Chapter 1 - Part One - Rock Bottom

  
    Illimael bent over the railing and clutched tightly to the worn wooden banister. Her breathing came in quick, ragged huffs and tremors shook her thighs and midriff. Her legs and butt and abdomen were sore and she promised herself if she lived to see eleven, she would never do anything like this again. Mawel was pushing her from behind, insistent and unyielding. She groaned and dropped her forehead to the wooden support.

“Don’t tell me you’re worn out already,” Mawel prodded as he urged her on, “I’m gonna keep pushing until you collapse, baby girl.”

“Fuck you,” she panted at the floor, “Not your baby.” With the little breath she had managed to collect, she reached back and extended a stiff arm to his chest, sending him staggering back to the opposite balustrade. “Or your girl,” she finished and straightened, gulping in lungs full of air.

“Light take you, Illimael! We’re gonna be climbing all night at this rate.” He was barely older than she was, but that mattered little right now. He was just as exhausted as she, and both had lost any kind of count on how long they had been climbing. “They don’t call it the endless tower for nothing.”

Illimael lifted her head and peered over the edge of the baluster. She could not make out the bottom, nor could she see their pursuers, although the noises they made as they clambered in behind were carried up the stairs. She took another deep breath, tried to calm her breathing and stop her legs from trembling in order to move on. Craning her neck around, she looked up and a night of exertion loomed above in the darkness. Below them, they heard the city watch clamber ever closer. She could only hope that the older men weighted down by their chain armor would tire quicker than the two children, or at least required more rest stops to catch their breath. Illimael could not remember what they had stolen this time, but it was no doubt something necessary. Hopefully it was sweet besides, like a long, juicy banana or something warm and syrupy she could lick from her chin and swallow in gulps.

They plodded onward with only brief periods of respite, mounting each step soon ignited a fire in her thighs and groin. Mawel pushed incessantly from behind, urging her ever onward. The sweat poured across her skin, adhering her clothes and hair to her body. The regular moaning of the wind sounded through the innumerable balusters around them, and ever present was the incessant, rhythmic creaking of the wooden framework beneath their feet.


At the top of the stairs, she collapsed into a heap on the floor, her face against the reasonably soft, cotton runners that lined the wooden planks. Her breath came in quick, sharp bursts, and spasms rippled through her legs and stomach. Her bottom was elevated, where she had sprawled, and Mawel was there, still behind her, ever behind her, pushing and pulling, but this time it wasn’t just urging her to move. There was mounting involved, but it wasn’t just the next step. Illimael slapped at him ineffectually and scolded, “Stop that. Get your pepper out of my pants,” but he wouldn’t listen. He just kept pushing…

And suddenly the stair and Mawel and the past was gone. The smell and feel of old, cotton sheets filled her senses and the tangle of her dark, wavy hair cascaded over most of her vision; vision that rocked and shifted rhythmically against the bed sheets. A heavy, lethargic haze infused her awareness. It was a long moment before she realized she had just awakened from a dream, the ending of which was directly influenced by her situation in the waking world. She slowly registered that her face pressed to the sheets of a strange bed, and her bottom was raised, knees planted into the yielding surface of the worn mattress.

There was someone above her; she knew that too, almost immediately. She could feel him sliding back and forth, breathing heavily with his efforts. It was far from the first time this had happened to her, and she was sure, despite the wakening blur, that she had brought him to the bed, whoever’s bed it was. Her brain fought to sort reality from dream, want from desire, but the sensations from what he was doing coupled with her sleep laden haze, urged her body to simply ride it out; however, The Curse would not settle for that. The Curse fired up body and emotion, The Curse made sure she enjoyed it, even when she hated it, and The Curse always sided with the body to do its best to overwhelm the choices of the brain. In situations such as this one, she could barely find the strength to resist it. Submission is such an easy and often enjoyable alternative, but as hard as it is to resist to the easy route, the tempting way, the will of The Curse, she is had not fallen quite so far, and even a token protest was still a worthy rebellion. She was not yet willing to admit that the damnable demon had won.

“Not inside,” her plea was barely audible as his motions rocked her against the bed, rustling the sheets, slapping skin, straining creaks from the frame and forcing both of them to breathe heavily. She managed to repeat it, a begging whisper, “Not inside. Don’t finish it,” an involuntary gasp, “inside me.”

Above her amidst the grunts and noises, the man was unsurprised that she has awakened. Illimael could hear the smile in his voice as he quickened his pace and responded, uncaring close to her ear, “Too late for that babe.”

The import of the statement cut through to her more than any tone he might have used. Fear rushed through her, cold and hard. It is much harder than he was, much colder than the fire between them. It lanced into her being, waking her completely and linking her brain to her muscles, giving her the strength to not only resist the sensations of body and Curse, but the impetus to interrupt them completely. She pushed with her arms and shifted her weight backward, the dusky globes of her buttocks slapped against his abdomen. He was about to add, “Way too late,” but the thrust of her body surprised him and cut the clarification off as the contact jostled him backward to leave him resting with his haunches on his heels.

“Whoa, ba…” he started, but she did not give him the chance to finish, her cold fear had surged to hot anger as she lunged forward again and separated from with a quick, wet noise. Her foot lashed out as soon as she braced herself and sent the man sprawling from the bed onto the floor with a cry of surprise and pain. He was beginning the utterance of enraged outburst when the fel energies welled within her and a mystical conduit bridged between them. Dark eyes glared from beneath a tangle of blackest curls where her head had raised to focus on him. Demon spawned corruption and fel born agony bloomed across his body with an intensity that precluded vocalization. Writhing uncontrollably on the floor, he died quickly, his death throes soiling the floor with spilled seed so recently intended for her womb.

Illimael’s rage subsided quickly. Partly because the state of mind required to summon the fel forces needed to kill someone was difficult to maintain, and partly because below that rage was so much bleak, shadowy depression, that it dampened fiery emotions fairly readily. She pulled herself from the center of the bed and slumped, sitting on the corner. She was exhausted, the cascade of emotion inside her settled into a heavy pool and continued to sink into a melancholy as the words echoed the way they always did, “Too late for that.” The words were not always the same, but the damning fact was. His seed was already inside her, and she could not remember when it got there. It was always the same. What was done was done. No use dreading it after the fact. But she always did dread it. The fear always gave way to depression. The depression prompted her to drink. Drinking lowered her guard and The Curse opened her legs for whoever was close enough to take advantage of it. She began to tremble with the fear, self-loathing and residual anger. She wanted to hit something, but the likeliest target was already dead. Tears welled up and rolled down her face.

“You’re a mean witch when you’re drunk, Mistress.” The succubus, Nagmara purred from the corner, all but invisible in the shadows. Illimael had tried for a time to command the voyeuristic demon to save her from herself, from The Curse. It was not a productive endeavor. The sadistic bitch was a demon after all, and as far as the warlock knew, Nagmara could had been given to her to make sure The Prophecy came to pass. The demon would kill for her, but ordering the death of any man that came close to her mistress would create a whole slew of problems. Illimael weighed that thought against the body on the floor and irony topped the scales.

“Shut the fuck up.” She snapped at the seductress, her roiling emotions once more codified into anger and gave her the chance to bring her shaking under control. Wiping quickly at the moisture on her face, she commented to no one in particular as she gathered her limited wardrobe from the floor, “We need to get the hell out of here.”
   