Miko

By Maggie Finson

CHAPTER FOUR

Ummm, Do I Really Have To Do This?

After some furious work with one hand, and a cold shower, Carl Chamberlain tiredly examined his reflection in the bathroom mirror. "You got it bad, Carl, old boy. Real bad."

She was a man not so long ago, buddy. Part of his mind pointed out. Forget it. She isn't going to fall into your arms on her own unless she falls asleep like she did just now. There's still a male in that pretty head, and he won't let you get anywhere, as if you should really want to.

"Hell, that doesn't bother me," he answered the niggling little voice. "She definitely isn't a man now, is she? Jo is the most beautiful, sexy, intelligent woman I've ever met, and she has a sense of humor, too."

Not to mention the ability to blow you away with a thought, pal. The inner voice persisted. That is one very scary lady in the other bedroom. One with no real idea of what she's capable of doing, and no really fine control over those weird abilities.

"Doesn't matter," turning from the mirror to get some much needed sleep himself, Carl Chamberlain let out a sigh of his own. "Damn but she felt good in my arms a few minutes ago."

* * * *

She fed with a savagery and abandonment only a newly lost soul was capable of. The first hapless victim she had latched onto served to only whet her hellish appetite and didn't even have time to scream in pain or horror as his essence was drawn out forcibly to feed the monster Felicia had become.

The second eased the craving a little, especially when she ripped him open with clawed fingers and took his pain along with the terror that one experienced. She ripped the head off the third, sucking his juices into her ravening mouth along with his soul. With a low, throaty laugh, she advanced on the fourth more slowly, and aroused him with her blood slick but once again human flesh before draining his life away. The fifth, and last was already dead from fright before she reached him, but a rapid snatch of mental tendrils captured his fleeing soul as it left his lifeless form.

Shaking with a rage she understood to be at the loss of her true humanity no matter how she might appear, the newly made demoness shrieked into the air while seeking for something to rend, tear, or otherwise savage. When she finally left the blood and meat spattered cell, it was with an outward calm that she would never really feel again.

"Very good, Little Sister." Sarjak approved as he surveyed her blood covered form with his usual sardonic humor. "You are on your way to being one of The Great Ones, a consort fit to rule beside our Lord and Master."

"Don't patronize me." Felicia snarled, turning rapidly towards him and making her right hand into a wickedly shaped weapon with razor edged claws. She left her former tormentor reeling from the blow, and bleeding from four deep gashes just below his rib cage. "If you make that mistake again I'll tear your heart out and eat it in front of you. Then we'll see if that lovely, strong body you've stolen can survive that!"

"There are others I can take," his low, but triumphant laugh followed her down the hall, as did his shouted, "My Lord! Have I not done well? This one is worthy of even You!"

"Never forget that," she hissed, giving him a mental slap that threw the creature into the cell she had been forced into not so long ago, then stalking in barely contained fury towards the Spartan chambers she had come to call her own. As the door obediently closed behind her, Felicia discovered that even demons could shed tears.

The part of her that had been Floyd still struggled, continued to fight and resist the things she was learning to do. But the struggles of that dwindling Human psyche were pathetic in comparison to the raging turmoil of her own mind and what was left of her soul. Small and feeble as that old self had become, it still caused a great deal of pain when she confronted it. Sarjack, now almost obsequious in his dealings with her, carefully pointed out that the pain was something that gave her power, and was something she would learn to savor like a fine wine was appreciated by less fortunate beings.

Less fortunate beings, she bitterly considered that phrase while once again quelling the diminished part of her that had been a Human male. She could take another male form, had done so more than once in the lessons her one time tormentor so carefully taught her. But there was no real ease in that any longer. Whatever had been done, whatever she had done to herself, had closed off that path of existence so completely that she found herself very uncomfortable in a male body. Human males were now something to play with, to feed from, to be objects of contempt for the way they lusted after her Human appearing beauty.

Fools. That was all they were. Fools who had no idea of what it was they lusted after when seeing her, or even why they felt that way. Damned, thoroughly damned, fools when she had finally made up her mind to embrace what she had become because she could find no real alternative other than the threatened eternity of darkness and unsated hunger. The darkness, the despair, the pain of what she was would never leave her alone, she knew that with a thing she would have once called grief for what had been lost. But the capacity for grief, or any of the gentler human emotions, had been burned out of her so absolutely, that not even ashes remained.

The pair cowering in front of her were a fine example of what she had been thinking. The male, well muscled, good looking, with ebony skin she ached to touch, to rend, had eyes only for her. The woman, a well proportioned beauty with thick honey blonde hair tumbling invitingly to her bottom, stared in near shock through cornflower blue eyes set in a perfectly shaped oval face. Her delicate features were set in an expression of pure terror that Felicia drank in like a refreshing draught of cool water.

Neither one had the smallest inkling of the true danger they were in, fixated on only the mesmerizing surface of the Human woman who so casually walked among creatures of horror and appeared to be a beacon of hope for them. The woman reached out a trembling hand while begging in her honey smooth voice, "Help us, please get us out of here."

"I can do that," Felicia quietly answered while reading the souls of both her newest toys. "But you should understand that there are far worse things that could happen to you both if I did free you."

"What could be worse than this?" the male asked, holding out wrists bound in steel cuffs attached to chains embedded in the wall. "Being chained like animals, with those terrible things coming to torment us at all hours? We can't stay sane much longer as things stand. Do what you can for us, please."

"All right," with a cheerful smile, Felicia reached mentally and found the tendrils that anchored their separate souls and intellects to the flesh. It was a simple matter to snip those insubstantial, yet all-important cords to pull the shocked souls and minds free of their fleshly housings. Making use of skills that had become second nature she wound and anchored the individual cords into the required places, smoothly joining the transplanted spirits with their new bodies.

She allowed them to experience the changes for a few minutes, enjoying the responses both showed to finding themselves in bodies of the opposite sex, and even of different races. The male mind set into the female body did none of the things such occurrences brought out in fiction. Instead of staring at his new body, he simply took one look at his now feminine hands, seeing the well formed breasts now firmly attached to 'his' chest, rolled those soulful cornflower blue eyes back into that beautiful head and fainted.

The male body stared in shocked disbelief at his former body, screamed, then fell to his knees with both hands stretched out in supplication. "Why? What did you do to us?"

"I switched your bodies around," Felicia responded with wry humor in her voice. "That much should be obvious to even a moron."

"Why?" the deep male voice with a woman's inflections repeated.

"Because I can," Giving the newly made male a hungry look that caused its recipient to flinch back in fear, she laughed without real humor. "It's how my kind gain corporeal bodies, and part of my skills I need to master. You have been most helpful with that."

"Then you'll change us back?"

"Do you want me to do that?" lifting an eyebrow as she asked, Felicia walked sinuously towards him. "Wouldn't you like to find out what it's like for the other side first? Enjoy your superior physical strength and male prerogatives for a time?"

"Nuh, no," the other gave his former body, still unconscious a yearning look then gave his own large hands a distasteful glance. "I - I can't, won't live like this. Please, this is a nightmare I want out of."

"Are you asking me for release?" Felicia questioned with a chilling laugh while watching her prey shiver. "When you know me for the agent of that nightmare? Are you fully aware of what you've asked of me?"

"I don't care," the feminine male sobbed in despair. "I just want out of this."

"All right, dear," reaching out a hand to stroke the strongly muscled arm of her victim, she leaned forward as if to kiss him. "I do know what mercy is, in spite of what you may think. I was human once, just like you, and craved the same thing.

But this is what I got instead," waving at her own body with one hand while caressing the unwilling male's cheek and chin with the other, she leaned in further to whisper. "So I'll show you more mercy than I was given. You wish for release, then release you shall have. Do not look back, not even once, or you will be completely lost."

The fingernail of her index finger on the hand touching the quivering male chin elongated into a razor edged claw and almost gently drew a line through that strong throat. A line that welled, then pulsed with the raw, salty crimson of arterial blood. The body was dead, and the soul it had so briefly housed fled before she finished drinking the rich, heady fluids from it.

Bathed in blood, she watched the receding soul for a moment before giving a quiet laugh. "Run, little soul, and hide wherever you like. When I call, you will come. You're mine now and I won't let you free that easily. Enjoy what respite I decide to allow you for now."

Deep within herself, something small and still unbearably bright cheered the fleeing soul, and commended it to peace. She growled at the disturbance, shedding unacknowledged tears while doing so. "Shut up, you pathetic remnant."

With a brief internal struggle, that small bright thing that refused to die within her was at least quelled for the time being. Still watching the path the now vanished soul had taken, she shook her head and muttered softly, "If only I could...."

"Enough!" shaking herself with a vigor that shook most of the clinging blood away, then carefully wiping herself clean as she licked the hands that had killed again, she made sure all the mess was off herself, then utilized a quick cleaning spell to make sure.

Turning to see the still supine female body begin to stir and let out small moans, her mouth formed a deliberately cruel smile. "Still a woman, and that is how you are going to stay, my little beauty."

The woman sat up, caught a glimpse of her former, and now savaged body, then let out another moan before trying to sink into unconsciousness again.

"Oh, no you don't, bitch," Felicia dragged the light, shaking body to its feet and slapped her face until the eyes snapped open and into miserable focus. "I got used to it. So will you. Welcome to my service, Lola, you are only the first of many Hell's Handmaidens I plan on creating."

The newly christened Lola let out a mournful, hopeless scream that reminded her mistress of things she would rather have forgotten. Dur'Toc's consort was careful not to damage her new servant while meting out the first of many painful lessons.

* * * *

Jo lightly bounced away from the attacking simulacrum, sliding to one side while extending one leg into a powerful spinning kick that impacted the thing with a solid thud. She followed that up with several deadly open handed strikes to the briefly exposed throat and was pleased to see the male figure waver then vanish. Too often, one of those so-called simulations had landed blows, cuts, or holds that had left her gasping in pain and frantically seeking a counter to the attacks that didn't cease simply because she was actually injured. These sims didn't respond that way, and she privately worried that one might really kill her if she didn't learn how to fight it effectively.

[You worry too much, sweetie,] Kam informed her as she spun to confront yet another menacing group of training sims. [I've got way too much time and effort invested in you to allow a training mishap to put an end to you.]

[Oh, you have no idea how much better that makes me feel,] Jo tartly responded as she lithely ducked under a potentially devastating strike and knifed an elbow into her attacker's solar plexus. [Now please stop distracting me while I'm getting out of this mess you've set up.]

[Getting past the distractions is part of your training,] the AI pointed out as a hard blow from behind sent her caroming into some exercise equipment.

"Yeeoow!" Using the balance beam she had just collided with as a takeoff point, the by now incredibly agile female Joe had become swung over and past another attacker, landing both feet squarely in the chest of the one that had taken her from behind. Then pushed off his chest in a midair somersault that ended with both her small hands buried to the wrists in the other's midsection.

Effectively out of action, those two faded from view leaving an aching, panting Jo warily watching for any others with more senses than she had known she possessed only a subjective year earlier.

[Not bad at all.] Kam approved. [Four kills, two instant disables, three serious injuries to major body parts, and you only took a few relatively minor hits through all of it.]

[We need to work on your definition of 'relatively minor' real soon,] Jo let out a small groan while rubbing at her freshly abused back with both hands. [I somehow get the idea that our conceptions of that innocent sounding phrase are a long way apart. My poor kidneys have been rattled so bad I may not be able to go to the toilet for a week.]

[Don't be such a crybaby,] Kam tched in Jo's mind before going on in a halfway defensive tone, [I took the brunt of the damage, after all. All you got was the pain. The rest was distributed over my poor, long suffering self.]

[Oh, sorry. Pardon me for being so unfeeling for you,] Jo snorted. [I thought you were designed to do that.]

[I was.] the AI mentally shrugged. [But that doesn't make it one of my favorite abilities.]

[Which brings me to another little gripe,] Jo shook herself while heading for the shower adjoining the exercise room. [It seems that one of your favorite pastimes any more is changing into sexy revealing little numbers while I'm with Carl. It's embarrassing and I wish you'd quit.]

[Hey, you're a beautiful girl who deserves to be shown off once in a while.] Kam giggled. [Besides, Carl isn't complaining is he?]

[No, but I am.]

[Listen up, kitten.] Kam interrupted another tirade before it truly had the chance to begin. [You are a young woman now, with all the bells, whistles, attachments, and so forth. Which also happens to include physical needs and I'm not talking about food and water here, little darling. You need to acknowledge what you are and get on with things that are more important.]

[Kam, I was a guy for twenty seven years. I haven't even spent a year as a girl.] Jo sighed in frustration. [I'm just not ready for something so intimate as sex, or even those boy/girl games like dating and all that. For crying out loud, I'm barely getting to where I don't flinch when I look in a mirror and now you want me to go to bed with a guy?]

[Not just any guy,] Kam chuckled. [I have one specifically in mind, and in case you hadn't noticed, which I know you have in spite of what you just said, and he's a pretty terrific one.]

[Okay, okay,] Jo shook her head as she ducked under the steaming water from the shower to begin the chore of washing her long, thick hair. [I have noticed. Happy?]

[Not until you admit that you need him, as a man and not just a friend.]

[I'm just not ready for that yet, I've told you again and again.]

[All right,] Kam quietly answered without inflection of any kind. [Think about this one for a second or so. You know that problem you're having with the fine control on your mental abilities? Like how that fire and ice thing is either an annoyance or packs a wallop a hydrogen bomb might envy?]

[What? Are you trying to tell me that if I let Carl Chamberlain get me between the sheets that my problem with that kind of thing will just vanish?]

[Gee, you're brighter than I was thinking a minute ago,] Kam answered with a snort. [Probably not right away, but give it some thought. You're a Miko now. That is dependent upon the fact that you are physically female. Are you following this so far?]

[Yes, you've lost no opportunity to tell me that every chance you get.]

[So, it stands to reason that your abilities, especially being able to effectively use all those neat abilities also hinge on the same basic fact. That you are female. Right?]

[That makes sense,] Jo answered carefully, searching for the hammer she knew was poised over her head in the conversation.

[Fine, but you, my little beauty, haven't yet entirely accepted the simple biological truth that no one can avoid for long without going completely nuts. And that would be?]

[I know, I know, that I'm female through and through,] Jo glumly responded in near boredom at a subject they had been round and round over for months. [I just have a tough time letting go of who I was. You know?]

[No one's asking you to do that, hon.] Kam gently answered with real sympathy. [The male Joe that was is very important in the female Josette that is. But you have got to face realities here, and do it pretty soon because we're running out of time.]

[Why are you so damned insistent about this?]

[Dur'Tok is going to find us eventually no matter where or when we hide, and you need to be ready to face him when that happens. Because if you don't entirely accept what you are now, it will be a weapon in the hands of our enemies.] Kam mentally shouted, almost gleefully using the well hidden hammer in that conversation. [And you'll die, or worse. And take all your allies down with you when you go. That is the real danger here, the real reason we've been in this temporal backwater for almost a year.]

[To get me to admit that I'm female?] Jo questioned shakily, then shook her head before nodding. [All right, I'm female. I know that better than you seem to think since it hits me every time I take a shower or bath, use the toilet, look at my reflection, and every twenty eight or so days. Or see Carl or some other guy watching me. I. Know. That. I'm. A. Girl!. Does that suit you?]

[Not entirely, though it is a start in the right direction,] the relentless, remorseless machine went on. [But you've missed the point completely here, little lady. Which is simply that you have to like what you are and enjoy being that way.]

[So if I jump into bed with Carl,] Jo shot back defensively, [I'll immediately adore being a woman? Is that what you're saying?]

[Well, duh!] Kam interjected sarcastically. [That is NOT what I'm telling you at all. Just let Carl, or some other guy, treat you like a woman for a change. Take him up on one of those invitations to take in a few sights or to visit some of his friends when he does. Who knows? You might even like it once you've made the first move. All I'm saying, asking really, is that you please, please, please give it a try. Why should that be so bloody damned hard?]

[You mean let him open doors for me? Hold my chair when I sit down? Let him do all those polite guy things for little old me?]

[That about covers it.] Kam agreed. [But while you're doing that it might be kinda nice to do some of those little girl things a fellow likes too. Give it a chance, honey. Trust me, you're made for it, especially now. And you're starting to go stale locked away in here with nothing but training and me for company.]

[Will doing that, at least trying I mean, get you off my case over this thing?] Jo questioned while wringing out her hair before drying it.

[Probably.]

[Okay, consider it done. I surrender. Give me a white flag, already, and I'll wave that for you, too.]

[No need for that.] Kam chuckled. [Just so long as you try it. I can just about guarantee that it'll grow on you real fast. And you might think about dressing a little more femininely for him while you do.]

[Don't push it, Kam.]

[Hey, I had to try.] the AI responded almost triumphantly.

* * * *

"Please don't make me do this, Mistress." Lola begged while eyeing the naked form of another male human prisoner trying to quell his sexual responses to both the lovely females in the room with him. "I can't do it."

"Oh, you can and you will, little Lola." Felicia purred with trheat barely submerged. "Consider this as an important lesson in what you are, and what you will be in time to come."

"I was...."

"What your were is of no importance to me, little one, other than it allowed me to make you as you are now," Felicia stroked the quivering back of her newest slave and allowed her nails to dig small furrows in that soft back. "What you are is Mine, and you will follow my commands or suffer the consequences."

"Mistress..." Lola's eyes shone with fear, and revulsion at what Felicia meant for her to do in this room.

"Do it, little whore," Felicia almost gently pushed the newly made female to her knees, then grasped a handful of honey blonde hair at the back of her slave's head to beging pressing it forward to the waiting male member now waving in front of her pale face. "Open your mouth and take him in. You will learn to enjoy it in time.

Or I could," playfully, but still filled with barely veiled threat, the new demmoness offered, "Give you back to Sarjak. His minions would enjoy playing with you again, I'm sure."

"Please, Mistress..." Lola was in tears, another humiliation for the former male, but she was obviously terrified at the mere mention of Sarjak's minions.

"Make your choice here and now, girl." Felicia commanded harshly, gesturing at the waiting male, then to the door leading out of the chamber. Either you remain as a helpless plaything for eternity, or you begin to have some control over what you do and when you do it."

"I - I understand, Mistress."

"Good, then make your choice, Lola, and make it now. I am losing patience."

Hesitantly, the voluptuous blonde lowered her head and leaned forward while opening her mouth to receive the waiting, erect male member that was so like the one she had possessed not so long before. Closing her lovely eyes for a moment she let out a long, ragged sigh, then took it within her parted lips.

Felicia watched in cruel amusement as her body swapped slave surrendered hard held sensibilities and conceptions of self to willingly begin the journey into what she was to become.

"Take all he can give you, my slave," she encouraged with a small laugh as Lola began slurping and bobbing her blonde head at the man's crotch. "Then make him give you more. He is FOOD, and for your pleasure. Learn the power you hold over such as this one, and start to use it. Or you will spend all time to come being used. And that is not a good thing to contemplate, is it my dear?"

The blonde didn't answer, unless increasing her tempo and and placing her small hands on the man's buttocks to press him into her face harder could be interpreted as one.

Felicia took that, correctly, as Lola's capitualtion to what she had become, and let out a short, triumphant laugh of pure, malevolent pleasure.

* * * *

Jo gave the skirt of the outfit Kam had become with a gleeful cackle after her shower and grinmaced as she took in her appearance in the full length mirror. The navy blue and white dress with the pleated skirt ending several inches above the knee did look appealing, but it was so...so feminine. Giving the elbow length sleeves a tug to get the cuffs placed more comfortably she grumbled. [All I need now is a nautical collar with a bow in front and I'll look like some schoolgirl in a sailor dress.]

[Done!] Kam chortled as the dress changed to add those features.

Giving the shortened, but still white and pleated skirt a dark look, Jo let out a sigh of resignation. [Ok, you win, put it back the way it was before, please.]

[But you're so adorably sexy in your little Fuku, Josette,] Kam laughed. [Carl will just melt when he sees you in this.]

[You're not going to change that demented mess that passes for a mind you have about this, either, are you?]

[Nope.]

[I feel like a little girl in this getup.] Jo groused, [all I need is a bow in my hair or a little sailor hat to complete the damned picture.]

[You look more like a big girl with all the right equipment in all the right places, to me.] Kam chuckled.

Jo chose not to dignify that with an answer, only resignedly moved towards the elevator door and opened it without using the panel on the wall next to it. What she had done only ocurred to her once the elevator was rising to the ground floor level. "Hey! I opened the door without..."

[Touching it, I know,] Kam proudly responded. [You're attuning yourself to the equipment here and starting to make full use of it at last. And you know why that is, don't you?]

[I know, I know,] Jo sighed, then let out a small chuckle. [Just don't start on all that "embracing what I am"stuff again, ok? And could you make this outfit just a tad less little girlish? Please?']

[Oh, all right.]

Following a 'discussion' regarding skirt length and the amount of cleavage showing, Jo emerged from the elevator wearing a navy blue, figure hugging sundress with a white pleated skirt descending from a dropped waist that had lost the nautical collar. The bow was still there, though smaller, and nestled prettily just at the juncture of the cleavage the dress showed. Her shoes were elegant pumps with three inch heels, which Jo still grumbled about, but put up with for the sake of avoiding more arguments.

[Think we could do the sandal thing instead of the pumps?] Jo finally worked up the nerve to ask. [The pumps hurt my toes.]

[That, my dear, is the price of being attractive in this time frame.] Kam responded, but altered the pumps into a slightly more comfortable pair of delicate heeled sandals. [You should be glad we aren't in a time when corsets were the fashion.]

[Oh, believe me, I am glad we aren't] Jo sighed, then gathered up her jangling nerves and ordered them to stop with the bells and panic signals before stepping out of the elevator. [Ok, let's get this part over with, can we?]

* * * *

Felicia gave an approving look at a shivering, blood covered Lola, then when sure she held to other's full attention gestured at the now dead male her unwilling protege had just finished with. "You see? We can rule that kind quite easily, manipulate them through that organ you just about sucked dry on him. Then they provide more enjoyment. His blood was good, too, wasn't it?"

The other responded with a small moan, and a nod of her head.

"Now clean yourself off, there is more for you to learn right now."

Lola began literally scraping the blood from her body with her small hands, then licking those clean, even with the half-sick expression it was clear that she had started to savor the taste, and enjoy it.

"Good, girl," Felicia encouraged, then added. "Finish the cleaning like I have showed you before. You should be able to do that now."

Still shivering, the blonde used one of the simple spells her mistress had taught her, and immediately became immaculately clean.

"You see?" Felicia purred in pleasure at the still shaking young woman who was no longer completely human. "I can give you power like you never dreamed of while being a man. All you need do is reach out and take it, little one."

The sobs following her out of Lola's new chambers reminded Felicia of her own changing, and the small bit of her that was still Floyd pitied the girl. Felicia only grinned viciously at hearing them and pushed the remnants of her old self further down into the darkness.

"Get down and stay there, you pathetic spark," Growling as she pushed it away and downward, Dur'Tok's designated consort-to-be stalked into another holding chamber to take her frustrations out on another hapless prisoner, while examing each new arrival for one suitable to become her second handmaiden.

* * * *

[I still don't feel good about this] Jo grumbled to Kam as she made her way out of the pantry that disguised the entrance to her underground training and communications complex.

[You look great, sweetie,] The AI encouraged as they entered the main dining room and began making for the living room and den area to find Carl. [Besides, it's too late to back out now, your designated target has spotted you.]

If the AI could have smirked, Jo was sure it would have been doing just that as she slowly approached the open door of the den where Carl was working on something at the computer installed in there.

"Well, hello," his face broke into a smile as he gave her a quick once over and raised his eyebrows in question. "What's the occasion?"

[Talk to him idiot! Don't just stand here like you've been beaned extra hard in one of our practice sessions.]

"Oh, this?" Jo plucked at her skirt with a tentative smile. "Kam thinks I should get more in touch with my femininity."

"Well, Kam is right, you look very nice, Jo."

"Thank you." Jo replied then smiled, briefly fought the urge to do a full turn for him, and did the turn anyway, finishing with a brief flourish of a curtsey. "I'm glad you like it."

"You really do look fantastic, Jo," standing up he offered his own, tentative smile. "I have an idea here, so don't go getting all antsy and running off when I tell you what it is, ok?"

"Ok, what did you have in mind?" Tilting her head a little and hiding her own nervousness by fiddling with a strand of her hair, Jo gave him an expectant look.

"Both of us need a break," Carl started. "I mean from all the work we've been doing, and everything. I thought maybe a little drive in the hills around here might take our minds off things for a while, maybe even a stop in town if you're up to it."

[Go on, tell him you think that's a wonderful idea, dummy] Kam prompted

"Umm, sure," Jo found herself smiling in spite of her worries about what might happen during that drive, and pointedly ignoring the AI. "A ride through the country sounds kind of nice. I have been needing to relax, and I know you need some distractions too."

[Doh! Why did I say 'distractions'!] Jo swore at herself as the man actually blushed.

[Oh, maybe because you tend to be a major one of those things where he's concerned?] Kam sweetly answered in syrupy tones.

"Trust me, I already have plenty of those, Jo."

"Yeah, me too, so why don't we just get in the car and take a ride somewhere, or nowhere in particular?" Jo stood away from the door and dangled a set of keys in her hand. "You drive."

* * * *

Delia, newly named, cowered in one corner of the small chamber, keeping as much distance between herself and the still steaming body her mind had inhabited only minutes earlier. Felicia watched her second choice for a handmaiden with mixed amusement and respect. At least this one hadn't fainted upon discovering the switch. Delia was obviously stronger than Lola had been, but she would still break. It might take longer to get done, but Sarjak had methods that would manage that detail quite nicely.

Licking a droplet of fresh blood from the corner of her mouth with her agile tongue, Felicia gave her newest victim/recruit a saccharine smile. "You'll get used to it soon enough, Delia. I have some friends here to help you adjust to your new self waiting right outside this door. I'm sure you'll find the experience very... educational, dear girl."

Delia flinched at hearing her new name, and at being called by her new gender. "What did you do to me, you bitch?"

Moving so rapidly that the naked eye couldn't follow her, Felicia closed the distance between herself and the girl, gripped that one by the hair and lifted her off the floor. "That's Mistress to you, and you'll find out soon enough which one of us is the bitch, Delia darling."

Negligently tossing the slight, but well built redhead onto the body that had been hers not long before, Felicia laughed. "And you're going to begin learning that lesson right now."

Sarjak's minion, eager to break in another new female, was waiting outside the door as Felicia made her exit. It clutched at her while questioning in an eager, hissing voice. "Is she ready now?"

"Yes," Felicia nodded, then gripped the creature by the throat. "Kill this one, and I'll make you regret it for a long time to come, Vindver. Understand that and understand it well. I can take you from your master, and if I did that, you would not care for the way you turned out when I was finished with you."

"I understand, Mistress," Bowing deeply to hide both his fear and rage at being handled so easily by this female creature, the demon nodded. "This one will live, and not be a mindless husk when I have finished. I swear it by the Great One's Name."

"Make sure of that," running a sharpened nail along the other's genitals and drawing a bit of what passed for blood in that thing, she gave him a smile that held nothing of humor or friendliness in it. "Or you might find yourself becoming my next handmaiden."

"Your will is mine, Mistress," the other growled as he groveled. "I will not fail you this time."

"I know you won't." waving to the door as she moved away from it, the Mistress of that dark castle answered with a cruel chuckle. "Either way I get what I want."

Delia's screams of abject terror, horror, and loss were sweet music to Felicia's ears as she stood outside the door for a few moments after allowing Sarjak's creature entry.

Continued in Part 5

 

 

since 03/26/03