Part Two: Sacrifice

Arkady watched the cameras as Dulcinea rode the elevator down to the main floor of The Fates. He grunted as she made an ‘OK’ sign and exited the elevator.

“Home free,” he said, settling back and pouring himself another cup of coffee.

“Man, what a show,” Tony said from his seat next to Arkady. “Is she dating anyone?”

“Not that I know of,” Arkady responded, staring out the window at the club’s entrance.

“You guys aren’t-”

“No.”

Tony tapped his fingers on his thigh and took a bite of some sushi purchased around the corner. “Too bad the cameras didn’t get any of it, sounded like they were really going at it.” He finished off the rice and egg roll and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Hey, you know her pretty well, right? Do I have a chance-”

“Quiet, she’s leaving,” Arkady interrupted, pointing to the image provided by camera pointed at the club’s entrance. They both watched as Dulcinea slipped past the bouncer and walked away unseen. “Made it,” he said, letting out a sigh of relief.
 
 

Dulcinea walked slowly and carefully up towards the apartment building, being careful not to let her dress fly up. The remains of her panties, wired with a microphone and transmitter, were stuffed in her dress. She spared one last look around the street before slipping into the apartment building and entering the elevator.

She sighed as she reached the door to the apartment, not looking forward to the faces of the other agents. Arkady would be totally professional, as usual, but Tony would probably hit on her while the others just stared.

She was right.
 
 

Evelyn Duchamps sprinted up the apartment stairs, taking them tree at a time and wishing she had taken a police flyer instead of deciding to drive into the city on her own. Breathing a little harder than normal she pounded her fist on the apartment door, bursting in past the surprised CPO agent.

“Sorry I took so long, the tunnel was blocked by an accident. Where’s the dress?” she said. “Who’re you?” she asked, spotting Dulcinea.

“She’s Agent Curtis,” Arkady said, rising from his spot by the window, “nice to see you again, Evelyn.”

The NYPD officer laughed heartily and walked over to Arkady, clasping his hand in a tight grip. “Good to see you again, you son-of-a-bitch!” she said as she pulled him into a tight embrace.

Dulcinea glanced over the cop as she and Arkady embraced. Evelyn was short, maybe five foot three at the most, and did indeed look like a schoolgirl. Put her in pleated skirt and blouse and with those freckles she could pass for a student at St. Mary’s. She probably still got ID’d when she went into a bar.

“Since when did you let your hair get past you ears?” Arkady asked as he ran a teasing hand through Evelyn’s shoulder length blond hair.

“Ahh, I’ll tell you about it later. Agent Curtis, why don’t you get out of the dress and let me take over.”

Dulcinea started to say something but was interrupted by Arkady. “Small change in plans, Agent Curtis already went in,” he said.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

Arkady just smiled. “Goddammit, Bonneville! You sent in an untrained operative on this? Did she even get on the dancefloor with Livey?”

“Yes, I did. I’ve been invited back for the next meeting,” Dulcinea said coldly.

“Really?” Evelyn said skeptically as she looked Dulcinea up and down. She shrugged. “I’d like to know how you did it one of these days.”
 
 

“Have you finished your analysis of what Altaln brought back from the wastelands?” Director Ngoko asked Agent Wilkins.

“Yes, sir. We have the DAAS working on translating the untranslated passages from the book. Altaln told us that he wanted to get the book to protect Senator Arleigh,” Wilkins answered.

“How would the book protect him?”

“Livey had, according to Altaln, cast a ‘spell’ on Senator Arleigh that bound him to the cult. Altaln found mention of a book that contained the spell and a way to reverse it-”

“The only problem was that it was in an Alaskan library.”

“Yes, that’s why he went out into the wastelands, to try to excavate the ruins.”

“Stupid of him,” Arkady said.

“Be that as it may, have you found what out what attacked your shuttle?”

“No,” Dulcinea said, “Cheyenne Mountain is analyzing the record of the dimensional shifting. They don’t know what exactly created it.”

“Best guess?” the Director asked.

“Possibly some type of hyperdrive we haven’t seen yet. Something that doesn’t need to follow Threads through hyperspace. More likely some sort of bleedover that Altaln and his guides picked up and dragged back from the wastelands. Just in case, Cheyenne Mountain has put the Navy and Army on stand by and the CAF is bringing the 47th battlegroup back early from its deep space patrol.”

“Good, has the UNEAF been put on alert?”

“Yes, their readying the planetary defense grid and preparing to call up the reserves should there be an attack.”

Director Ngoko tapped his fingers on his desk and sighed. “I hope we’re overreacting, the last thing Earth needs is another war.”

“It’s only been ten years since we fought the Alliance,” Arkady said tiredly. “I hope it’s just the same damn shifting that’s been going on since then.” He grimaced at the memory of his last mission in the war, leading a strike against the cruiser carrying a captured singularity. The Alliance had been defeated then, their planets captured and slaves freed, their cybernetic factories wiped out. But they had a doomsday plan, a suicide mission for a stealth modified cruiser carrying a singularity in its core. Arkady could see the flash of plasma and particle beams and could smell the stink of charred metal and flesh.

Then the explosion as the reactor exploded and the magnetic containment fields for the singularity failed. The screaming of tortured metal as the cruiser was sucked in on itself, the frantic rush to the shuttle. Watching as the explosion tore through the fabric of space time and hurtled toward Alaska. The Earth had lucked out, the singularity had been blown far enough off course to avoid being trapped by Earth’s gravity and sucking the entire planet into itself, one atom at a time. Unfortunately, the distortions caused by its near passage and the impact of the cruiser created a crater ten miles wide and a rip that swallowed up three hundred thousand people and sent them to who knows where. Now the Alaskan Wastelands were off limits except for a small area near the border which was dedicated as a national park and memorial to the victims of the Alliance’s last atrocity.

“Arkady?” Dulcinea asked, shaking his arm. “You all right? You’ve been staring off into space for the past couple of minutes. The Director’s dismissed us.”
He blinked and shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the image of the empty houses and deserted streets, dishes still set for dinner and showers still running. “Yes, I’m fine, just thinking about the past,” he said as they stood.

Dulcinea smiled. “I bet. Duchamps was in your squad during the war, right? Hoping to get together again and get to know each other better?”
 
 

Dionysus Livey knelt in the lush grass filling the clearing in his rooftop arboretum. He held small swatch of cloth, a shred torn from Aldonza’s underwear and still bearing the traces of her moisture, in his left hand. In his other, he held the sacrificial knife that he had consecrated to the Dark Mother long ago. He smiled as he sniffed the cloth, inhaling the scent of her and remembering the feel of her skin and hair.

“With this sacrifice to you, I beg a boon of your power,” he began to say, raising his knife above his head. “Iä, iä, I hunger, I hunger,” he chanted as he stood and approached the altar. “Ligwl, phogthui, Shub-Niggurath, iä, iä, iä, Shub-Niggurath. My hunger is yours, yours is mine.” He set the cloth onto the altar and held his hand, palm up, above it. With one smooth motion he slid the knife across his palm and shuddered in sweet pain.

He continued to chant as his blood slipped down his hand and dripped to splatter on the cloth and altar. Livey filled his mind with the image of Aldonza and the warm feeling of her tight around his cock. He clenched his hand in a fist above the cloth, squeezing blood onto the stone. “Yessss-” he groaned as he felt the spell take hold. “Aldonza-”
 
 

Dulcinea started awake, feeling her heart pounding as she stared up into the inky darkness of her hotel room. She panted for breath, feeling as if she had just run a marathon or-. She let the thought trail off as she sat up and ran a hand through her hair.

“Aldonza,” someone whispered into her ear. She spun to the side, fumbling for her sidearm and multiview glasses on the bedside table. She flipped the safety off her sidearm and brought it up into a ready position as she activated the night vision view on her glasses.

Nothing. The room was empty as she surveyed it, switching from night vision to thermal. Not even an errant heat trace in the air that a person would leave if they just walked through the room. She felt her heart slow as she traced her gunsight over the room, watching the targeting reticule slide across her glasses.

“Christ,” she muttered as she pulled off the glasses and put the safety on her pistol. She glanced at the clock as she put her gun and glasses back onto the nightstand. Two-thirty, she could still get a good night’s sleep if she got back to sleep now. Dulcinea sighed and slid back down under the covers, tugging them over her head. Her breathing slowed and she felt herself slowly drifting off.

Her eyes flew open at the feel of a hand sliding up her leg. She tried to sit up but could only twitch. With a great effort, she managed to lift her head and look down the bed, her mouth opening in shock as she saw the covers rise off her body and float to the floor. A dream, she thought hazily.

She smiled and let her head drop back to the pillow. She had always had vivid dreams and it had been a while since one of these. I may as well enjoy it, she thought happily as the unseen hand was joined by another.

Together, they slid up her legs, invisible fingertips tracing circles over the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. Dulcinea closed her eyes and bit her lower lip in anticipation as the hands removed the shorts she habitually slept in. One hand moved up to pull her t-shirt over her head while the other began to trace a finger over her outer lips. She moaned in pleasure as the finger was slowly inserted into her and then joined by another.

She gasped as what felt like a mouth closed over her right breast, a tongue gently lapping at her nipple while her thighs were spread further. Dulcinea clutched at the sheets as the other hand pushed fingers into her, drawing out her moisture and spreading it over her anus. She began to whimper in eagerness as she felt something hard and thick poised at both of her entrances.

“Yes,” she breathed softly and then she let out a small scream of pleasure as she was entered simultaneously. She began to buck her hips towards her unseen lover, gasping with each thrust into her. The unseen cocks began to thrust faster into her, driving the breath from her lungs with the violence of their thrusts. Her head spun as she was taken by them, her body slick with sweat as she pawed helplessly at the tangled sheets. Dulcinea began to cry out inarticulately as she felt herself coming, wishing she had more than just the sheets to cling to as her back arched.

She lay there on the bed, legs sprawled wantonly open, her breath coming in shuddering gasps as the cocks continued to pound into her. She felt a rush she hadn’t felt since she was a teenager. Firedragon. She felt herself coming again and began to feel faint, watching the moonlit room go dark as she felt another cock at her lips.
 
 

“Yes,” Dulcinea whispered to a room just beginning to be lit by the rising sun. She stretched luxuriously as she half-remembered her dream. That had been the most vivid one she had ever had. “And the kinkiest,” she murmured to herself. Three men at once? “Oh, Dulcie, what would your parents think of you if they knew.”
 
 

Dionysus lay on his back, staring at the glass of the dome above him. The rays of the sun were just hitting the very peak, shading it in pinks and oranges. He watched as the sun slowly illuminated more of the dome, too drained to even move. Slowly his strength came back and he smiled as he remembered the spell.

She’d most certainly be back, he thought. The way she had eagerly let herself be taken, no trace of fear, only lust had filled her. “Firedragon,” he whispered. A weakness. She could become the next disciple to join the ranks of the cult. With her will and intelligence she could become a valuable servant of him and the Dark Mother.
 
 

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Evelyn whispered. She lifted her head off Arkady’s chest and looked into his eyes. “Some things never change, do they?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, reaching up to stroke her hair.

“Just that we always end up like this. We run into each other during R&R or a shore leave and...”

“Are you complaining?”

Evelyn giggled, sounding remarkably young for a moment before her face became serious again. “No, not at all. Still-” she paused for a moment and shifted to move her face to his. “How are you doing, really?”

“I’m fine.”

“Do you still have flashbacks?”

Arkady stared at the ceiling of the hotel room. “Yes,” he said after a long while. “They’re not as bad as they used to be and they never affect my work.”

“We’ve all lost someone in the war,” Evelyn said quietly as she lay her head on his chest.

“Don’t you think I know that?” Arkady snapped, sitting up suddenly. “That doesn’t make it any easier-” he stopped and let his head drop. “I’m sorry. This case, something about it-”

Evelyn sat up and moved beside him. She draped her arms over his shoulders and let her chin rest on his shoulder, her fingers idly moving over his chest. “You’re forgiven. Was there anything specific you had in mind?”

“Yes, remember when we dropped into Sleidhar’s compound? We found him holed up in his bunker with those symbols painted all over the place.”

“Like he was some sort of wizard or something.”

“Yes. But remember what we saw? There was a spatial distortion forming and something was coming through...”

“Yeah, but then we nerve-blasted the fuck and hauled his ass in front of the War Crimes Tribunal. The distortion disappeared.”

“But how did he do that? How did he manage to open a distortion without a stardrive of some sort? And what was coming through?”

“Maybe he was using psionics. Hell, the Narex have been using psi to access hyperspace for millennia. We all know about the gene-therapy experiments he was conducting, maybe he figured out how to amplify psi powers without the drawbacks. Half the planet must have been scorched in the battle for orbit, the lab with the secret is probably a pile of rubble.”

Arkady sat, lost in thought. “Maybe. But I’ve seen psi in action. That just didn’t feel the same, it felt...wrong.”

“So what, you think he was using magic to open a distortion?” Evelyn moved in closer to him, pressing her breasts against his back. “He wasn’t Merlin, Arkady.”

Arkady pressed on, ignoring the motion of her breasts as she rubbed them against him. “But we’ve found psi and measured it’s effects, who’s to say that magic isn’t out there as well?”

“For god’s sake, Arkady, leave that stuff to the DAAS or those crackpots in the Society.” She slid out of the bed and padded over to the bathroom, wiggling her hips. “I’m taking a shower now.” She snorted and shook her head when she saw that Arkady was still staring into space.
 
 

Dulcinea held her face under the steaming spray of water and let it wash the last of the shampoo from her hair. She turned and let the water sluice down her back as she stretched and turned the temperature up another notch. For the first time in fifteen years she was craving a fix.

“Goddammit,” she swore viciously and turned the water up as hot as she could bear. It wasn’t the sex with Dionysus, she thought. She’d had worse and much less meaningful sex. So what was it? Why did she feel the urge to head down to the waterfront and score a tube of firedragon? Maybe the case, seeing that altar had brought back a rush of bad memories.

She shook herself. The altar was probably some plastcrete kit that Dionysus ordered over the net. Something to impress the easily impressed and frighten the easily frightened. Still, for some reason she felt herself eager for the next meeting and what it might bring. Was it just an urge for good sex? Or something else, something that she thought she had beaten years ago? She moaned and let her forehead fall against the wall of the shower. Aldonza wanted out and wanted out badly.
 
 

Evelyn smiled as her enhanced ear filtered out the spattering water in the shower and heard the bathroom door open. She continued to wash, quietly waiting as the shower door slid open and someone slipped in behind her. She murmured in appreciation as Arkady slid his arm around her body and cupped her right breast.

“I”m sorry that I snapped at you,” he said into her ear as his left hand slid down the slick skin of her stomach to the junction of her thighs. He was tall enough so that his chin could rest on the top of her head. Or kiss it, which he did.

“Hmm, well you certainly know how to apologize, don’t you?” Evelyn moaned as he began to lightly rub her. She smiled as Arkady turned her around and pressed her against the warm tile of the shower. She spread her legs and grinned as she reached down and stroked Arkady’s erect cock.

Arkady leaned over and kissed her throat. She ran her hands through his soaked hair as he trailed kisses down the front of her body. She sighed in pleasure as he ran his tongue over her navel and then slid it down to her pussy.

Arkady shut off his bio-comp as it automatically began to analyze the taste of Evelyn’s juices. He lifted one of her legs over his shoulder and began to delve deep into her with his tongue. He began to slowly lap at her while his fingers began to play over her clit.

Evelyn moaned as the slow pumping and licking began to build a familiar tension within her. She gasped as Arkady flicked her clit with his tongue and then thrust two fingers into her. She began to rock her hips slowly, pushing against the wall with one hand while her other hand played over her breasts, tweaking and stroking.

Arkady smiled as he felt Evelyn begin to come, her warm juices as sweet as she looked. He renewed his licking with an increased fervor as her entire body began to shake. She gave an low grunt and would have collapsed if he hadn’t caught her buttocks and held her up. Her head lolled from side to side as Arkady held her, still furiously licking at her lower lips. She screamed and flailed her hands about for something to grab, one hand catching the shower head and twisting it to wash over the shower’s door. Her other hand clenched at the back of Arkady’s head, pushing him into her as she cried out and went limp.

The steaming water beat down on their bodies as Evelyn leaned back and sighed contentedly.  Arkady kissed up her body to her mouth, gently rubbing her breasts as his cock rubbed against her thigh.  “Mmm, you’re ready to go, aren’t you?” she murmured as she reached down and began to rub his cock.

She knelt on the floor of the shower and pushed Arkady back to lean against the shower wall.  She continued to rub the length of his cock with one hand while her other gently cupped his balls.  Arkady groaned as she kissed the tip of his cock, running her tongue around it while increasing the pace of her stroking.  “Don’t you have to meet Agent Curtis soon?” she teased, starting to get up.

She laughed as Arkady moaned and pushed down on her shoulders.  “Well, if you’re in such dire straits, I guess I’ll have to ‘assist’ you.”  She held his cock in one hand and guided it into her mouth, swirling her tongue around the shaft as she took it deeper into her.

Evelyn began to bob her head up and down the length of his cock, each time letting it slide a bit deeper into her mouth until it was finally nudging at her throat.  She pulled back until only the head was in her mouth and lapped at it with her tongue, then she dove back down, swallowing as it hit the back of her throat.

Arkady began to stroke her wet hair as she took him into her throat, her lips pressing against his crotch as his entire cock disappeared into her mouth.  Her hands ran up and down his thighs, playing with his balls and tickling his shaft as she slid his cock in and out of her mouth.  She began to speed her motions as she felt the first warning signs of his orgasm, her hands pressed against his thighs to steady herself as he began to jerk his hips.

“Oh, Christ, Evelyn.  I’m coming,” he moaned and shot his load into her waiting mouth.  Evelyn looked up at him, a twinkle in her eyes as she slowly bobbed her head and swallowed his seed, both of her hands stroking his shaft and urging every drop out.

She licked her lips as she stood, running her tongue slowly across her mouth to collect any stray come that had leaked from her mouth.  “Maybe I don’t need breakfast today,” she said with a smile.
 
 

Dulcinea rubbed her aching eyes and knocked on Arkady’s door. She had tried calling him from the hotel lobby but had gotten no answer. According to the front desk he was here, someone had answered the seven o’clock wake up call. A woman.

“Come on! Open up, Arkady!” she yelled, hoping his cybernetic ears would pick up her voice over the soundproofing. “Dammit, we’re going to be late for the briefing!”
They were scheduled to be at CPO headquarters for the briefing on the DAAS translation in-, she checked her watch, one hour. Barely enough time to get there if they left immediately. “Goddammit, open the fuck-” She stopped abruptly as Evelyn opened the door and smiled at her, a towel wrapped around her body.

“Sorry, he’ll be right out,” the cop said. “Come on in.”

“Son of a bitch,” Dulcinea swore to herself, feeling a throbbing headache starting.

“Sorry I was late,” Arkady said as he emerged from the steaming bathroom, his hair still damp. He finished knotting his tie and snagged his jacket from the back of a chair.
“I’ll see you tonight?” he asked Evelyn.

“You bet,” she said, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him lightly. “Now get going.”

Arkady smiled and patted her bottom as he followed Dulcinea out of the room. “Something wrong?” he asked her.

“No, I’ve just got a goddamn headache,” she said as they waited for the lift.

“Late night?” he grinned.

“Shut the fuck up,” she said viciously.

Arkady’s smile dropped. “What’s wrong?” he asked, noticing the dark bags under her eyes.

Dulcinea stepped through the doors of the lift and leaned against the back while Arkady hit the button for the lobby. “I’m just craving a fix. I think someone must have
been using in the club and I caught the smell.”

“Are you going to be alright?”

“Yeah, I just didn’t get enough sleep last night. I’ll be fine. Sorry about the-” she waved her hand.

“Don’t worry about it.”
 
 

“So, Agent Wilkins, what does the DAAS have for us?” Director Ngoko said. He didn’t look as if he had gotten much sleep either, Dulcinea thought. Not surprising considering what she had heard on the news as they had ridden the shuttle up to headquarters. Another dictator who thought he could use some bio-weapons to challenge the UNE and win. The Director had probably been up all night with the Joint Chiefs planning the strike. Well, within a day the dictator would be in custody and the bio-weapons factories would be melted to a sheet of glass.

“The Department of Archaeology and Associated Sciences has translated the Latin notes, but the text included within the charts and drawings will take them a few more days,” Wilkins said.

“Summary?”

“According to the DAAS, it’s a translation of an ancient Arabic book. They’re working on polishing the translation now, best they can come up with is ‘Book for Speaking with the Dead’ or something along those lines. Maybe ‘Talking to the Dead’ or ‘Seeing the Dead’.” Wilkins called up a display of the book. “The Latin is extremely garbled and its making an exact translation difficult.”

Director Ngoko nodded. “How’s the investigation going? Have you found the murder weapon yet?”

“Agent Curtis has begun to infiltrate the cult, there’s a meeting in six days. With luck, she’ll be able to get a sample of the suspected weapon. CSU has determined the time of death, Livey doesn’t have an alibi. Motive is sketchier, Senator Arleigh was paying Livey a thousand credits a month. The most recent deposit was on the day the senator was killed.”

“What does Altaln think?”

“He thinks the Senator was killed to keep him silent. He doesn’t know much and he doesn’t have anything to back up his theory but we’re checking into it.”

“Any evidence of other criminal activity by Livey?”

“Accounting is going over his bank accounts. We’ve gotten some calls from local law enforcement departments from the cities where he has clubs. Apparently they’ve been trying to connect him to prostitution rings, drug running, and arms smuggling.”

“Do they have any evidence that could help us?”

“Nothing concrete, they’ve been trying to get something to stick, but witnesses disappear and evidence goes missing from from police stations.”

“Seems like our Mr. Livey is a bigger fish than we thought. I’m upgrading the investigation, keep digging for more, someone with his fingers in this many pies is bound to know other key players. He may just be the tip of the iceberg-” He stopped as his comm link beeped.

The agents could hear the sound of his secretary saying that she had the President on the line. The Director waved them out of his office as the voice of the President could be heard over the link.

“Have you heard what’s being planned?” Arkady asked Wilkins as they left the Director’s office.

“Probably not more than what you already know. Orbital laser strike against the factories, then a Special Forces team to extradite Volokov. Nothing too unusual.”
 
 

Six days dragged by for Dulcinea. The routine investigation that she and Arkady worked on seemed to blur together into one long mass of calls and computer screens. She found herself eagerly awaiting the chance to go back to the club, telling herself that she just wanted to get the case over with, knowing that she was lying.

“Ready to go?” Evelyn asked her from the doorway of the bedroom. They were in the apartment that was being used for surveillance on the club along with Arkady and the surveillance team.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” she said, trying to conceal her eagerness as she stood. She was wearing what was supposed to be the height of fashion. It was a long dark blue dress that darkened to black at its hem. The skirt covered her right leg to the ankle but left her left leg bare up to the upper thigh.

“I like the dress,” Evelyn said as they left the bedroom. She was wearing a short leather skirt and a loose white blouse with the tails tied up to bare her stomach. “Now remember, I’m going to be on the first floor. All you have to do is signal to the laser mike we’ve got trained on the arboretum, wave if the cameras can see you, or hit your panic button and I’ll be there.” Dulcinea had seen her put on a five shot mini-laser in a underarm sling and a monowire whip hidden behind her belt. She had no doubt that Evelyn would provide as much protection as anyone could. “You’ve got your panic button?”

Dulcinea nodded, feeling the earring that hid the transmitter. Both of her earrings also had a diamond edge and a small hollow that would hold a sample of the knife’s metal. “You ready to do this?” Evelyn asked.

“Yes. Let’s go get him,” Dulcinea answered.

“Alright, we’ve got cameras on every surrounding building along with a Keyhole spy sat,” Arkady said from his place in front of the monitors. “There’s a CPO Hostage Rescue Team on standby in an APC on the roof. Anything goes wrong, we’ve got enough firepower to level the building.”

“Places people,” Wilkins said from next to Arkady. “Ready when you are, Agent Curtis.”

“I’ll be ten minutes behind you,” Evelyn said as Dulcinea headed out the door.

“And the clock is running,” Wilkins said over the comm link.
 
 

The bouncer had instructions regarding Dulcinea and let her in immediately. She made her way slowly across the dancefloor, slipping in between the dancers and avoiding half-hearted attempts to get her to dance.

Her heart raced as she entered the elevator. She felt the same way as she had just before a fix, filled with anticipation for the high. She took several deep breaths to calm herself and forced herself to relax as the door opened onto the arboretum. Time for Dulcinea to go away. She felt her old self returning, then she was-

“Aldonza, you made it,” Dionysus said as she left elevator and stepped into the arboretum. He was standing by the gravel path dressed in a ceremonial robe of some sort.
A knife was sheathed at his belt. “Come this way, the ceremony is just about to start.”

“Hey, what kind of ceremony is it? You guys Satanists?” Dulcinea asked.

Dionysus laughed. “No, we don’t worship that pathetic and weak tempter. We worship the one who was here long before Christianity, long before humanity, when the
stars were still squalling and crying like infants.” He took her arm as they walked along the path. For an instant it felt as if she were touching a live wire. Strange rustlings could be heard from either side, as if there were a large animal loose in the arboretum.

“What’s that?” Dulcinea asked.

“Nothing to be worried about. Just the results of some preliminary ceremonies,” Dionysus answered as they walked into the central clearing. “I’d like to introduce you to the rest of the Order.”

Eight figures stood around the altar, each wearing heavy hooded robes that concealed their identities and their genders. They nodded at Dionysus as he entered. “Don’t worry about their names,” he said as he pushed Dulcinea in front of him. “Disciples, this is Aldonza. She may be the next to join our Order.”

There was a murmur from the robed figures. Dulcinea thought she heard the whine of servos from the rightmost person.

“Another one?” the rightmost person rasped. A man, old, Dulcinea thought. “You’re bringing them in too fast, Livey. Are you going to-”

“Enough, Dracan! Your money may be a valuable asset, but I will not tolerate dissension!”

There was a grudging silence from the one called Dracan. Dionysus straightened his robes and clapped his hands once, loudly. “We shall now begin the ceremony of summoning with the sacrament of the Dark Mother,” he said loudly.

Aldonza watched as the bouncer who had let her in the first time entered the clearing, a large cooler in one hand, a tray of mugs in the other. He set the cooler on the altar and began to fill the mugs with a white, frothy liquid. He passed them out to each cultist and then to Dulcinea. She sniffed the liquid apprehensively as the bouncer left with the cooler and tray. Milk? she thought.

“Drink, Aldonza,” Dionysus said. She saw that the others were all watching her. She shrugged and took a long swig of the liquid. It tasted like milk, only much earthier and with a heavier texture, almost like cream. As soon as she had swallowed her first mouthful her cravings for a fix disappeared. She was trembling slightly as she finished the mug and set it on the altar.

As if that were a signal, the rest of the cult drank from their mugs and set them on the altar. “Now, the sacrifice,” Dionysus said.
Dulcinea watched as the bouncer returned leading a young brunette woman dressed in a white robe. She had a beatific smile on her face as the bouncer collected the mugs and left the clearing. She let the robe slip from her body, revealing a youthful and splendid figure as she slid onto the altar and raised her hands over her head for one of the cultists to manacle.

“Who-?” Dulcinea asked but was hushed into silence.

“Now, remove your dress, Aldonza,” Dionysus said, the eagerness in his voice betraying his cool and composed face.

Dulcinea slowly let the dress slide to the grass and stepped out of her heels. “Your underwear as well.” She smiled at Dionysus as she hooked her thumbs under the waistband of her panties and slowly bent as she slid them down her legs.

“How do you like that?” she asked in a husky voice as she stood naked before him.

“Oh yes,” Dionysus said, licking his lips. He motioned her to stand at the end of the altar by the woman’s feet. “Now, we prepare the sacrifice.”

“That’s my job-” a woman’s voice said from the one of the cultists on the left of the altar.

“Not any more,” Dionysus snapped back. “Go on,” he said, motioning for Dulcinea to climb onto the altar between the woman’s legs. The brunette lifted her head and smiled at Dulcinea while she spread her legs as far as the chains would allow her.

“You want me to-?” Dulcinea asked.

“Yes, this is your final test.”

Dulcinea tossed her hair back, sneaking a glance up through the dome of the arboretum. She caught a glimpse of a bright star and wondered if it was the Keyhole. She almost laughed at the thought of what the satellite would see. Then she did laugh, feeling giddy, as if she had been drinking. With a smile on her face she crawled on her hands and knees between the woman’s legs, making sure to sway her body and provide a good show for her audience. She arched her back as she bent between the woman’s thighs, her bottom thrust into the air for everyone to see.
 
 

“I’m in,” Evelyn whispered into her voicebox. “No sign of trouble.”

“Good,” Wilkins said, “we’ve got imaging from the Keyhole coming up right,” he tapped at holo display with his finger, “now.”

There was a long silence as the gathered agents tried to interpret the image coming in from the satellite feed.

“Um,” Tony said. “I think that’s Agent Curtis.”

“On the table or whatever it is?” Wilkins asked.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s her.”

“What the hell is she doing?”
 
 

Dulcinea gently kissed the woman’s thigh, nipping at the silky smooth skin before rubbing her nose over the woman’s lips. She was gratified to hear the woman moan in pleasure as she began to slide her tongue into her. Dulcinea began to move her entire body as she licked at the woman, her bottom swaying back and forth. The woman was already primed and ready to explode, her voice high as she whimpered incoherently. Dulcinea tried hard to remember her one encounter with another woman in college as she continued to lick.

“Theresa,” she mumbled quietly. That was her name, what did she like? Dulcinea ran her tongue up the woman’s dripping pussy to her clit. The woman cried out as Dulcinea took her clit into her mouth and began to suck on it with a steady pressure. A finger was all it took to set the woman off.

“Good, good,” Dionysus said as he pulled Dulcinea off the woman. Dulcinea was panting as she licked the woman’s juices from her face. Dionysus helped her off the altar and set her down on a nearby bench as he pulled the knife from his belt.

Dulcinea tensed, ready to jump him if it looked made a move towards the woman, but stopped when she saw the cow being led into the clearing. It looked at her with stupidly content eyes and mooed while chewing its cud.

Dionysus began to chant in unison with the other cultists in a language unfamiliar to Dulcinea. He brought the knife around to the cow’s throat as he chanted louder, his free hand stretched up towards the sky.

“IÄ, IÄ,” he was yelling as he sliced the knife across the cow’s throat, letting loose a stream of blood across the grass.

Dulcinea shuddered as a sudden wind blew through the clearing. Her craving for a fix was suddenly back and worse than ever. She heard something moving out among the trees as the cow collapsed to the ground. Something big was shaking the trees as it moved towards them.

“Don’t worry, Aldonza,” Dionysus said as he sat next to Dulcinea on the bench. “Soon you will see one of the Dark Mother’s children.” He set the knife on the bench next to her as he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her deeply. Dulcinea moved her hand up to her earring and pulled it off, using her other hand to keep Dionysus’ face close to hers.

She found the knife by touch and ran the point of the earring over the blade, scraping a long curl of metal off. She opened the earring and moved the shaving inside, clicking the earring shut and putting it back on just as Dionysus broke the kiss.

“There! There it is!” he said excitedly, pulling her up and against him.

Dulcinea felt her heart freeze as the thing, for that was the best word to describe it, crashed into the clearing. Two giant hoofs left deep impressions in the grass as it thundered towards the altar, the rest of the cult carefully retreating. Dulcinea felt sick as she looked at the thing, helpless to turn away.

The tree trunk thick goat-like legs supported a hideous perversion of a tree trunk. Scabrous bark covered the thing except for where gaping rents revealed jaggedly toothed maws opening and closing mindlessly. Crowning the thing in a revolting parody of a tree were a mass of flailing tentacles, their ropy lengths nearly reaching the dome forty feet above the ground.

Beside her, Dionysus was crowing in triumph, his right hand groping her naked body. Dulcinea felt her breath catch in her throat as the thing approached the helpless woman chained to the altar. She struggled against Dionysus as he turned her to face him. “Give in to her, you feel her power, give in!” he shouted, his fingers digging painfully into her upper arms. His eyes bored into hers, glowing a pale green as she felt him enter her mind. Give in to the pleasure, she thought. Why not? Inside her she felt something long hidden burst free and take control-
 
 

“Christ, we just lost the cameras inside the club,” Tony said as he manipulated the holos floating in front of him, trying to reacquire their signals.

“What the fuck is that!?” Wilkins half screamed as he pointed towards the feed from the Keyhole. Arkady looked over from his seat and swore. Something large and alien
was in the dome with the cultists.

“Evelyn, any signal from Dulcinea?” he said into his voicebox.

“No...ing ye-” her signal was cut off by a burst of static.

“Something’s interfering with communications,” he said. “What’s the laser mike picking up?” he yelled to the agent manning the mike.

“Chanting and something big moving around,” the agent said.

“Dammit, get the HRT ready to move, something’s gone wrong.”
 
 

Aldonza grabbed Dionysus and pulled him to the ground on top of her, her hands pulling his robes open and finding his cock already hard.

She grunted as he pulled his robe off over his head and sank down on her, his cock roughly impaling her. She growled from deep in her throat and pulled him deeper into her, her hips grinding against him. She moaned loudly as he began to thrust rapidly into her, his face buried in her hair.

Aldonza could hear the woman crying out in pleasure, her voice high and loud. Her eyes closed, she writhed against Dionysus in the grass, her legs wrapped around his waist and urging him deeper with each thrust.

“Come on, fuck me,” she hissed in his ear, her hands clawing at his back. He lifted himself above her on his hands and began to thrust madly, his breath washing over her face. He grunted as he thrust one last time, his seed filling her. “We’re not done yet,” Aldonza moaned as she rolled on top of Dionysus. He reached up to grab and cup her breasts as she began to ride his cock, rolling her hips as she bounced atop him.

She arched her back, her hands splayed over the muscle of his chest. Their bodies made a wet smacking sound as she bucked and lifted herself to be impaled over and over. She groaned as she felt herself near climax, her hips speeding up. Dionysus moved his hands down her body and held her hips, helping her slide up and down his cock.

“Good Aldonza, good,” he said, “pledge yourself to the Dark Mother.”

As she came, Aldonza looked over to the altar and screamed.
 
 

“Get those cameras back online, now!” yelled Arkady as he pounded up the steps to the roof of the apartment building. The sides of his vision were filled with the static filled signals from the cameras trained on the arboretum. In the upper right he could still see the feed from the Keyhole. He ordered it turned transparent as he moved it to fill his vision. Bursting through the roof door, he ran to the side of the roof and looked towards the arboretum.

He watched as the data from the Keyhole was fed into his eyes and overlaid, creating a green wireframe outlining the positions of the cultists and the altar onto his view of the arboretum. The stream of data the Keyhole was collecting was used to create the virtual image he was seeing now. Closing the Keyhole feed, he zoomed in on the arboretum. According the the Keyhole’s data, the altar, hidden behind a screen of trees, was where the thing was. He searched desperately, trying to figure out which blob of green was Dulcinea.
 
 

Dulcinea rolled off Dionysus and scrambled backwards, the bile rising in her throat as she saw what the thing was doing to the woman. A further wave of disgust washed over her as she saw how much the woman was enjoying it. She stumbled and tripped over the bench, falling onto the grass, her body not her own any more. Something was clawing at her mind, trying to let out every urge and desire she had fought and pushed down for fifteen years.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, remembering the Academy lessons in psi defense. She concentrated on math problems and felt the presence in her mind recede enough for her to regain control of her body. Reaching up, she hit the panic button hidden in her earring. Dionysus was in front of her now, blocking her view of the thing, his eyes blazing. Reeling, she felt herself falling.
 
 

“I’ve got her panic button!” Evelyn shouted as she pushed her way through the crowd towards the elevator. A electronic lockpick flipped out from her palm as she skidded to a halt near the door. She jammed the pick in the lockpad and guided the cracking software as it overwhelmed the security software. “I’m going up!” she yelled as she slid into the elevator, overriding its safety protocols and sending it up even before its doors had closed.

“We’re going in!” Arkady shouted at the HRT as he jumped into the APC. The APC’s drives kicked up a flurry of debris as they glowed to life and lifted the boxy craft off the roof. He snatched an armor vest from a rack and buckled it in place over his shirt as the APC screamed towards the arboretum.
 
 

“What’s wrong?” Dionysus asked, one hand reaching out to steady Aldonza and help her sit up. “Here,” he said, reaching into a pocket of his fallen robe and pulling out a tube, “it’s firedragon, it’ll calm you down.”

Aldonza reached out eagerly for the tube, popping the cap from the injector and pressing it against her inner elbow, her thumb on the injector and ready to press downward. Just one press and the insanity would go away, the thing coupling with the woman. “Go on, just take it,” Dionysus whispered to her. “All you need to do to make everything alright is push the injector.”
 
 

Dionysus smiled as he watched Aldonza press the injector against her elbow. There had been something resisting him throughout the ceremony, but it was finally gone now, the milk of the Dark Mother along with the projection of his will and the presence of the Dark Young had seen to that. All she needed to do was inject the drug into her system and she would be his servant. She would serve well, he thought, and when the time came that she began to be of less use, well-. He looked over at the altar.
 
 

Evelyn reached into her blouse and pulled out the mini-laser as the elevator came to a stop on the top floor of the building. As she stepped out of the elevator she drew the slim handle of the monowire whip from her belt and held it to her side. With a flick of her wrist she snapped out a long strand of monowire and let it dangle by her side.
From the center of the arboretum she could hear moaning and cries of ecstasy. Moving with a light tread over the grass, she slipped towards the clearing, her weapons at the ready.
 
 

Arkady caught a mag launcher tossed to him by one of the HRT members. He grabbed ammo magazines for the shotgun-like weapon from the ammo rack and slotted them into the launcher’s three ports. Incendiary, explosive, and flechette rounds were the standard, one magazine of each. The APC swung in above the glass dome as he pulled two extra magazines of high explosive anti-tank rounds from the rack and stuffed them into his vest’s pocket.

“Where do you want to go in, sir?” the pilot called back to him.

“Punch a hole...there,” he answered, pointing to spot midway in between the apex and base of the dome. “We’ll drop in on ziplines.”
 
 

Aldonza began to apply pressure to the injector, just a little more and- Dulcinea screamed as she yanked the injector away from her elbow.

“Go on, do it!” Dionysus ordered as his eyes flashed again. Dulcinea grunted as she felt something pressing on her mind and the desperate urge for a fix boiled up again.

“Go fuck yourself,” she growled through gritted teeth, “I beat this shit, I’ll beat you.”

“That’s a shame,” he said, picking up the knife from the bench. “You had a great deal of promise.”

As he raised the knife Dulcinea lunged towards him and pressed the injector against his bare chest. “Why don’t you give it a try?” she hissed as she pushed the injector and the firedragon surged into his bloodstream.

Dionysus tried to stab her but found his arm unwilling to follow any commands. But he didn’t care. He laughed as red visions floated across his sight, breathing fire and leaving puffs of smoke behind them. He tumbled to the ground and laughed again as he heard screaming from the other cultists along with the crashing of breaking glass.
 
 

Evelyn froze when she reached the clearing. A screaming woman was chained to an altar while some monstrously deformed alien stomped around the clearing, lashing out with its tentacles. She watched as a robed figure was snatched up by the alien and crushed in its tentacles, blood and viscera showering the clearing.

Steeling herself for the worst, she scanned the clearing for Agent Curtis and saw her crouched by a naked man.

“Agent Curtis!” she yelled as she dashed towards the trembling woman. “Come on, we’re leaving!”

Dulcinea looked up, that one action taking all her energy. “Evelyn?” she croaked. “I’m going insane.”

Evelyn grabbed her roughly under the arm with one hand and tugged her away from the rampaging alien. Another cultist had been snatched up, the alien was taking its time with this one, pulling the person’s limbs off like a cruel child might pull off a fly’s wings.

“Yeah, aren’t we all. Let’s go,” Evelyn said. Half carrying the agent on her right arm, Evelyn began to back away, unable to tear her eyes away from the gruesome scene before her.
 
 

Cassus Dracan hid under the altar and watched as a an arm then a leg fell to the grass beside him, still twitching. The two hundred and ten year old businessman watched as the legs of the Dark Young moved away from him to snatch up the gibbering form of Lyles. Seeing the Young occupied with the unfortunate drug kingpin, Dracan slid out from under the altar and headed towards the elevator.

He froze when he felt the Young behind him. He slowly turned, concentrating on the spell to bind it under his control. The Young paused, its tentacles waving in the air in an obscene parody of swaying branches.

“Follow my commands!” he shouted, drawing back his robes hood to reveal an emaciated face atop a shining cybernetic construct. He had replaced as much of his body as he could with cybernetics, almost all of them banned within the CAS. His smile of triumph faded as the Young stepped closer to him and began to reach out with its tentacles.

He stumbled as someone ran into him. It was one of Dionysus’ simpering women, the one who had objected to the new recruit taking her place.

“Are you controlling it?” she yelled hysterically.

“I am now,” Dracan said as he reached out and drew her close to him with a whining of servos. She didn’t have time to scream as he snapped her neck and let her body drop to the grass. Her sacrifice gave him just enough power to regain control over the Dark Young. He smiled as he turned and surveyed the clearing, spotting the new recruit being carried off by a very young woman. “Kill them,” he ordered, chuckling as the Dark Young stomped off after them, its table sized feet tearing great holes in the turf. Now, where is our erstwhile leader? he thought.
 
 

Evelyn swore as she felt the ground shake from the alien’s footsteps. She saw the elevator in front of her, only a few meters away. She spared one glance over her shoulder. It saved her life.

She ducked and rolled, pushing Dulcinea to the side, as one of the alien’s tentacles smashed into the ground where she had been standing. She rolled to her knees, the monowire whip back in her hand. She looked up at the alien and swore viciously.

Evelyn jumped to the side as the thing lashed out at her again. She flicked the monowire out and slashed a long gash in its tentacle as it passed by and was rewarded with a roar from the alien.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” she yelled as the thing swung at her again. She felt her reflexes go into overdrive as she leapt and spun to avoid the alien’s tentacles. The monowire lashed out again and again, each time cutting deep into the thing. Evelyn flipped backwards and landed clear of the alien’s tentacles with her mini-laser raised. She sent a brief command to it through her bio-comp and listened as its capacitors overloaded. She threw the mini-laser towards the alien and shouted in triumph as it sailed into one of the alien’s many mouths. “Get down!” she yelled to Dulcinea as the mini-laser exploded.

The anti-flash protectors on her eyes moved back after the explosion passed. Evelyn looked towards the alien and saw that a large chunk of it had been burned away by the laser, far to much for it to survive.

Or not, she thought as it stomped towards her, its tentacles swinging. She sprinted to the side, trying to get around it, and dove over a flailing tentacle. She tucked and rolled, springing to her feet in time to dodge away as a tentacle smashed to the ground. She was fraction of a second too slow as the next tentacle caught her around her left arm and lifted her into the air.

Evelyn grunted as the tentacle squeezed, tearing the flesh from her arm and revealing the gleaming metal beneath. She swung her legs up to dodge another tentacle intending to tear her in two and wrapped the monowire whip around the tentacle holding her. She flipped herself and braced her feet against the tentacle holding her as she tugged on the whip. The alien bellowed as the monowire contracted around its tentacle, slicing through it like the proverbial hot knife through butter.

She twisted her body and landed on her feet as the tentacle fell, its end still twitching. She tried to dodge as the alien kicked towards her but caught a glancing blow from its hoof. Evelyn fell heavily to the grass, her bio-comp telling her that her ribs were fractured and she was bleeding internally. The thing raised its hoof above her, ready to smash her into a pulp, when an explosive shell exploded on its side.

More explosions rocked the thing backwards as particle beams and explosive shells impacted the alien. Evelyn crawled to her knees and watched as the HRT kept up a steady stream of fire into the alien as it fell.

“Just in time, as usual,” she said as Arkady hurried over to her.

“Complaining?” he answered, ejecting a spent magazine from his mag launcher. She just laughed as he helped her to her feet.