Chapter 78: They begin on Alex...

Teasing fingers and an indulgent hand slid across his sex, still covered by the fabric of his jeans. This was the sort of wake-up call he'd been indulged with for days. His body would never be used to it, really, but such treatment was at least now less of a surprise. It felt so good that it drew the focus of sensation away from the burning feeling in his closed eyes. He even smiled a bit.

Awareness came with sensations of discomfort: cold, hard metal around his ankles and wrists, with his arms and legs stretched out. He was laying on a hard surface. No pillow. His eyes were burning intensely, so much that his enjoyment at being groped was quickly disregarded. This was very wrong. His smile faded.

Someone grabbed his head and held it firm with both hands. Someone else pried his eyes open and forced a cold, clear liquid into them. It took away much of the burning sensation. The hands pulled away then, allowing him to turn his head and blink away the solution, the blurriness, and the fading pain. The hand on his groin gripped at his hardness.

Alex thrashed his head a bit to clear it. The last thing on his mind right now was sex. Lorelei was in danger. Rachel vanished. He had been attacked at his home, perhaps his mother had been there, too, and now...now he was in a cold, dimly-lit room, chained to a table. He felt very, very afraid.

There were people standing around the table. A couple of them were very pale, specifically a man in an all-black suit and a woman in an elaborate black dress fit for a medieval queen. There was a man in black robes with his face partially obscured by a black hood. He had random symbols hanging from his neck on chains, and a five o'clock shadow of salt and pepper stubble on his chin. There was a guy in all black clothes topped off by a black duster and a black cowboy hat, also very pale, with an Old West gun belt on his hips. There was a distinguished, well-groomed older man, also in a sharp suit, only this one had a little color to it along with a pentagram on a chain resting over his red power tie.

"Not complaining about me being on your dick now, are you?" Lydia asked Alex with a venomous smile. She loomed over him dressed in an elegant green gown. Her eyes were full of feigned affection. Her hand was still firmly against his sex.

Alex pulled against the restraints, but he found himself restrained fairly tightly. He could move only a couple of inches, nothing more, and Lydia showed much greater strength as she held him down on the table. He felt complete revulsion at the way his body reacted to her.

"It would appear you were absolutely right, Lord Stefan," said someone with a deep, relaxed voice. "Lorelei here reacts to Lydia touching him just as you suspected."

Alex twisted to look to his right. He saw Lorelei there, chained to the floor and muzzled. Standing over her was the man Lydia had been with at the restaurant... only different. Something was different about him. He looked more imposing now. He wore a purple dress shirt and black slacks, with neither tie nor jewelry. Alex saw the smoky blackness of his eyes as the man licked his own fingers.

Lorelei's eyes were full of a dozen different things. The muzzle prevented her from giving voice to any of them.

"Your name is Alexander Carlisle," said the distinguished-looking man in the suit. "You are roughly two months short of your twentieth birthday. You are a student at North Seattle Community College and a part-time file clerk for Keating and Rose. You live with your mother, Michelle Carlisle. You were rejected for military service immediately after you graduated from high school. Need I go on?"

Alex remained silent. He glared at the speaker in part to avoid looking at Lydia.

"No, I need not. You are rightly quite fearful for your mother's safety at the moment. However, she is not a part of this, and I need you to focus instead on Lorelei here and how the two of you came together." He pulled a picture out of his pocket and showed it to him. "Do you know this man?"

Alex closed his eyes, frowning, wondering what if anything he should say. Instead, the choice was taken away from him.

"You do not, at least not personally, but you fought with him the night you met Lorelei and--" Stefan cut himself off. He was silent for a moment as if watching something unfold on a television in front of him, rather than looking at Alex. "And you watched him die," Stefan went on then. "Lorelei killed him. His assistants died, too. Everything burned."

At that, Alex's eyes opened wide. Stefan was looking almost through him. Alex realized that Stefan was reading things straight from his mind. He also realized that he was only giving an edited account of what Alex remembered.

"I was correct," Stefan said, looking from Lydia to Ba'al. "Our exiled former Brother did indeed pursue his research. He summoned up Lorelei here in an attempt to enslave her. Carlisle was in the area running a foolish errand of his own, saw what he thought was a bizarre gang rape about to occur and so he intervened. In the process, he was connected to the succubus. He is currently both her victim and her master."

"Curious," Ba'al replied. "What else?"

Stefan frowned and shrugged. He was pointedly looking at Alex, who didn't know why Stefan refrained from mentioning Rachel. Stefan's eyebrows rose meaningfully. "I am unsure as to the efficacy of the ritual our former Brother used. I expected as much. My suspicion was that Carlisle here is not a Practitioner, and that suspicion was correct. He is entirely mundane. Given that, examining the details of the incident through his recollection will require a certain enhancement of his memory's accuracy and reach. Warren here is an expert in such things," he added, gesturing to the hooded, robed man.

"How good of you to share all of your suspicions with the rest of us, Lord Stefan," murmured the pale woman in the regal dress.

"Does our bargain hold, Lord Ba'al?" asked Stefan.

"It does," said the man with the smoky eyes, "if Lydia feels it appropriate."

"And ours?" asked the other woman.

"Lady Anastacia," Lydia smiled, clearly enjoying her moment of glory, "I will be happy to fulfill all agreements in the main hall upstairs when my business here is completed. Would you mind terribly waiting for me there? This will all likely become a bit... visceral and crude."

Lady Anastacia stiffened, but inclined her head in a polite nod. She held out her hand expectantly. The man in the black suit took it. They both walked out of the room with the cowboy in tow.

"Warren?" asked Lord Stefan. "What more do you need?"

"I have blood and hair and flesh," the man in the robes said. "All I need now is a few tears."

"I'd hate to make you wait," Lydia shrugged. She promptly reached to Alex's face, forcing one eye open and then rubbing a finger over it. Alex tried to fight it, but she was simply much stronger. The robed man was there quickly, holding a vial against the side of his irritated eye until the tears began to flow.

"With this," Warren said, "I will only need a short time and some privacy to complete my work. I will return immediately upon its completion."

"Then let not another moment of my master's time be wasted," Lydia shrugged. "I will keep our prisoners occupied until you are ready."

"Lord Stefan," said the one called Ba'al, "might I speak with you upstairs?"

"Of course," Stefan nodded. He pulled Warren aside for a moment, conferring with him in a language Alex didn't recognize and could barely hear anyway. They both turned to leave.

Before he followed, Ba'al lingered for a moment, looking at Alex. The young man was himself looking at Lorelei with nothing but apology and concern in his eyes. Lorelei plainly shared both feelings. They also both tried very hard to mask their fear for one another.

"You know," Ba'al mused, "he looks oddly familiar to me."

"I thought as much myself," Lydia shrugged. She indulged herself in a slap across Alex's face... and then another, and then another. Her open hand didn't injure him, but it delivered more stinging pain than any punch Alex had suffered all week.

"Still intent on killing him with kindness?" Ba'al smiled.

"Later, master," Lydia smiled. "That will wait until there aren't so many cats for us to herd. Lorelei deserves to feel him go. I would hate to rush it."

************

Rachel felt the first sensations of pleasure forced upon her lover. For a brief moment, it lifted her hopes. Then she felt the accompanying revulsion that replaced any feeling of enjoyment. The sensations continued while the revulsion grew.

Revulsion and fear.

She stood in the summoning circle within Molly and Onyx's apartment, staring off into space with her expression overwhelmed by worry. The sensations she received from Alex – sexy, hopeful, then the polar opposite of both – gave her all too good an idea of who was with him wherever he was now. She couldn't see him, though. All she could see were her surroundings. Just pagan décor, yard-sale shelving and candles.

Rachel had tried to break through the summoning circle many times after Molly and Onyx left her there. The pair had done their job all too well. She was good and stuck here, until either their summoning ritual wore off – and Heaven only knew how long that would be – or until they released the spell.

He couldn't die like this. Not now. Not after so many lonely and painful lifetimes. Not when that whole pattern seemed to have been broken...except it was entirely possible that this was just another tragic ending.

Overwhelmed with fear for her new love, only so recently consummated in her heart as well as physically, Rachel sank to her knees. The angel could now only pray.