damage Gloria
had caused: his lip healed, the deep furrowing lines plumped up.
But worst was what he was changing into. Vlad barely resembled a
human now. His forehead and chin elongated, almost to points, and
his skin took on a marbled, cheese-grater quality. He stuck out a
ridiculously long, reptilian tongue, split down the center, and
flicked it at her. His body continued to grow and change before her
eyes, toughening, growing muscular and glistening and
hard
.

She was looking at his true demon form.

He charged, grabbing Gloria by the throat and
lifting her off the floor with one hand. She pounded against him
but he backhanded her, and carried her quickly across the altar,
slamming her into a stone pillar. The pillar cracked, great chunks
of plaster falling on their heads. He slammed her several more
times until Gloria was sure she would black out.

He pulled her back and lifted her above his head,
throwing her across the altar. She smashed into a frieze of Jesus’
Last Supper, stained glass shattering, fragments spraying the air
and littering the floor.

She fell to her knees, chunks of glass jutting from
her skin, her face a ruined mess, her head a bloody pulp. After a
moment of trying to stand she collapsed to the floor, the effort
too great, the pain too intense.

Then the screams began.

Gloria tried to look but every movement was agony.
“Please, Vlad,” she tried to say but wasn’t sure what came out of
her mouth.

Something came rolling up the aisle toward her. It
bounced off the column and settled a few feet from her side. This
one a boy, a teenager, peach fuzz just beginning to show. Rough
shreds of skin was all that remained of his neck, and his eyes were
huge, the terror of his death trapped for all eternity in the
expression of those eyes.

There was commotion all around her, people begging
for mercy, screams of terror and pain. Try as she might she
couldn’t lift her head, couldn’t put a face to all that
carnage.

Then the room grew silent, save for the steady quiet
plinking of something wet dripping off the marble altar.

Gloria fought against the pain and struggled to her
feet, her body finally beginning to regenerate, to slowly heal. She
scanned the church for signs of life and found none. Body parts
were scattered everywhere, and blood coated the altar like a fresh
paint job, dripping off the railings, smeared across frescos and
friezes and statues of saints. The painting of St. John the Baptist
suddenly took on a whole new meaning. Everyone was dead. Her
defiance had cost all of their lives and if she knew anything about
how the afterlife worked, then they were all now burning in the
Lake of Fire, waiting for some perverted demon to pluck them out of
that burning vat of liquefied flesh and molten earth to make them
his playthings for the rest of time. No one deserved that.

“You made me ruin my suit. I’m going to take that
out of your ass..”

Vlad’s features relaxed and remolded themselves back
into that ridiculous corpulent body with the red hair and handlebar
moustache. He was naked and sporting an erection.

He licked his fat, slimy lips and squeezed the head
of his cock until a teardrop of black cum dribbled from the tip.
Gloria shivered and her stomach rolled in revulsion. She took that
as a good sign. There was a time when the thought of sucking his
chubby little cock or taking it in either of her other two orifices
would not have fazed her in the least. All she would have been
worried about was how much money she’d get for doing it and how
much heroin or meth that money would buy. She continued staring at
Vlad, who was still stroking his rigid organ, milking more of that
hellish black cum from the swollen gland, leering obnoxiously and
sliding his tongue out from between his lips until it hung down
past his chin. Gloria turned away and a chill raced up her
spine.

“Come here!”

This is the last time. This is the last time I will
let anyone humiliate me, the last time I will let anyone hurt me
and victimize me. This is the last time.

Gloria’s anus continued to stretch, her viscous
black blood leaking down her thighs as Vlad’s organ grew inside
her, each thrust lacerating tissue fiber and rupturing
capillaries.

She had laughed when he’d first pulled the
thumb-sized nub from his pants and ordered her to bend over and
take it in her ass. She had thought it was a joke. She could have
taken four cocks that size at once, even when she’d been human. But
then it had begun to swell … and once it was inside her it had
continued to swell. Lengthening and thickening more and more each
time he pounded it into her bowels. His penis was already the size
of a chair leg and though Gloria could feel her flesh tear and
chafe she marveled at how little pain there was, or rather, how
much agony her demon form could endure. The pain was excruciating
but not unbearable. She wondered if there was any pain, anything,
that this body could not withstand.