Author: Julian Coreto
Title: Alan
Part: 21
Summary: Alan sets off for Europe to solve the mystery of the death of his fellow Seed Vessel Dr. Massimo, continued
Keywords: mc MF

Chapter 21
Resurrecting Jack (part 2)

“He said he would only meet with me, but I figure that with your abilities that wouldn’t pose a problem,” Karick said as the trio stood on the curb, the taxi having just deposited them in one of Paris’s seedier neighborhoods.  They had set out from the hotel not long after first light, after checking in and leaving their bags in the rooms.

“No, that wont be a problem,” Alan agreed.

Karick rang the bell and led them in after their host buzzed them door open.  Alan immediately took charge, calming the man’s fears.

“I don’t like it,” he said quietly to Karick, who assured him Alan and Neil would be discrete. When the former Czech intelligence agent started to introduce his colleagues to the grubby document expert he was cut off.  “Call me...Viktor,” obviously making up a name on the spot.

“Alright, Viktor,” Alan said, extending his hand out, but it was not taken.

“You have the document?”

Alan nodded, and handed it over, and the three of them followed Viktor into his work room.  Viktor held it up to the light, looked at the wordless parchment wordlessly for a few seconds, and then clamped it down on a lightboard.  A magnifying glass, attached to the side of the lightboard by a swinging arm, was moved into place, and Viktor took station over it.  Without moving his head from the glass he reached to a side drawer and pulled out a tool that looked like a needle on a mount, and then scraped some of the parchment away at the corner.  The next table over had a small-model gas chromatographer and he prepped the sample for analysis.

“What do you think?” Karick asked.

“I’ll know on a few moments, but my best guess is that it is vellum.  Sheepskin, probably about mid-fifteenth to sixteenth century.  From the way it’s been cured and treated I would guess Central Asian origin, Uzbek or Tadjik, a very small chance Armenian. Quite possibly...” he drifted off, but his eyes lit up at the last thought.

“Is there a hidden message?”

“What?” Viktor asked.  “You’re looking for a message?  You should have said that at the outset,” he grumbled as he opened some cabinets looking for something.  He came back with a spray bottle and without asking permission saturated both sides of the parchment.

“Hey!  What the fuck are you doing?” Alan yelled.

“Nothing to fear, nothing to fear, boy.  Just watch.  The solution is almost completely inert.”  Viktor flipped a switch and the room’s light all went off, including the lightboard, and a black light flickered on from both the ceiling and from within the belly of the board.  In the dim glow of the room Alan could see him beckoning for him to come closer to the parchment.

“I can state with authority, and you can ask your friend Tadeusz what kind of authority I am, that this paper is blank.  You see how clean it is.  No pen marks of any kind, no print marks of any kind.  No kind of writing or printing instruments have impacted on the paper.  A virgin, you get it?  Virgin!” he laughed, a rheumy cackle.

The gas chromatographer beeped and Viktor sat down at a p.c. which was attached to it by a cable.  The results meant nothing to Alan, and he watched with interest as Viktor loaded a CD into the drive and ran a comparison program.  “This will take some time,” they were informed by their host.

Alan and Neil went looking for a café, while Karick stayed behind to keep an eye on things.

“So, Karick, you’ve come up in the world, I see,” “Viktor” said once the others had left.

“The Cold War is over, my old friend.  I have to make a living somehow.  To tell the truth, I consider myself lucky. It is a good job.  No wet work.”

“You never did like killing.”

“No, but I did it, unhappily.  And you?  Now you forge passports and identity papers for the highest bidders, not for love of Lenin and Marx.  More rewarding for you too, no?”

“Victor” sighed.  “The more things change...most of my, ah, clientele, are Russians, fucking Russians.  Mafiya scum, and kleptocrats calling themselves without a hint of irony ‘New Capitalists,’” he grumbled.  “The pay is better, but the more things change…” he added with a laugh.

They chatted of trivial things while the computer searched the database looking for a match to the sample; the computer was fairly ancient, and taking its time.  When the match had been found Karick keyed his cell phone and called Alan and Neil back from their coffees.

“Samarkand,” Viktor pronounced triumphantly.  “From the workshop of the Master, I would guess early 1500s.”

“The Master?” Alan asked.

It was Neil, to the surprise of the other three who answered.  “The Master of Samarkand, a dyer, name unknown, who worked from about 1480 to 1515.  His product was of exceptional quality.”  Neil pointed to the parchment laying on the lightbox.  “This is the Stradivarius of paper, parchment, whatever,” he said correcting himself. “If the provenance can be proven,” he ventured, getting a small snarl from Viktor in response (so unused he was to having his expertise questioned), that is one valuable piece of parchment.”

“Valuable, yes,” Alan thought, “But that doesn’t quite help us along in our quest however much it’s worth.”

“The bleaching process used by him,” Viktor began, taking up Neil’s point (and a bit perturbed at being upstaged and doubted), “Is quite distinct, decades, no centuries ahead of his time.  From the finish on the document I should have pegged it off right away, but I’ve never seen an unused piece of his product.”

Later, back at the hotel Alan asked him if that was the clue.  “Do we need to go?  To Samarkand?  I’m willing, but that corner of the world is not exactly considered safe.”  Uzbekistan borders Afghanistan.

“No, Alan, there’s nothing left there.  The Soviets pretty much plundered the country back in the day, and the best experts about the Master are all in Russia now.  I know one, he lived in Moscow.  He consulted with the museum back when I worked there.  Should I call him?  Try to see if he’s still around? He’ll be terribly excited seeing an unused parchment.”

“No hold off on that.  Karick’s team had been watching Massimo since before I even acquired my powers. So we know that Massimo was never even near Central Asia for a long time.  Damn it!  Somehow there’s a message on that parchment, and I just don’t know how to get at it.  What’s worse, the dreams are back, and more frequent, more powerful.  It’s like being here, on this side of the Atlantic, I’m closer to the solution, and Jack is trying to guide me more.  This whole fucking thing makes no sense.”

“Whoa, whoa, step back a minute.  You getting frustrated will not help you get over this thing.”

“You’re right,” Alan exhaled.

“Let’s look at this thing from a logical point of view, OK?”

“OK,” Alan responded, rubbing his temples trying to massage the stress away.

“Massimo is out there somewhere.  In some form, yes?”

“Yes.”

“The most important think we have to keep in mind is that HE wants YOU to find him,” Neil reasoned.

“I never thought it through like that.  Yes, you’re right,” Alan said sitting up straighter.  “This is good, keep going.”

“He wants you, and no one else to find him,” Neil said of the top of his head.  He hadn’t really developed a full argument, so he was winging it.  “He has to leave clues, but clues only you can understand.”

“Yeah.  Keep going.”

“No.  I’m spent.  There’s something we’re missing.Shit.  I need a vacation.”

“Yeah,” Alan said as he slouched back again.  “You know what?  We do need a vacation.  It’s Friday, so we’ll stop for the weekend. The next two days, at the least, no work.  I mean it.  We need to recharge.”

Swindon-Smythe and Karick made arrangements to visit their native lands, England and the Czech Republic, respectively, and neither was worried about being seen, their altered apprearences and new identity papers eliminating that problem.  For the first time in a few weeks Alan was alone.

* * *

“Is anyone sitting here?”

Alan looked up from his paper, the International Herald Tribune, and saw two women standing abreast his table.  It was a sunny morning as only an early July day in Paris can be light.  After the dampness of Switzerland it was a welcome respite, and he took advantage of it, choosing to sit at an outside table for his morning coffee and croissant.  The two young ladies before him were about his age, perhaps a few years older.

“No.  Go right ahead,” he allowed, signaling to the waiter to come and take a new order.  After the garcon had gone back inside the café Alan introduced himself.

“Nice to meetya, Alan,  I’m Margo and this is Lisa,” the blonde one said, extending her hand.  She was almost as tall as he, and she had, from what her could see, a very nice, curvy figure, punctuated by wide flaring hips.  Lisa was slighter and darker, with a trim body and small but very attractive breasts.  Both wore shorts, Margo a button-down shirt with the tails tied up to expose her tummy, Lisa a plain white t-shirt, and Alan could tell that she was bra-less.

“So, what brings you two ladies to Paris?”

“Oh, we’re bouncing around Europe for the summer, Eurail pass and all.  We just graduated,” Lisa said.  She had a slight Hispanic accent.

“Congrats!  Where did you go to school.”

“I went to G.W., and Lisa went to Colgate.  But we grew up together and we’re both going to law school at Virginia, next month.  You?”

“Oh, I just finished my freshman year. Columbia.”  The pair was impressed.

“Are you backpacking this summer, too?” Lisa asked, though she somehow doubted it.  Alan was dressed too nicely to be someone living out of a rucksack.  She admired the lines of his Italian suit while waiting for his answer.

“I wish!  No, I’m over here for work.  Just taking a few days off.  So, you grew up together.  Where?”

Margo answered.  “Montclair, New Jersey.  Heard of it?”

“Yeah actually, I have.  I’m from Westchester, so were from the same area really, and one of the guys on my hall last year is from there.  Do you know Paul Sullivan?”

“The name sounds familiar,” Lisa said thoughtfully.  “Is his older sister Melissa?  Lissa Sullivan?  She was in our class, and I think she had a younger brother.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Alan answered.  “Maybe.  We never discussed brothers and sisters.”

Their coffee and breakfast came and they set out sipping and chewing.  Alan had his cup refilled and glanced at the paper from time to time, not wanting to seem rude.  He noticed that there were a couple of vacant tables in front of the café and wondered why the two coeds hadn’t taken one, but had asked to sit with him.  So, he asked.

“Oh, ah, well, we saw you reading the English paper, and we’ve been sort of starved for conversation lately.  Neither of us speak French, only Spanish, so we figured you’d be someone we could talk to,” Lisa said.

“I take it,” Alan said, proceeding delicately, “That Spanish is your first language,” he asked Lisa.

“Yeah, that’s easy enough to tell.  I was born in Costa Rica, and we moved to the States when I was ten.  That’s when I met Margo,” she said, casting a friendly glance her friend’s way.”

“Why did your family leave Costa Rica?”

“My dad got a research fellowship at a hospital in New York, and we never left.  My mom is half-American (her mom was born there), so citizenship was never a problem, and dad’s fellowship turned into a permanent position.”

“Yeah,” Margo piped in, “My dad’s the one that hired your dad.  And that’s that.  We’ve been friends ever since.  Best friends.”

“So let me get this straight, two doctors have daughters and they both go to law school.  It must be their worst nightmare!” Alan joked. The two females giggled, and assured him that their fathers, though slightly unnerved by the career choice, were supportive nonetheless.  

“What’s your job?” Margo asked.  Alan told them he had an internship with a multinational antiquities consulting company, and left it at that. When the comestibles were at last consumed the three agreed to spend the day together, seeing the sights Paris had to offer.

* * *

It wasn't that late, just after nine, but the three of them were relaxing in a bistro, bowls of onion soup before them, a bottle of vin ordinaire mostly sipped away.  All three of them were foot-weary, and  Margo was a little drunk, listing to the side, occasionally brushing against Alan.  He didn’t mind; she reminded him of Kate.  A blond, slightly older, taller, and more confident Kate.  Lisa had been less affected by the night’s revels.  From time to time she reached out and peeled the label from the glass of the wine bottle; it was a habit, a little bit of a compulsion, something she always did.

“Soren, my roommate back at college, does that too.”

“What?” Lisa asked.

“That thing you’re doing with the bottle.  He does that too, though mostly with beer bottles.”

“It’s getting on late,” Lisa commented, consulting her watch.  “Shit, I wish our hostel wasn’t all the way over on the other side of town.”

“You could stay at my hotel,” he offered.  The women blushed.  “One of my business colleagues went to London for a couple of days, and the other to Prague” he hastily added.  “You can use their rooms, a suite, actually."

“Sure,” they both said at once.

"Nice place," Lisa said approvingly, eying the sumptuous three bedroom suite. "What was it you said you did, again?"

"Oh, just a summer intern, me," Alan lied.  "The room is being paid for by the company, so..."  This seemed to satisfy the two of them.

Lisa went into one of the bathrooms to take a shower, and Margo took another one.  Alan slipped off his shoes and suit coat, and took his tie out of the pocket and hung it up in the closet in his room.  After a very short while both ladies emerged from their respective bathrooms wearing the hotel's white fluffy bathrobes.

The room service man knocked shortly thereafter; he deposited the coffee service and Alan signed for the tip.  Margo and Lisa eagerly helped themselves as Alan dashed off for his own shower.

"How do you take yours?" Margo asked as Alan reappeared.

"What?"  He had a towel over his head, drying his hair, rubbing it vigorously back and forth over his pate.

"Coffee.  How do you take your coffee?"

"If it's good coffee, black"

Margo poured him a cup and he made his way to the couch and took it from her.  As they sipped and enjoyed the view from the window Margo thought about the day just passed.  They had gone out that morning looking.  It had been so long since they had spent time with an English-peaking person, so they had gone to three cafés before seeing Alan.  His copy of the IHT had pegged him as a probable American, and he had been reading the baseball box scores as they approached, and that clinched it.

In a word, they were lonely, and by meeting Alan they had lucked out.  Not only was he what they were looking for at the basest level, a fellow Yank (even from the same part of the country as they were), but he was nice and charming and witty, and good company.  Though he wasn’t movie-star handsome he was OK to look at.  He had a really good job, judging by the luxury of the hotel and this suite, and he dressed well.

“So. what are we doing tomorrow?” Lisa asked from the couch opposite, her mouth curled up in a small grin.

“Whatever you like, ladies,” Alan answered, returning the smile.

“Cool,” Margo, this time, “We’ll need to head back to the hostel in the morning to change our clothes and stuff.”

“Yeah,” Lisa said, “I’m glad for these robes.  I wasn’t looking forward to getting back into my sweaty clothes, though we will have to a some point.”

Margo leaned in closer to Alan, he shoulder lightly pressing into his.  She had a loopy smile on her face, and it wasn’t from drink.  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

Alan pressed closer to her.  “I do.”

“What’s her name?” Lisa asked, her eyes shiny.  They didn’t know it but Alan was increasing their arousal.  He, too, had been lonely of late, his only companions a British archaeologist and a former Czech intelligence agent.  He hadn’t seen Kate in weeks, and he was horny as hell; just spending time with these two attractive women made him realize he had been without sex for a long a period since he had become a Vessel of the Seed.

“Kate, her name is Kate.”  Alan told them a few things about his raven-haired girlfriend.

“Is she pretty,” Margo asked, batting her eyelashes.  “As pretty as us?”

“She’s very pretty.  You,” he said indicating Margo with a wave of his hand, “Remind me of her, though she is a little curvier, and she has this really nice head of black hair, I mean really really black, like coal.”

“I bet she wouldn’t be to happy to know you were spending the night in a hotel with two pretty girls like us, huh?” Lisa asked, her breathing shallow.

“We, uh, have an arrangement.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve heard that one a hundred times.” Margo said with a dismissive snort, and Lisa agreed.  Alan used his power to up the erotic feelings the two of them were experiencing.  On the opposite couch Lisa began to rub her thighs together in a languid rhythm, and Margo began to tremble almost imperceptibly.

“Yeah,” Lisa added, “What?  An open relationship? You get to sleep with all the women you want to and she gets to sleep with all the men she wants to?”

“Not quite,” he said, looking right at her.  Lisa felt like this guy could see right through her, and she was turned on like she had rarely been before.

“Oh,” whispered Margo at his side, her hand lightly stroking his exposed thigh, her fingertips tracing a soft pattern on his knee.  “What, you get to sleep with women and she can’t?  You cad, you,” she giggled.

“Actually, it’s simpler than that.  I get to sleep with all the women I want, and she gets to sleep with all the women she wants.  Fair’s fair, don’t you think?”

Lisa sucked in her breath hard.  She had never been with another women sexually, but it was one of her deep-seeded fantasies, a fantasy which had increased of late.  Spending all of this time with Margo in close quarters recently had, in some small way, made her bisexual tendencies a little less latent.

For Margo’s part she was completely stunned.  Not only had she never had any sexual contact with another woman she had never even fantasized about girl-girl sex. She knew of it, of course, but never thought about it much. If she wasn’t so turned on at this moment she would have bolted to the bathroom, dressed quickly and fled the room.  Alan had scanned them during their day out together so he knew where, so to speak, the pieces stood on the board.

“You’re kidding,” they both said at once.

“I assure you, I am not.  Kate loves me, and I love her, but she also loves having sex with women, so we decided that both of us could pursue that,” he paused to think of the right word, “Avenue.”

“That is so, so--” Margo was flailing mentally trying to decide what she thought of this.

“--HOT!” Lisa squeaked.  She shifted position slightly, her ass grinding into the cushions of the sofa trying to deal with the tingling she felt below the waist.  Her nipples were hard, pressing against the inside of the robe, stimulated by the arousal within her and the feel of the soft fabric without her.

“Lisa!” Margo objected, but her companions could sense its half-heartedness.

“It doesn’t turn you on?” Alan asked, his hand against her thigh slowly moving towards the hem of her robe.  She said nothing, her eyes fixed on his moving hand.  She was silent as it slipped under the cloth, and she shuddered as she felt his fingers at her cleft.  She moaned as she looked up at him hungrily, her blue eyes sparkly with desire.  As he began to rub her slit with his fingertips she gasped and didn’t fully hear him as he restated the question; she was distracted by the sight of her best friend standing up and shedding her robe before coming over to their side of the coffee table.  Lisa sat on the other side of Alan and began kissing him on his neck and shoulder, but her eyes were fast on Margo, and she shivered imagining what Alan’s hands were doing under her friend’s robe.  

“Does it turn you on?  Two girls, doing whatever?” the question was put to Margo again, but this time by Lisa.

“Yesssssss!” Margo hissed, raising her groin up in hopes of increasing contact with Alan’s magic fingers.  She wasn’t quite sure if she was answering the question or just giving a general endorsement of what was happening to her, but upon hearing it Lisa jumped up, moved around Alan and fell to her knees in front of Margo, he hand rapidly joining his under the blonde’s robe.  As Lisa forced a finger up Margo’s pussy Alan sent the blonde a mental command that she should come once Lisa got all the way up there, and Margo shrieked in release, her chest heaving as he lower body seized up in orgasm.

"No," she whimpered as she writhed on the couch, her body warm yet still shivering at the treatment she was receiving at the hands of Alan and her best friend, "This is, this is wr-wrong," she muttered through her convulsions.  Lisa started licking her pussy, and her head fell back, her neck limp as she shaked and writhed under her best friend’s lingual attack.

Alan moved his head in to cover her mouth with his, but he was beaten to the punch by the kneeling brunette.  Margo was shocked, shocked that she found herself kissing another girl, but she melted at the contact; Lisa was so hot she could feel her womanly secretions drip off her mound and slide down her inner thighs.  She gasped when she felt the tip of Margo's tongue tentatively emerge and lick around her mouth, and groaned upon feeling enter her mouth.  She tasted delicious, and hoped Margo thought she tasted just as nice.

Before she knew what was happening Margo found herself being led to one of the bedrooms, Lisa holding her left arm, Alan her right.  Her legs felt like jelly and she was sort of half-dragged along.  The two of them deposited her on the bed; her robe had slipped off during the journey, and she hadn’t realized she was naked until she felt the bedspread against her skin.  As she tried to sit upright Lisa tackled her and laid down on top of her, pinning her by the wrists to the top of the bed.  They kissed again, and if truth be told Margo had never had a more passionate make out session.  She had almost forgotten all about Alan when she felt him softly cupping her tits, and she shuddered in response.  Suddenly Lisa’s mouth abandoned hers; she opened her eyes and saw Alan and her friend now going at it.  The respite gave Margo a chance to breathe, a chance to think.  “If I’m smart I’ll get out of here, and maybe drag Lisa off with me,” she pondered, but in the end she did nothing.  Unconsciously her hand made its way down her body until her fingers were buried in her crotch, her fingertips tickled by the silky yellow pubic hair.  Watching them go at it was turning her on even more. Alan had flipped Lisa over so she was flat on her back, and she could see his hard cock slowly rubbing against her glistening pussy.  Without knowing why she reached out and grasped it, guiding it to Lisa’s opening.  Lisa screamed at penetration, and Margo held onto the portion of his penis that was still outside her friend.

“Man, she’s tight,” Alan thought as he slowly fed his cock into Lisa.  He was thinking about moving Margo’s hand off his dick so he could fully penetrate Lisa, but it really didn’t matter, there was no way that he was getting more than half of himself inside her.  He slowly pulled out a few inches and fed them back in, keeping up a slow rhythm, but Lisa was having none of it.

“Ha- ha- harder,” she moaned, lifting her hips off the bed, trying to get him to fuck her harder.  “Fuck me harder!”  Margo softened her grasp on the exposed portion of Alan’s cock as he began to pump Lisa with greater force, though he was unable to force more of himself in her.  Lisa’s face was bright red, and she began to mumble something in Spanish Alan couldn’t quite make out.  After a few minutes Margo, following Lisa’s mammoth first orgasm, took her hand away, startled at how drenched it was with Lisa’s juices.  Alan and Lisa were concentrated on each other, and making sure neither of them were watching her she gradually brought her wet hand to her lips; cautiously he tongue came out her mouth and tasted the shiny girl come.  By the time Alan looked her way she was avidly cleaning her palm.

Without Alan’s prompting, either verbal or mental Margo lowered her head and captured the closer of Lisa’s nipples between her teeth.

“Oh Yes, Margo!  I like that!” Lisa squealed, her jaw vibrating with passion.  “Uh, uh, more,” she gasped.  Another orgasm rolled through her body, and Alan came in her, exacerbating the shocking sensations she felt.  She was panting as Margo kissed her, and their tongues dueled feverishly; Lisa’s face took on a wry smile as she tasted herself on Margo’s lips, and she gasped again as she felt her friend move down on her body.  Margo licked Lisa’s nipples for a short while, and then she lowered again and considered the sight of the come-filled pussy before hesitantly swiping her tongue across the dark-haired slit.

Alan watch the scene unfold with a giddy look upon him; Lisa’s eyes rolled back and she began to grunt as Margo devoured her.  Hard again, Alan shifted, kneeling behind the crouching Margo, and she started feeling his hot erection against her ass cheeks, shivering in arousal as he rubbed the head of his prick up and down her sopping slit.

“Fuck me now,” Margo hissed, pulling her face away from Lisa’s pussy; Lisa put her hands on the back of Margo’s head, her fingers woven through her blond mane, trying to get her back in place.  Margo growled in her pussy as Alan sank most of his cock into Margo’s steaming womanhood.

“Mrrrmph! Mrrrmph! Mrrrmph! Mrrrmph!” was all Margo was able to express, her mouth occupied with Lisa’s pleasure.

Lisa came first, one fist pounding the mattress, the other clenching around a handful of Margo’s light-hued locks.

“Ow! Shit!  Lisa, the hurts,” Margo yelled at her writhing friend, shaking her head vigorously, successfully escaping the painful grasp Lisa had of her hair.  “Ooooooh, yeah!” she moaned as she felt Alan’s cock moving within her.  He was giving her full strokes, pulling out so just the head was nestled in her sodden snatch, then powering forward so his groin slapped against her firm butt with a smacking sound.  Lisa, recovered to some extent, shimmied down the bed and got under her friend, her mouth immediately settling on one of Margo’s swinging breasts, the her hand massaging the other.  From time to time Lisa swapped breasts as Margo became lost in a haze of multiple orgasms, her pussy clamping down and squeezing Alan’s dick as she gushed out juices around it.

“No, w-w-w-w-wait.  I’ve never had it there b-b-before,” the blonde stuttered upon feeling Alan withdraw and place his oily cock head against her sphincter.

“Shhhh, baby, you’ll love it,” Alan assured her as he used his Seed powers to relax her aperture and increase her suppressed desire for anal sex.

“Ohmigod! Is he doing what I think he’s doing?” Lisa exclaimed.

“He’s fucking, he’s fucking, he’s fucking my butt,” Margo whined, her body stiffening as she felt an inch or two invade her tightest passage.  As Alan slowly penetrated to her full depth Margo felt Lisa’s fingers at her vagina.  Two fingers of Lisa’s left hand went right to Margo’s stretched front passage, Lisa used the fingers on her other hand to gently strum at Margo’s engorged clit.  The eroticism of it finally allowed Margo to relax, her mind and conscious effort clouded by her lusts, and she was astonished to realize that Alan had sunk all of his huge cock up her virgin ass.  She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the feelings the two of them were fomenting within her, but she just lost it, degenerating to her basic animal responses.  Inarticulate, she became animalistic, grunting and groaning like a beast, her rumblings accelerating as Lisa shimmied down again and began to lick and suck at her cunt.

As Alan shot his load in her spasming ass Margo orgasmed again and passed out, her pussy pinning Lisa’s head to the bed.  Lisa scampered out from under Margo quickly, in time to watch Margo’s little rosebud contract back, a trickle of Alan’s pearly seed trickling out and dripping to the bedspread.

“Gross.  Hot,” she panted, pulling Alan into an almost breathtaking kiss, wiggling her sweaty body against his as he licked Margo’s spending from her shimmering face.  Before long two of them found themselves in the shower, Lisa on her knees trying to take as much of his wonderful cock in her mouth as she could.  The petite Latina was disappointed with her efforts, only swallowing about three inches, but Alan would be the last to complain.  Her tongue fluttered around his glans in an exquisitely delightful manner, and before long her was unleashing stream after stream of his come in her mouth and down her eager throat.

Alan fucked Lisa’s ass when they returned to the bedroom, surprisingly a more “successful” endeavor; Lisa’s rear passage was able to accommodate his shaft to the hilt, though not without a long and drawn out effort.  He took her from underneath, his hands caressing her butt as it rose up and fell down the length of his dick, his eyes often coming to rest on the small butterfly tattoo on her left cheek. Margo didn’t stir in the slightest as Lisa’s screams echoed of the hotel’s walls as Alan hosed her ass full of his semen.

* * *

Lisa turned over, onto her back.  Margo was nestled beside her, curled up in a ball, her head under Lisa’s arm.  Lisa felt as if she couldn’t move, she was stiff and tired.  Through the doorway of the bathroom she watched raptly as Alan went about his morning business.  The mirror was steamy with a small patch in the center wiped away, and she relaxed as she witched him shave.  The vapor went away gradually, and when Alan finished washing the stray bits of later off of his face he spied her watching him, and winked.  She gathered up her strength and sat up and he turned to face her.

“Morning.  How you feeling?” he asked.

“Ugh, like a truck hit me, but in a good way,” she laughed.  Margo still hadn’t moved.

“Glad to hear it,” he chuckled.  “Listen, would you call down for room service while I dress?  Just dial ‘0’ and ask for breakfast for three plus coffee.”

While Alan was in the next room checking the messages on his cell phone and calling his attorney in New York out of her earshot, Lisa picked up the phone.  To her annoyance she was placed on hold, and while she waited she began rubbing her fingers across the tatty velvet lining of the steel box open on then nightstand next to the king sized bed.  Without realizing what she was doing she started to peel the material away from the inner hull of the box, and it wasn’t until Alan had reentered the bedroom that she realized she had completely removed it.

“Sorry about your box,” she said sheepishly.

Alan played it cool, though he was a little pissed off.  He walked over to her side of the bed and assessed the damage.  Still playing it cool he made no reaction upon seeing what Lisa had revealed through the force of her habit.  At the bottom of the box he saw a depression in the steel, circular, and to his eye the exact diameter of the rings her wore on each hand.  “Holy shit! he thought.  Margo was waking, and she and Lisa needed little convincing of the need for showers.  Though they considered having it together, in the end the opted to use separate bathrooms.  With them out of the room Alan practically yanked off Massimo’s ring and gingerly fit it into the depression in the box.  Nothing.  He tried his own.  Nothing.  He rang up Neil and told him of the new development, and they discussed it briefly.  Hiding his disappointment as the girls returned he sealed the box and put it on a shelf in the closet.  The breakfast came, coffee, rolls and butter with little pots of fresh warm jam, and fruit, and the three of them inhaled it, ringing down again for another round of coffee.

Reluctantly the Lisa and Margo dressed in yesterday’s clothes.  Alan had the concierge arrange for a car, and the three of them motored over to the youth hostel, where the two ladies changed their clothes.  Margo needed to remove her contact, not having the opportunity the night prior, and she came back downstairs wearing a fetching pair of tortoise shelled glasses.  Both of them were also donning large backpacks.

“Checking out?” Alan asked, a smile beginning to form.

The two of them were taken aback.

“We didn’t assume, or anything,” Margo blurted.

“I just thought,” Lisa said at the same time.

“No problem, no problem. We’ll take the car back to my hotel and leave your stuff,” he assured them, and they let out massive sighs of relief.

They decided to keep the car for the day, and the driver took them to Versailles.  Karick and Neil were due back in a couple of days, and Neil had mentioned on the phone that morning some things they might try with the ring and the box..

Next Chapter: Resurrecting Jack (part 3)

Author: Julian Coreto
Title: Alan
Part: 22
Summary: Alan sets off for Europe to solve the mystery of the death of his fellow Seed Vessel Dr. Massimo, continued
Keywords: mc MF

Chapter 22
Resurrecting Jack (part 3)

It turned out to be child’s play, though Alan waited for Neil and Karick to return before doing it. The three of them sat around the table in the suite’s living room, and Neil and Karick watched with baited breath as Alan fit the ring in the groove on bottom wall of the box, rested the blank parchment over it, and then sealed the box.  A low hum came forth, followed by a mandala of light, brilliant colors, shapes moving about to and fro in no particular fashion, filling the room with its brightness.

“It’s happening,” Karick said in wonder.

The glow grew to the extent that the three in the room had to avert their eyes, but after a few moments it began to flag, and they waited for it to disappear completely, fidgety in their places.  Neil was the first to move, taking the box in his hands, almost cradling it like a baby and holding it out to Alan.  He used his powers to open the lid, and the three of them gasped at what was before them.  In neat printed text on the center of the creamy parchment stood two lines of text.

Alan spoke first.  “So, how’s your Hebrew?” he asked handing the page to the archaeologist.

Neil grinned proudly, “I won a prize, at Cambridge,” taking the offered sheet.  He looked befuddled.  Each line had a four letter word followed by four two lettered words, but the problem was that Neil only recognized the first (four letter word) on each line.  “Tzaphon, Mizrach,” he repeated a few times, thinking to himself all the while.

“What does it mean?” Karick asked, impatience clear in his voice.  “Tzaphon?  Mizrach?”

“The first word on each line is a direction.  Tzaphon is north.  Mizrach, east.”

“And the other words?” Alan put in.

“That’s the thing.  They're not words.  See those apostrophe looking things?  The diacritic marks over the second and third words on each line?  That usually indicates some sort of abbreviation, but not any I’m readily familiar with.  I wish I had some references with me, an Alcaly or a Jastrow,” he sighed, then explained that the these were dictionaries, the former a modern Hebrew unabridged dictionary, and the latter a two-volume glossary of rabbinic literature.

Neil began to get is jacket in preparation to go out and find a Jewish bookstore when Karick had a masterful flash.

“You know,” he said slowly, gathering his thoughts, “It seems to me that the words on the parchment are coordinates.  You know, so and so far east, so and so far north.  Usually that sort of data is expressed with numbers, though.”

Neil’s jaw almost hit the floor.  “Idiot!”

“Hey, I might not know much about these things,” Karick protested, but Neil cut him off.

“No, Tadeusz, you’re not the idiot.  I am.  You see, Hebrew doesn’t really have numbers, as we recognize them.  They use letters for numbers.  For example, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Aleph, had a value of one, the second letter, Bet, had a value of two, and so on.  The tenth letter, Yod, had a value of ten, and the eleventh letter, Kaf, has a value of twenty, etc.  The letter Qoof is one hundred, followed by Resh, which is two hundred.  See!  The letters are numbers, and the first apostrophe, a single apostrophe indicates minutes, and the second indicates seconds.  The last one is obviously fractions of seconds.”

Karick reached in his bag and yanked out a palmtop computer and a GPS snap-in module.  He had acquired many gadgets and gizmos since coming to work for Alan, and was thrilled that this set would be useful.

Neil deciphered the letters into coordinate numbers, and Karick entered them into his machine with his stylus.

“North 48 degrees, 15 minutes...”  He paused.  “East 16 degrees, 22 minutes...”

The three of them gathered around the mini-computer and waited for the map to be drawn.  Once it appeared Alan picked up the phone and called Cyaxares HQ in Rome.  The secretary put him on hold after he instructed her as to what he needed. She came back on after a few minutes.  Alan thanked her and hung up.

“Our flight to Vienna leaves in three hours.  Call the front desk,” he added to Karick, “And tell them we’re checking out.”

On the way to the airport they stopped at a computer store and bought a CD-ROM atlas.  The palmtop was fine for some things, but they needed something which could be shown on a larger display (Neil’s laptop, in their case) to see their coordinates with the accuracy required to carry out the mission.

* * *

Though the coordinates from the parchment told them where to go, once they got there they didn’t know what to do.  There were no more clues, it seemed to them.  They were standing on the tree-lined  Margaretenstraße, not far from the Bacherplatz.  Karick lit a cigarette and looked around.  The stone buildings looked all alike to him on this pleasant and leafy block.  The three of them decided to split up and lap the street a few times.

About ten minutes later Alan spotted it.  There was a small apartment building at the bend in the street, and it had two entrances, one for the upstairs apartments, and a separate entrance for one of the three ground floor homes.  The second door was painted red with an ornate lacquered black symbol about four inches square centered upon it, cut into the wood of the door in relief.  Neil’s circuit of the neighborhood caught up with his after a few moments, and when he saw what Alan was staring at he smiled.

“Is it?” Alan asked.  Neil nodded.  The black symbol sort of looked like a Hebrew letter, but wasn’t.  Alan didn’t have his notebook computer loaded with all of Massimo’s notes and journals with him, but from studying it religiously the past year he had no more doubt, after Neil confirmed it, that he had found what he was looking for.  The black symbol was unmistakably the representation of the Seal of Cyaxares.  Neil pulled a small camera from his pocket and snapped a photo of it.  Karick joined them presently as they waited.

With sweaty palms Alan opened the gate and stepped up to the red door, the others behind them.  He knocked.

No answer.

Alan and Neil crossed the street while Karick fetched their rented car.  He pulled up and the three settled in for a day of surveillance.  The sun was high in the sky, the afternoon uncomfortably warm.  Karick had turned off the motor, not wanting to waste gas in case they had to follow someone with the car, and they all missed the comfort of air conditioning.

The Czech, a trained and experienced espionage agent, long-used to the vigor of stakeout work, was the only among the three of them not to doze off as the hour meandered from mid-day to early evening.

* * *

He nudged Alan with an elbow, and the younger man came awake with a start; the small commotion roused Swindon-Smythe in the backseat.  Together they watched a plump matronly-looking woman pass through the gate and unlock the red door.  In seconds it was shut behind her, and seconds after that Alan, Karick, and Neil were out of the car and crossing the street.  Alan knocked; as they waited for he woman to open the door they heard shuffling feet from behind the door.  Alan closed his eyes and quickly scanned the mind of the occupant.  After only a second his eyes popped open in shock, though thinking about it later, he realized his sense of shock was misplaced at the time.  The only two people he had met with minds had been altered by another were Wilkins and his secretary, Harriet; they had been people Massimo had dealt with in the past, so he was not surprised to find their heads messed with.  As the door opened a fraction of an inch he realized he was about to meet a third.

“Hallo?” the woman greeted them.  Up close Alan could see that she was very pretty, for a woman of her age, which he guessed to be somewhat closer to sixty than fifty.  Alan asked her if she spoke English, and she nodded.  Karick spoke German, but he was glad not to have to use him as a translator.

“I was wondering about the glyph on your door.  It’s very pretty, can you tell me about it?”

The woman smiled, “Ja, ja, come in, please, I am Greta,” she said brightly, beckoning them with her arm.  Though Alan couldn’t tell it, because of the block on her mind, this was her programmed response.  Whenever someone asked about the symbol on her door, a symbol carved and painted by her lover of many years, the late Dr. Jean-Pierre Massimo, she was to invite them in.  

As they made to the sitting room Alan scanned her more closely, and to his amazement he realized he couldn’t fully see her mind.  There were places in her memory that simply did not exist.  As she returned from the kitchen with a tray of tea and pastry Alan took control of her.

“You have something for me, don’t you, Greta?”  He couldn’t order her to give the next clue over, and was hoping she would volunteer it.

“Ja.”  She was following her programming.  Anyone who came calling and asked about the glyph would also expect the steel box, she knew.

“May I have it?”

She shuffled off again, returning quickly.  In her hand was another steel box, almost identical to the first.  All the eyes in the room were on it as she handed it to Alan.  He looked up to thank her, and was faced with the business end of a rather nasty looking revolver.  His mind screaming a mile a minute Alan took control of her more forcefully, at a merely physical level using his TK powers, and she lowered the pistol to her side, the barrel pointing to the rug.  Karick came up to her and with a great deal of effort pried the gun away from her.  Neil helped her to the settee, and she sat placidly.  With the danger passed Alan released his hold on her, and she burst into tears.

“Very sorry, very sorry,” she cried.  “I was just following instructions, but you are like him, like he was,” she moaned.  Alan understood now, the dark parts of her mind suddenly lit up.  Massimo had left a clue with her, with instructions to kill anyone who asked after it, knowing that Alan would be able to handle it like no one else could.  After she brought her emotions under control she leaned over to the side table and pulled her small leather phone book from it, flipping the pages.  The others watched questioningly as she did this except for Alan.  She had two numbers to call, one in case she needed bodies removed from her house, the scene cleaned, and another for this eventuality.  Both numbers stood alone on one page, neither attached to a corresponding name.  She had noticed them in the past, but before this moment she hadn’t known why they were recorded there, despite the fact they were written in her own hand. She dialed then handed Alan the receiver as the call was being put through.

“What do I say?” Alan asked the shaken woman.

“’The ring of Cyaxares seeks its owner.’” she quoted, seemingly from a trance.

“Greta?” the voice on the other end asked.  “Greta?”

“’The ring of Cyaxares seeks its owner.”

“Ach! I understand.  Who is this?” the man asked.

“I’d rather not say over the phone. Can we meet?”

“Ja.  Are you staying at Greta’s?  I can be there in less than an hour.”

Alan had the man hold on for a minute while he consulted the other guys, then asked the man on the other end of the phone to meet them at their hotel, which was closer to the center of town.  The man told Alan how he could be identified (a yellow flower in the lapel of his jacket), and disconnected.  As they said their goodbyes to Greta tears began flowing down her cheeks.  “I miss him so,” she sniffled.  Alan would have liked to have told her that Massimo would soon be back, but he did not, for two reasons.  First, he had no idea if that was indeed to be the case, and second, it was unsafe to tell anyone what he and his fellows were attempting.

* * *

“Please, call me Wally,” Walter Von Hoff told them as the hostess led them to a table in the hotel’s formal bar.

“Nice to meet you, Wally,” Alan said as he gestured for the man to have a seat.  Alan and the two others arrayed themselves around him.  With his mind Alan sensed the changes Massimo had made to this man, and he guessed that the small cloth satchel Wally carried held a box identical to the one recently received from Greta.

Alan and Neil had huddled in the back seat of the car as Karick drove them back to the hotel.  A few seconds after the car had been put in drive Alan had popped the top off of the box, and another piece of parchment had fluttered out of it.  This time the printing was already visible (an address in London), though he and Neil had agreed that it couldn’t hurt to peel out the lining and look for another ring groove.  If found, they would repeat the earlier process, however, after arriving at the hotel they sequestered themselves in their suite, and had found no depression similar to the one in the box they had received from Claude Massimo.

“So,” Wally asked, an eyebrow arched, “You were friends with Jean-Pierre?”

“Yes,” Alan assured him, “We had a very special bond.”

“Hmm,” Wally said, disinterestedly.  “He never mentioned you, though he was almost notorious for his secretiveness.”  He paused, his expression turning darker.  “How can I know this is true.”

Alan attempted to take his mind by force, but was unable.  Something that Massimo had done to him had made him immune, perhaps to all mind control, or perhaps to all mind control not emanating from the mind of Massimo himself.  Alan had to think fast.

“The box.  Did you bring a box?”

“It can’t be opened,” he answered haughtily, though taken aback that the boy knew that he was carrying one in his banker’s briefcase, and cursed himself for revealing that he was indeed bearing one.

“The box is for me,” Alan assured him.

“So says you, but how can I know that?”

“I can open it.”

“Show me,” he challenged, placing the steel container on the table.  Alan pressed his hand to the lid and closed his eyes.  In an instant, the lid slid off.  Wally was impressed, and at that point noticed Alan’s rings.

“Ja,” he said, his voice deeper than its usual bass, “Ja, it does belong to you. Jean-Pierre told me that whomever could open the box should receive it.”

After dissuading Wally from having a peek inside, they watched him drain his glass of beer and leave, then returned to the room.  Once the box had opened, controlling Wally had been child’s play, his mental shield peeled away as had Greta’s.  Alan peeled off the felt liner, and placed both his rings into their allotted grooves on the inside hull of the case.  He covered them with the parchment and sealed the box.  Nothing happened.  He reopened the box and reversed the positions of the rings. The light show returned, and all three of them were chomping at the bit waiting for it to end.  They each had a feeling, unspoken as it was, that their quest was nearing an end.  The address in London, coupled with whatever information from this new box, they hoped, would lead them to Jack.

“What does it say,” both Karick and Swindon-Smythe asked, anxious for a response.

Alan held it up, to better see it in the light.  “Theodore Dickinson.”

The name meant nothing to any of them, but they were looking forward to meeting him.  Neil plugged his laptop into the hotel jack and entered the name through a number of search engines, cross referencing the name with Massimo’s, but without satisfaction.  London is where Massimo was last, and London was where they were headed.  Dickinson might be the last station on a very long trip.

* * *

“Please check your records again,” Alan almost begged.  “Are you sure, no patient, or staff member named Dickinson, Theodore Dickinson?”  The woman tapped a few more keys, trying her best to be helpful.  The address on Greta’s parchment had turned out, to their surprise, to be a hospital

“Let me check one more time.  I’ll widen the search.” She tapped again at the keyboard.  The machine hummed, the server in the corner of the room spinning internally.  “Ah,” she said, triumph in her voice, “Yes, indeed.  Mr. Dickinson was in hospital from June prior until October.  He was transferred to a nursing home.”  She pulled a small pad to her, a pen from her hair, and scribbled an address, then tore off the sheet and handed it to Neil, who was closest.  With the thanks of three men in her ears she closed the door behind her, and settled back to her workaday routine.  She glanced out her window in time to see her recent visitors hail a cab.

The street was filled with school kids as they crossed the street heading to the long-term care center at the far corner.  Alan and the two others could still hear the dismissal bell ringing from inside the school opposite.  The center was a gray building, wide and squat, five stories tall from the looks of it.  A guard in the foyer directed them to a small office off the main hall.  They had come to a hospital, and it seemed they had come for naught.

"Are you a friend of Mr. Dickinson's?" the desk nurse asked, her suspicion evident.  Mr. Dickinson had been in residence at the center for more than six months, and today was the first time anyone had appeared to see him.

Alan sent a probe through her mind, implanting commands for her to trust and believe what he said.  "He is a friend of my father's," the young man assured her.

"Well, that makes some sense," she thought, reaching under the desk to depress the button which released the gate.  She double-checked her patient roster before directing the trio to the third floor.

"This place is creepy," Neil shivered as they waited at the lift.  Neil had made a cell phone call from the cab and had learned, to their supreme disappointment, that the center was a resident care facility for comatose and vegetative patients, a hospice really, but one meant for people with chronic conditions, not just for end-of-life care.  The loudest sounds in the building were the clicking and the beeping of the various machines and readouts attached to its inhabitants.  The charge nurse on Dickinson’s floor led them to his room.

First things first they closed the door and had a look around; Alan sent out a broadcast command for the staff to keep away.  There were three patients in the room and one empty bed.  Dickinson’s bed was the closest to the door, and they checked under his bed and in his closet for a box, but found none.  If Massimo, before he had died had left something in his care they were seriously out of luck.  They had a private investigator looking into the man’s background, but, if as the nurse had told them, the man had no family, then there was no one to seek out to learn about their next clue.  As Neil and Karick continued to look about the room Alan peered into Dickinson’s mind.  It was as if it was blank, wiped of all thought process and memory.  Alan stepped out into the hall and flagged down a passing nurse.  After asking after Mr. Dickinson’s condition she went back to the main station at the end of the hall and paged the doctor.  It took just a few minutes for her to arrive.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Kellin, may I help you?”  The doctor was a graying woman of slightly less than average height.  She wore thick lensed glasses, a chain resting against her white coat.

“Yes, nice to meet you.  I’m Alan Marshall, and Mr. Dickinson was a friend of my father’s.  Business associates, actually.  What can you tell me about his condition?”

The doctor was going to give him the short-shrift answer, after all it wasn’t as if this young man was a family member, or anything, but to her very mild amazement she went into great detail, most of it too scientific and jargon-filled for Alan to understand.  Alan dismissed her, mentally, and returned to the room to see if Swindon-Smythe had come up with anything.

“Nothing, boss,” Karick said, his hands out, palm up, at his sides.  Neil nodded.

“What happened to him?” Neil asked, hoping against hope that their trail had not just been cut off.

“Brain tumor, benign.  The doctor said that it wont kill him, but it is interfering with the centers of his brain which allow him to speak, or even understand the words of others. His motor skills are also affected.  He’s forty-six years old, and could live another forty years like this.  I scanned his mind, but there was nothing.”  He took a seat next to the patient and closed his eyes, sighing.  “Just our goddamned luck, the guy we’re looking for in a coma.  And worse, no living family.”  His eyes snapped open, and the other two stared at him, but he shushed them.  Closing his eyes again he peered into Dickinson’s mind again exploring the depths, unlike his first, perfunctory, scan.  He was still for many minutes.  Karick and Neil watched with interest as Alan stood and stretched his back, twisting to and fro.

This was maddening to them.  Clearly, Massimo had entrusted a part of the secret to this man, and when he had done so Dickinson was already hospitalized.  “Why would he do that?” Alan thought bitterly.  “Why would he leave a clue, one of a chain of clues, to a man with a brain tumor, someone who would not be able to communicate it at the proper time?”  Karick and Swindon-Smythe were suffering similarly dreary thoughts.

“Well, boss, what now?” Karick asked, somewhat despondent.

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” Alan assured them, settling back into the chair and closing his eyes once more.  Dead ends.  Every time he tried to access the memories of the patient he came upon dead ends.  His back was becoming stiff again in the uncomfortable chair, and instead of standing again and stretching out he merely used his powers to relax the muscles.  

It hit him.  

Slowly he entered Dickinson’s mind again, this time not concentrating on the mental aspects, but rather the physical ones.  The tumor was large, closer to small orange than golf ball sized.  Alan concentrated harder, and it began to shrink.  It was slow work, but got easier as the mass reduced.  At some point Alan realized his eyes were open, and he watched the patient’s breathing accelerate as his condition improved.  Suddenly something was wrong.  Dickinson looked as if he was having a seizure, his arms and legs jerking, his mouth frothing with saliva.  Alan stopped what he was doing and concentrated instead on calming the man, and after a short while he was at peace.  With more care, more attention to both reducing the tumor and keeping Dickinson from seizing, Alan continued his work, all the while hoping that if the patient regained consciousness they would be one step closer to Massimo.  One by one Alan severed the blood vessels feeding the tumor, sealing them up after they were disconnected, then obliterating the bad tissue itself.

Dickinson groaned, the first response they had seen outside the seizure, and Alan stopped.  Neil and Tadeusz stiffened in fright at the sound of the man making noise.  Neil wanted to get the nurse, but Alan vetoed the idea.  It was nearing sunset when Dickinson stirred again; he tried to sit up, but his atrophied muscles would not allow it.  Alan nodded to Neil, who was standing on the other side of the bed, and the two of them helped him up.  With great effort the man turned his head, first to Neil, then to Alan.

“Alan,” he hissed, his voice raspy, both from a dry mouth, and underused vocal cords.  Chills ran up the spines of the three.

“Do I know you, Mr. Dickinson?”

The middle-aged man smiled, but was unable to speak, though he let loose a raspy laugh, and weak as it was, Alan and the others could hear the triumphant character of it..  He nodded.  Karick came over and propped the pillows behind him and Alan and Neil let go.  Alan came about to the foot of the bed so he could face Dickinson.  The withered man looked at him, a steely concentration on his face.  The ring on Alan’s left hand, Massimo’s ring began to glow.  Neil and Karick couldn’t see that, but they could read the expression on Alan’s face.  Alan smiled even wider, and took the ring from his left middle finger and cupped it in his hand.  As he walked closer to Dickinson it glowed brighter.  Alan took Dickinson’s left hand with his right and placed the ring in the center of the sick man’s palm.  Slowly Dickinson moved as he brought the ring to his right middle finger.  Alan averted his eyes as there was some sort of flashover effect only he and the resting man could see.  

“The ring of Cyaxares has found its owner.”

* * *

After receiving the ring Massimo’s powers had returned, though he was still weak as a kitten, both his vessel and his Seed very fragile.  The powers were coming back, slowly.  He had explained to Alan what was happening, and it reminded the teen of the first days and weeks after he himself had had that strange encounter in his grandfather’s hospital room.

He wasn’t even Ted Dickinson anymore.  Two days after Alan wiped the minds and records at the care center he took Dickinson back to the hotel.  Once there, over coffees a recovering Massimo instructed on what he needed done to reestablish himself.

“If you please,” Massimo asked after settling into one of the rooms of Alan’s suite, “The boxes.”  Alan and Neil gathered the three boxes, the one from Claude Massimo, and the two from Vienna, and set them before Jack, or Ted, whatever.  Alan had noticed that each successive box was slightly smaller than previous one, but hadn’t paid it much attention.  Massimo took the middle box, Greta’s, and placed it inside the largest, Claude’s, then nestled Wally’s, the smallest, inside.  He placed the three lids on, smallest to largest, and sealed them.  Resting his hand on the lid of the box he closed his eyes and meditated for a few seconds before making a fist and tapping his ring on the lid three times, then removed his paw and allowed the largest lid to slip off.  Alan stood at his shoulder and watched as he revealed the contents; the inner two boxes and parchments were gone, replaced by a passport, British, unlaminated and without photo, ready to conform with whatever identity Massimo was to choose, a driver’s license, similarly blank, a small leather-bound notebook, and two Zip 100 disks.

“Cool,” Alan breathed.

The notebook held all the information Massimo needed to start his life anew.  He excused himself to the bedroom and emerged in just a few minutes.  “My man from the passport office will be here in an hour.  I need a name for him to inscribe on the document and enter in the ministry’s system.  Help me think one up,” he said excitedly.  He thought for a few seconds.  “Lazarus.  How about Lazarus?” he asked the room.  

“Jesus Christ,” Neil guffawed.

“No, Dr. Swindon-Smythe, ‘Jesus Christ’ is too gaudy, even for an egoist such that I am.  I may have lost many inhibitions over the years--due to my powers, and now my resurrection--but my sense of shame has yet survived my rebirth.  Perhaps as a small tribute to my new vessel form I’ll fashion myself Theodore.  No, I still want to be a Jack, always liked that name.  How about John?  Hmmmm.  Jacob, that’s it Jacob Theodore Lazarus!  With a name like that I’ll be able to join a synagogue,” he laughed.

“You’re not Jewish, are you sir?” Neil asked.  Though he never had the chance to study with Massimo, having been schooled at Cambridge, with Massimo at rival Oxford, he knew quite a bit about the professor, him being one of the giant’s in Neil’s chosen field of study.

“No, my grandparents were Christian, but my parents were more,” he paused feeling his way about his new mind for the right word, “more cosmopolitan.  My late wife was Roman Catholic, devout, as is my son and his family.”

“I’m surprised,” Alan interjected, “that you had any religion at all, I mean, after becoming a Seed Vessel.  Doesn’t our mere existence sort of disprove Christianity?  All Western religions?”

“Not really,” Lazarus replied, a cocky grin on his face.  “Tell me, Alan, what faith is yours?”

“Now?  Nothing.  I know, or more likely, I am, the living manifestation of the truth of the words and deeds of Hyrcanus.  Before?  Nothing really.”

“Really?  Your parents gave you no religion?”

“Well, my dad’s side is Society of Friends, you know, Quaker, but he really doesn’t do much with them.  Once a year he writes a check to the American Friends Service Committee, but that’s about all.”

“And Mrs. Marshall?” Jack asked.

“Jewish, but not religious.  How do they put it?  ‘Unobservant.’  She was raised in a secular home, and hasn’t been to services in years.  Besides family events I have never been to a house of worship.  I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve been to synagogue or a church.”

“Hmm, what about the Quakers?  Have you spent any time in their churches?”

“Quakers don’t have churches, the have meeting houses, and if you’d ever been to one you’d know in an instant they’re not churches.  I went to my dad’s uncle’s funeral down in Bucks  County, and there was no way to tell you were in a Christian building.  There isn’t even a cross on the wall. So I guess you could say I’m half-Jewish.”

“No such thing, Alan,” Neil put in.  “You’re Jewish.”

“What do you mean?” Alan asked, curious.

“Yes,” Lazarus said, “As young Neil put it, you are Jewish.  Any issue of a Jewish woman is Jewish, simple as that.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t raised that way, so I considered myself secular.”

“Have you read the Bible?” Lazarus asked, sort of changing the subject.

“Not much,” Alan admitted. “Just the parts needed to work through the documents I read.”

“Well then, you know that it is written in the book of Ezra-Nehemiah that the Jews were released from their captivity.  The Babylonians, who had exiled them, were defeated by the Persians.”

“Yeah,” Alan put in, “I know the history, mostly from reading your notes and stuff.”

Lazarus was pleased, and it showed on his face, happy that Alan had done his “homework” so diligently.  “And the Persian Emperor, the one who conquered Babylon, you know his name?”

With the power of the Seed Alan had instant recall.  “Cyrus.”

“Cyrus, yes, ‘Cyrus the Anointed.’  Tell me, young Neil, what is the Hebrew word for anointed?”

“Mashiach,” Neil answered, delighted and honored to be witness to a lecture by the legendary Massimo.  “Messiah.”

“And so,” Lazarus continued, pacing the room as was his habit when he lectured at the world’s great seats of learning, “Cyrus the Messiah, was succeeded by Darius, Devaryesh, for our purposes.  Darius, though not the Messiah, granted permission to the returned Jews in Jerusalem to reconstruct their Temple, so one can assume,” he rolled his eyes indicating his sarcasm, though only Alan caught the gesture, “That he too was dear to the God of the Hebrews.  Therefore, we can postulate, though not with out a great deal of intellectual acrobatics, that when Hyrcanus forged the Great Seeds of Heaven, he was in a way in service to the Jewish faith, for by making them, then using them to restore Darius, he was in assistance to the Hebrews.”

Neil didn’t buy it.  “That is very convoluted, sir.  The jumps are enormous!”

“Well, it’s just a suggestion, really.  I’m not saying it happened.”

They all laughed.

* * *

Karick left the next day for Geneva, calling from the bank office for further instruction.  Lazarus had his accounts moved to an account already prepared in the Turks and Caicos.  

Mr. Wilkins in New York was similarly busy; he was being dragged around town looking for a place for Massimo to live, not his favorite use of his time.  Massimo had decided that for reasons of safety he was relocating to New York, at least until his Seed abilities had returned to a point of his liking.  By his own evaluation he was too weak to travel, and would be for a month or so.

“I need to assemble a staff,” Lazarus told the trio the night before Alan was to fly home.  “First, a personal assistant, preferably one who knows a thing or two about security.”  Karick would be staying at Jack’s side until he arrived in New York, but Neil was headed for Rome to work on Cyaxares company business.

Alan thought he knew of the perfect candidate. “Jack, would it bother you if your assistant slash security person was a woman?”

“No, not at all,” he said, an eyebrow arched.  “A pretty one, I hope.”

Alan grinned.

* * *

His parents were thrilled to see him.  He had been gone for almost six weeks, and he let his mom fuss over him for a few days before heading out again.  He wasn’t going far, so they weren’t too disappointed, and he promised not to be gone for more than one night.  Kate was still up in Maine, so his time was all his own.  She would be returning in a week, the thought of which brightened his spirits; he really missed her.

He gunned the car down the New Jersey Turnpike, a rented BMW, and he enjoyed testing the engine; of course, he wasn’t afraid of a ticket.  The cell phone, resting on the leather seat next to him trilled, and he slowed to the speed limit before reaching it.

“Mr. Marshall, it’s Harriet. I have a call for Carl Sutherland, on the Sutherland Consulting line.  It’s Anne-Marie Nicoletti.  She says she’s returning Mr. Sutherland’s call.  Shall I put her through?”

“Yes, thank you, Harriet.”

“Carl, is that you? I got your message.”

“Hey Anne-Marie, what’s up?”

“Same old, same old.  Are you coming here?”

“Are you free?”

“For you baby, anytime!”

Alan chose a different hotel this time, and not ten minutes after checking in Anne-Marie knocked on his door.  He appraised her, though not really knowing why because he had no idea of Jack’s taste in women.  Still, he liked what he saw.  She was taller than he remembered her, about 5’ 7”, plus heals, though he realized immediately that she was wearing taller shoes this time, and his eyes were playing trick on him.  Her sandy brown hair was cut short, a pretty cut nonetheless, and the color worked well with her very pale skin tone.  Her breasts were small, but as he remembered, nice and pointy, and she had a beautiful figure, lithe, willowy, and somehow powerful all at once.  As they kissed Alan did a mental mining of her, an ability he had yet to develop when they had first met.  What he learned pleased him.

Anne-Marie was twenty-seven years old.  She had dropped out of college, Rutgers, after her second year.  Her father, a Trenton cop, had died of a heart attack while on duty.  Unable to continue her education because of financial reasons she had entered the state police academy in Sea Girt, and spent two years on the force.  She was then recruited by the casino, the combination of her good looks and law enforcement experience making her irresistible to the hotel management, which was in dire need of undercover casino security personal, especially of the feminine variety; her black-belt in karate didn’t hurt either.  She had a keen tactical sense, and a vast amount of the security knowledge needed to keep Jack out of danger.  By the time the kiss was broken, Alan’s mind mining expedition completed, it was settled, at least for him, and he knew he had a surefire way of convincing her.

“So,” she half-moaned, a shit eating grin on her face, “Are we staying in, or going out?”

“Out.”

Alan and Anne-Marie took the elevator to the lobby and walked briskly to the cashier.  The cashier’s eyes widened considerably, first when Alan requested a quarter of million dollars in chips, all in $5,000 denomination, and then when he passed over his credit card.  It had been a long time since she had seen one like it; usually they were green, or maybe even gold or platinum.  This one was black; she knew what that signified.  She counted out the chips, but not before pressing a button under her desk, summoning the pit boss.  He came in short order, leading them to the V.I.P. room.  Alan and Anne-Marie settled at a blackjack table.

Anne-Marie was pleased that Alan had chosen a different hotel this trip, especially after watching him clear slightly more than a million dollars in just under three hours.

“You never did get around to telling me the secret of your success,” she joked at dinner, taking another big sip from her wineglass.

“That’s not how I remember it,” he laughed, and laughed again watching her turn bright red, the shift evident even under the dim restaurant lights.  Her temporary crimson complexion matched well with her dress, a short green number, glittery and backless.  When the plates had been cleared after the main course Anne-Marie scooted around, taking the seat next to him in the booth.  As they ordered coffee and dessert she slowly ran her hand up his thigh, stroking it through the fabric.  The waiter retreated and she rested her head against his shoulder.  Alan moved his arm so he could touch her.  His hand stole under the hem of her mini-dress, the backs of his fingers flat to her pussy, rubbing it slowly through the increasingly saturated fabric.   Anne-Marie hummed in rhythm to his light strokes, her arousal accelerating as her whole body reddened.  They shared a crème brûlée though he had ordered it for himself.  She had eschewed dessert, wanting to watch her figure, but couldn’t resist him as he held the spoon to her mouth.  As he fed her with his left hand he continued touching her moist panties with his right; more often than not her mouth was already open as the spoon approached, silently panting from sexual excitement.  The dish, it seemed to her, was taking forever to finish.  She was startled out of her reverie by the clanking of the spoon against the plate as Alan fed her the last of it.

Anne-Marie flagged down a passing waiter.  “Check, please,” she ordered, shifting her thighs, feeling the moisture pool in her panties.  Alan signed for it and led her out, to the elevator bank; she was panting lightly.  The doors opened and they entered.

Alan moved closer and held her, but she demurred as he leaned into her to kiss

“Cameras in the elevator,” she gasped, taking a step back, knowing that like the at the casino where she worked, all public spaces were monitored.

Once in the room she hugged him to her tightly, her hands slipping under his jacket, rubbing his back.  Alan reciprocated, and she purred at the feel of his hands against her bare flesh.  He pulled her as he walked to the bedroom, and she followed eagerly.  They faced each other, Alan folding his suit coat over the chair, Anne-Marie releasing the catch at the rear of her neck, the dress slipping off her, pooling at her feet.  Alan inhaled, for she was without a bra, her proud breasts high on her chest, hard ruby nipples pointy and upturned.  Clad in only her heels and panties she approached him, then helped him out of the rest of his clothing.  As they kissed Alan’s hand slipped under the elastic waistband of her panties, exploring her.  He slowly fed her pussy his middle finger, enjoying her moans.  His thumb twiddled her clit as he continued to finger fuck her, and he was rewarded with an almost animal franticness her part, her tongue a frenzy in his mouth.  She came mightily, and he had to hold her up, one arm around her back, the other hand remaining at her drenched crotch.  

Down only to his briefs he carried her two steps to the bed and laid her down on it, settling in beside her.  Her hands searched under the fabric of his shorts, his slipping under her sodden panties, green, like her dress, darker in the center due to her female sections, the scent of which was highly arousing to him.

Her mouth at his ear, “Take me, Carl, take me, please,” she huffed, his fingers driving her to a fever pitch.  “Oh GOD,” she screamed, coming as two fingers slipped up her wet pussy, his thumb pressed against her clitoris as he slowly finger fucked her.  “Please,” she begged, “I need you in me, NOW!”

Soft tears ran down her cheek as she felt the head of his cock tease her gates.  Slowly, ever slowly, Alan entered her, her pussy walls spasming gently as he fed her length to her hungry opening.  “Yessssss,” she hissed as he seated himself fully within her, pausing for a short second before withdrawing slightly before probing deeply again.  Alan kept his pace deliberate for a long time, it felt to her, but in fact was just a couple of minutes.  She felt her orgasm rising, but knew she would not be able to peak if he didn’t up his pace. “Harder,” she groaned, “Faster, please, faster.”  She bucked her hip at him, her ass rising from the surface of the bed as he increased the speed of his fucking.  “Yes,” she chanted, “Yes, yes Yes, YES!”  Suddenly she screamed, the force of her orgasm startling.  The walls of her pussy clenched his dick, and her body seized, every muscle stiff.  As he came inside her she moaned again, small tremors ripping through her essence.

As she lay panting and gasping for air after he removed himself from her and got next to her on the bed, holding her, she could feel the sweat drip off of her, her own heartbeat, and his as well.  Nothing else existed for her at that moment.  She slept.

* * *

Alan awoke to a most pleasing sensation.  Opening his eyes slowly he was greeted by the sight of Anne-Marie, or at least the top of her head.  She continued to bob her mouth up and down his cock, unaware as yet that her attentions had roused him (in more ways than one) from his slumber.

“Morning,” he said, half groaning at the pleasure she was giving him.

She released him with a pop, and grinned up at him.  “Good morning,” she replied with a giggle, then recaptured him between her lips.  She hummed as she sucked him, and he found himself aping her, humming along.  Alan came quickly.  He could have held out indefinitely, but the pleasure was intense, and he didn’t want to overdo it.

An hour later, at the breakfast buffet Alan broached the subject of Anne-Marie working for Jack.

“I have a client who is looking for someone with your qualifications.  He’s from England, and he’s moving to New York within the month,” he explained, going on to tell her that the man was semi-retired, a former import-export executive who would be doing some work here and there.  The job would be to insure his personal security and manage his affairs.

She was hesitant; she liked her job, but Alan painted a very glamorous picture, and she agreed to consider it.  Jack would be arriving in a couple of weeks, and “Carl” told her he would call to arrange an interview.

Next Chapter: Getting Jack settled in the Big Apple; the return of Kate. 

Author: Julian Coreto
Title: Alan
Part: 23
Summary: Alan and Kate both come home; a nemisis expolres a new avenue.
Keywords: mc MF

Chapter 23
An easterly wind blows

Lord Thornbow leaned back; the leather desk chair squeaked slightly as he did so.  Mr. Patel stood to the right of his boss’s desk, facing the visitor, his eyes had a distracted look about them, but his ears taking in all.

“I might have a way, but,” the supplicant began, his accent thick, but Thornbow cut him off mid-sentence.

“I am wholly uninterested in ‘mights,’ Takuya-san.  Have you, or have you not?”

The visitor hesitated, and shuddered slightly, either in fear of his host or his proposed solution, he knew not.  “Hai.  Y-yes.” He nodded, his body language communicating that he was pulling out the last resort option, an option he would sooner not have to use.  It was not too late, he mused, though if he continued on this course, the point of no return was imminent  Mr. Patel excused himself to the small private office just off that of his Lordship’s.  The smaller room was wired for sound, so he would be able to hear the offer without Takuya knowing.  His choice was now made.  There was no turning back.

As the Japanese visitor handed over a folder he pleaded with Lord Thornbow, “In exchange for this you must promise me two things.  I must regain complete control of my family, and,” dropping his voice to a whisper, “He must die, he must--this I demand.”

Thornbow slowly turned the pages in the folder, moistening his the tip of his index finger as he did so to facilitate the action.  He did not answer until he had completed the dossier.  As he closed the folder he deigned to answer.  “Agreed, but you must leave the artifact with me.”

Takuya opened his attaché case and removed a small chamois bag with a drawstring at the top and handed it across the desk to Lord Thornbow, who opened it and removed a piece of mineral greatly resembling obsidian, about the size of a child’s fist.  Oblong, tapering to the end to form a blunted point, the dark glass-like substance seemed to have a luster to it belying its black hue.  Lord Thornbow noted that it was surprisingly warm to the touch.

“When she has completed the task for me, when delivery is made, I will return this to you, and not before.  Then he will die. The control of your family will once again be yours.  I need not say, Takuya-san, that I am a man of my word.”

“No, indeed, Your Lordship, you need not,” was the answer the Japanese visitor gave as he stood and then bowed formally.

Mr. Patel returned and showed the visitor to the door.

* * *

It was a hot day in the concrete jungle that is Manhattan.  Alan waited on the stoop in the early morning, the contractor due to arrive at any moment.  A few minutes before nine Wilkins arrived, his briefcase bulging.  The closing on the house, a medium-sized single-family brownstone in the West Nineties, just west of Amsterdam Avenue, had taken place at Wilkins’s office the Friday before, and Jack would be arriving in two days, renting an apartment on a short-term basis at the Apthorp until the renovation and modifications were complete.  Alan was glad to see Stan, because he himself did not have a set of keys with which to allow the workers to enter.  

Wilkins pressed Alan about coming into the office one day over the coming week.  “It’s a feeding frenzy!  The amount of money just laying around is enormous. I’ve talked to Bernard, and he thinks this contract could just about equal all of the work the company has ever done, in pure dollar amounts.”  The chaos in Iraq, specifically the looting of the National Museum and Library had necessitated the U.S. government to put out a request for bids for contractors to coordinate the restoration of the collections, including recataloging all of the recovered items, and a setting up of a system, in conjunction with Interpol, for tracking the illicit trade in looted artifacts.  “We’re talking low eight figures, Alan.  We need to set up a conference call with Rome, us, and Neil.  We need Neil back here, or at the very least, in Rome. We need to hire a lobbyist, someone who knows who has the juice in Washington, and most importantly we need Jack to get in on this.  He has the most knowledge.”

“Yeah, totally,” Alan put in, trying to stanch the lawyer’s over enthusiasm.  “I’ll talk to him when he gets in.  Pencil in Thursday or Friday, but I’ll let you know.”  He checked his watch, worried about the parking meter and missing Kate’s flight.  “It’s a good thing Jack can travel so soon,” he added absently, as he bid a good day to his attorney, and headed to his car.

Kate’s flight was late, so he bought a coffee from a stand in the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia.  She had taken off from a small airport in Maine, and then transferred to the shuttle in Boston.  When the flight arrived, only about ten minutes late, Alan watched the stream of passengers as they came out, but Kate was one of the last off the plane. 
“Am I ever happy to be home,” she said wearily as they made their way to out of the terminal. 

At first glance she looked good.  Alan had never really seen her with a tan, but even her near-religious application of sun block during her canoe trips in Maine had not prevented Kate’s usually porcelain from bronzing.  She was wearing a halter top tucked into khaki shorts, and sandals.  Her upper body was toned, real definition to her arms, but her belt was cinched tight.  Alan could tell she had lost weight, and she looked over-thin.  They kissed in the terminal, the commuters averting their eyes to their wet reunion, and he took her duffel bag and led her to the car.

“What are you doing?” he asked with alarm as she began unbuckling his belt, leaning over his groin to better see what she was doing.

“You have to ask?” she giggled.

He grasped her by the shoulders and put her back in her seat. “Not here,” he said with a grin. “Patience,” he counseled, pulling out of the lot and steering the car towards the Grand Central Parkway.

The ride back to their hometown was fast due to the lull in heavy traffic common at midday.  Kate filled him in on the going on of her summer.

“Well, for a pilot project, it went really well.  We had three groups of girls, and each group spent a week in the canoes, and then three days doing life skill building exercises.  This summer we put through thirty girls in three groups in forty-five days.  Next summer I want to double that, so I’m going to start drafting grant proposals for next year right away.”

“Isn’t it your dad who hands out the grant money?” he asked with a smirk, not taking his eyes off the road so she couldn’t see the expression on his face.

“Yeah,” she admitted, “But don’t forget, there’s still all the committees each proposal has to pass, and then the board of directors.”

“Yes, the board of directors.   Your aunts and uncles.  Cousins.  Your brother Cal.  Your dad’s old college roommate.”

“It still has to be a good proposal,” she sniffed.

“Are you going to do it yourself, or get professional help?”

“I’m thinking that if I can squeeze the money out of the foundation I’ll hire a full- or part-time employee.  Something to talk to my dad about.  Someone t  handle all of the organizational stuff, and the proposal writing, and I’ll just supervise and participate in the summer programs.”

“Cool.  It’s nice to see you getting into something like this.”

* * *

Michiko did not understand why the abbot of her monastery wanted to see her.  A novice, a boy of twelve or thirteen, had interrupted her in the midst of her morning meditations, not at all a happenstance occurrence, handing her a small square of rice paper with the message upon it.  Straightening her robes as she stood, she followed the boy through the hewn-stone passageways to the central courtyard.  The novice stopped in place as she crossed the open area to the opposite side, towards the abbot’s office, not following her along.  

She scanned the boy’s mind as they parted, hoping for a clue as to the nature of this unusual summons.  She had lived at this holy place near the northern end of Hokkaido almost half her life, rarely even leaving its walls.  Now twenty years of age, at first a novice, then a student, and now a Mistress of the Art, a teacher of others; the last nine years had been spent honing her skills, deepening her abilities.  Sadly, however, her sweep through the mind of the young messenger told her nothing.  It was, of course a breach of protocol for her to even probe him at all, but he was new, unskilled in the Art, and would know nothing of her trespass.  She was only slightly worried that the abbot would learn of her bad manners; he himself had recently told her that her own skills surpassed his, implying that at his retirement he planned to push for her to succeed him, to become the abbess.  As she reached the entrance to the abbot’s place she put her worries behind her, confident she could suppress within her the act she had just committed from his ken.

The door to the abbot’s office stood before her, a door made entirely of wood, not a nail or any other metal a part of it.  Even the hinges were of wood.  The ritual upon entering his office was simple.  One did not knock, but merely pulled the door and entered.  There was a small stand holding a candle, and the visitor lit the candle, which illuminated the anteroom.  The anteroom was separated from the main room by a rice paper screen, and the abbot would know the visitor had arrived by seeing the light from the opposite side of the screen.  Michiko did this, and then knelt.  Mere seconds passed before the abbot bade her to enter.

“Much of what I am about to explain to you, young mistress, will not seem to make any sense to you, but listen you must nonetheless.”

She nodded.

He continued: “From time to time masters and mistresses are required to do service outside these walls.  Often in the past, young one, these tasks have been distasteful, perversions of our code.  Service to the Empire, to the emperor himself, made demands on our order, demands we would have been happier not to undertake.  Gladly, those days have passed.

The abbot reached for a small glass of water on the table between them, and Michiko did likewise.

“I regret to inform you that your services are needed, needed outside the confines of our monastery.”

A loud knock on the outer door interrupted him, startling them both.  The abbot closed his eyes, frustration and dread upon his face.  “Enter,” he sighed.  The new party opened the door and pulled the screen open without invitation.  The man who intruded was big, especially for a Japanese, more than six feet tall.  He wore a black Western-style suit, a white shirt with solid black necktie, but what caught her eye the most was the collar.  Not the collar itself, but what was peeking out from the top of it.  She saw the edge of a lick of flames, brilliantly inked into the man’s skin.

Yakuza.

A gangster.  The last sort of outsider she had ever expected to contaminate the purity of this place.

“This man,” the abbot said, not bothering with proper introductions, “Will inform you of your task.”

The gangster grunted, at which the abbot blanched.

“If you would be so kind,” the abbot said to the Yakuza, gesturing to the door, but the man failed to budge.  His mission orders were explicit: once in sight of the mistress he was not to leave her side until she was delivered to Tokyo.

<You must follow him, Mistress Michiko.  The future of our order depends upon the success of your mission.> the abbot projected.

<Why, Abbot, why?>

<I wish there was more time to explain, young mistress, but this barbarian arrived sooner than I had expected.  The stone has been stolen, held for ransom by this man’s obuyan.  It will be returned if you complete the task.  I do not have to tell you what this means for our order.  Go with him.>

She bowed to her abbot and followed the man out.  In the car to the airfield she scanned the gangster’s mind, finding no information contained therein the slightest bit helpful.

* * *

When Alan and Kate arrived at her house they found it empty. Conchita, the family maid, was on a long vacation, Pauline was at her job, as was her dad.  The question her mom’s whereabouts were solved by a note left on the kitchen table.

“Hi Kate,

Welcome home.  Sorry I’m not here to see you, but Aunt Vicky fell in her apartment.  We think it’s her hip, and I’m at NYU Medical Center dealing with the doctors.  You can reach me on my cell if you need to.

Love,
Mom”

“Who’s Aunt Vicky?” Alan asked, reading the note over her shoulder.

“Not my aunt, my mom’s aunt.  She’s like really old, eightysomething.”

“Oh yeah, I think I met her at Pauline’s sweet sixteen.”

“Probably.   You know what this means?  We have the house to ourselves.”  She took his hand and led him to the stairs, but they were interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone.  It was a steady BEEP BEEP BEEP, rather than its usual trilling ring, signifying that this was a call coming in on the secure line.  Alan released her hand and answered the call.

“Sorry about this, I have to take this call,” he said to her as he brought the phone up to his ear.

“Alan?”

“Yes, Karick, it’s me.”

“I’m back in New York, at the office.  You have to come in.  Now.”

“Now?” he asked with some exasperation.  He was really looking forward to some alone time with Kate.

“Yes, it’s imperative.  Are you at home?”

“No, at my girlfriend’s.”

“Good.  Do not go back to your house.”  Karick hung up.

Slightly puzzled, Alan pocketed his own phone and shrugged his shoulders as a form of apology to Kate.  She had heard his side of the conversation, so he didn’t need to explain.  “I’ll see you later,” he said as he kissed her cheek at the door.

Karick had called immediately after he had cleared customs at JFK, and his cab reached the entrance of the office building just as Alan was walking up.

“What’s the big deal?” Alan asked as they entered the building.  Karick put his finger to his lips and whispered that he wanted to wait until they were behind closed doors.  Locking the door behind them the former Czech intelligence agent rushed to the computer in the corner and booted it up.

“So?” Alan asked again.

“The team in London.  They’ve spotted him.  He’s moving.  Coming here.  The Indian, Patel.”  Karick often spoke like this when he was excited or anxious, spitting out short sentences in machine-gun fashion.  He beckoned Alan over and tilted the screen.  A slideshow of surveillance pictures was running, the first showing Patel, the man who had arranged Alan’s kidnapping last Thanksgiving weekend (which Karick had carried out), leaving a Belgravia mansion in a black car.  Karick’s London team had trailed the car to Heathrow, calling him on the way, and Karick had grabbed the next flight.  It was the first time the London team had spotted Lord Thornbow’s right hand man since last year.

“Where is he now?”

“The Marriott in midtown.  I have a small group watching the hotel.”

Alan understood why his summons had been so urgent.  Patel meant trouble.  “So what now?  I can’t go home?”

“No, I have a team headed up to your place right this moment.  I needed you here, and not there, to give them time to get settled.”

The phone on the desk started to ring, and Alan answered.  It was Jack, calling from London.

“Sorry to put a bit of a scare into you, young man, but Tadeusz and I discussed it, and we decided that his place was next to you, for the moment.”

“No, no, it’s cool.  I understand.  When are you coming in?”

“Two days from now, and a good thing, too.  I think I’ll be needed.  When my step-brother makes his move through this Patel fellow he will be in for quite a surprise.  I don’t think they reckoned they were going to face two Vessels, as opposed to just you.”  He bade his good-byes and hung up.  Five minutes later Karick’s team called in to say they were in place.  Alan agreed to lend his car to Karick for a few days.  It was better that way, anyway, since Thornbow’s people undoubtedly knew of his, and he could always borrow either his mom’s or dad’s.

“Be careful,” Karick said as Alan walked out into the hall.  The door to the office clicked shut behind him.

* * *

The burly gangster said nothing to her on the drive to the airfield, instead concentrating on the road.  To her surprise, upon leaving the abbot’s office, she saw that her belongings had been packed into a small suitcase, her sword in its scabbard placed neatly to the side.

A small private plane was waiting on the field’s lone runway, its engines already turning, and they boarded forthwith.  Thankfully, from her point of view, the gangster (his name Kozo, a fact he had not volunteered, she had to steal it from his mind) took the seat farthest from hers.  Without having anything better to do with her time she leaned back in the plush seat and slept.  Danger would come to her, she knew, but it was on a distant horizon; Kozo, though dangerous, was not the slightest danger to her.

The sun was high in the sky, near midday, she guessed, as the plane began its descent.  The change in pressure, that faintly uncomfortable popping of the inner ears, awakened her.  A limousine was waiting for them at the bottom of the small set of stairs which protruded from the aircraft’s hull, but to her surprise Kozo did not follow her in after depositing her things in the trunk.  The chauffeur closed the door right after she had settled in and pulled away with her alone in the rear.  The windows were dark, not merely tinted but completely opaque; the divider separating her from the driver was raised, so her view of the outside was entirely blocked.  She shut her eyes and opened her mind, her powers allowing her to follow the route precisely.  They were leaving the city, traveling southwest.  The highway was jammed as always, and the going slow.  She opened her eyes, no longer interested, deciding instead to use the time to meditate.  

Lost within herself she was shaken out of her trance by the opening of the door.  The chauffer offered her his hand as she got out of the car, but she gestured him off.  The house before her was modest in size, but the garden was large.  She walked the path the driver had indicated, and it was less than a minute before she came upon her host.  He stood square in the path, blocking any progress.  He welcomed her and invited her to a small sitting platform next to the garden’s artificial pond.  The man was all business, and their conversation was short.

Quickly they went through the dossier, and in less than a half hour after arriving she was back in the limo, headed back to the airport; a copy of the dossier and a mobile phone awaited her on the back seat in the limo’s passenger compartment.  

Though her host had told her his name was Hiroshi, she knew that he was Takuya Tagumi older brother of the head of one of Tokyo’s biggest Yakuza clans.  One of his men had stolen the crystal, and in return for her first killing this Alan Marshall person, and then performing the other more distastful act which she chose at that moment not to dwell upon, her order’s property would be restored.  On this she concentrated, caring little about the target himself.  Her training, which included hours in the classroom participating in long and drawn out ethical debates, should have stirred revulsion within her at the mere thought of this mission, but she was following the dictates of her abbot, the head of her order, and so was able to push these feeling to the back of her mind.

On the long flight over the Pacific she reviewed the dossier repeatedly; according to it Alan Marshall was a Master, like she was, but his power was derived from some other source.  There were no gaijin in her monestary, and knew of no other similar institutions.  If he really did posses powers like her own, which a small part of her doubted, she would have to move swiftly.  She could not afford to stalk him for any significant amount of time, for he would be able to sense her presence.  Her contact in New York, a man named Patel, would tell her where the boy could be found, and she would set out for his location forthwith, and do the deed.  She would work at night.

* * *

“What was that all about?” Kate asked on the ride back to her house from the station a few hours following his abrupt departure.

“Just some report I was working on.  The deadline was moved up, so I had to go into the office to put on the finishing touches and send it off.”

She kissed him.  “Well, it’s nice to have you back, but unfortunately we’re no longer alone.”

As she led him into the house he heard voices from the kitchen.  Pauline was back from her summer job, and was chatting with their brother Cal, their Mom, and to Alan’s surprise, his mom as well.  The were all having dinner together, the Marshalls and the Van Devanters.  The dads were on their way, taking the next hour’s express from the city together.

Dinner was taken in the dining room, for with all of the members of the two families present the kitchen table would not have been big enough to accommodate.  It was still early when the plate were cleared away by Kate, Pauline, Cal, and Alan.  Cal was going into Manhattan to meet up with some of his college buddies (borrowing Kate’s car), and Pauline was going to the movies when her boyfriend, Brian, whose summer job didn’t let out until 8, was able to pick her up.  Alan and Kate set out on foot for a jaunt around the neighborhood.  The two sets of parents were in the den, Mr. Van Devanter setting up for a four way game of Scrabble.

As the reached the foot of the Van Devanter’s drive Alan held out his crooked arm, and Kate weaved hers through it.  Arm in are they walked, and it wasn’t long before they had tunred off Westervelt Road and onto Vaughters Lane.  Alan’s house was near the end of the cul-de-sac.  The didn’t talk much on the walk over, Alan distracted by the ominous reappearence of Thornbow’s agent, and Kate was a little tired from traveling, and just happy being with him.  Alan stuttered his step at seeing the surveillance van parked two houses up the lane from his own, but Kate didn’t seem to notice, lost in her own thoughts.

After they climbed the three porch steps to his front door Kate wrapped her arms around his torso and pulled him down into a kiss.  Breaking the kiss Alan smiled and put his mouth to her ear, licking and sucking at the lobe.  She ground her body against his, her long skirt swaying in the light breeze, the hem of its soft material tickling her calves.

“How much time do you think we have,” she asked, her voice muted, breathless.

“Hmm...at least one Scrabble game amount of time,” he said back, releasing her ear to do so.

She plunged her hand into his pants pocket.

He straightened up with a jolt.  “Hey!  Not out here.”

“No, silly,” she giggled, continuing to fish around in his pockets, “I’m just looking for your keys.”

Upstairs in his bedroom they stood at the side of his bed as they undressed eachother.  Alan leaned into her and she fell back onto the bed, her skirt on the floor, her blouse unbuttoned and open.  Something was bothering Alan, and had been since he had collected her from the airport, and now, watching Kate take off her blouse it dawned on him.  He could see Kate’s ribs through her skin.  When he had hugged her at La Guardia she had seemed slighter to him, but seeing her full in the flesh was nearly shocking.  The cups of her bra were loose around her breasts, and her panties were similarly baggy, the elastic of the waistband bunched up around her hips.  Her skin was ever so slightly slack over her flesh.

Kate could sense something was wrong just by the way he was looking at her.  Her feelings of concern was mirrored by the look of worry in his eyes.  She followed his gaze down her body.

“Lost a little weight on the trip.  But it’s not that bad.  A little aerobics, and some other stuff, and I’ll tone right up.  Been meaning to shed a few pounds, anyway.”

“A few pounds, Kate?  How many have you lost?” he asked her pointedly, his tone demanding

She sat up on the bed and looked away from him, his staring highly unnerving.  “Fifteen,” she answered in a tone so low Alan had to strain to make it out.  A small clear drop formed at the corner of her eye, and she turned away farther, swinging her legs over the far side of the mattress, so he wouldn’t see.  “You think I look awful, don’t you?” she sniffed.  Alan sat down on the bedspread behind her and enveloped her in his arms. 

“No, baby, no,” he soothed her.  “It’s just,” he paused, his mind floundering for the right way to put what he needed to say into words, “It’s just that you look so, uh, unhealthy, that is, I mean to say, it just seems so unhealthy for you to have lost this much weight.”

She wriggled out of his grasp and fell on him.  “I’m sorry,” she sobbed.

“Don’t apologize.  You had a very strenuous summer, and the food couldn’t have been that good, right?”  She nodded, her silky black hair running up and down over his chest, hot tears dripping over his skin.  He held her awhile longer, until she mostly quit shivering, and then she looked him in the face and drew him into a kiss, which warmed her to the point that her trembling ceased in full.  She positioned him on his back and then straddled him, reaching around behind herself to deal with the clasp of her bra, but before she could release it he opened his eyes and took her in again.

“Milkshake,” he said evenly.

Kate stopped what she was doing.  “Pardon?”

“Milkshake,” he repeated, scooting out from under her.  “Get your clothes on, were going out for milkshakes.  Maybe some chili fries, too.”  He gave her a playful sway on the ass.

“Uh, Alan, don you want to, uh, you know?” she asked with a blush.

“Milkshake.”

She didn’t move except to drop her hands from the clasp, and looked at him with an uncomprehending gape.

“Do I need to make it an order from you Master?”

She grinned, reaching for her blouse.

* * *

She was achy and tired from the long flight.  Following the instructions she had removed from the pouch back in the second limo she hailed a cab and directed it to midtown, to the Marriott.  Halfway across the Triboro bridge the cell phone in her pocket rang, and she answered it promptly.

“You have arrived?”

“Hai, yes.”

“Good.  Listen and do not speak. Your room has been reserved.  You will find further instructions and information in there.  I will be in touch with you by means of this phone regularly.  We have been tracking the boy’s movements, and we will let you know where he can be found when the time is right to move against him.  You are understandably weary from your travels.  I will call again tomorrow, around midday.”  The caller clicked off.

She didn’t like the sound of what she was hearing.  She was the trained Mistress of the Art, and she, she felt, should be the one deciding when the correct time was to make her move.  If the target was as dangerous as the dossier had made him out to be then only she was qualified to be the judge of these things.  Too tired to be indignant she settled back into the seat of the cab, looking forward to a long night of sleep and an uninterrupted meditation session in the morning.

* * *

“You have some chocolate on your chin,” Alan told her, an amused tone to his voice.  She ran her finger over it and licked it off.  Alan had just started up his dad’s station car, an ancient Cadillac sedan, more than twenty years old, only used by Mr. Marshall to drive to and from the Metro-North station on work days.  The engine was old and somewhat unreliable, and the car never left the borders of their small suburban village.

They had had a nice time at George’s, the diner/ice cream parlor.  As they entered they saw old classmates arrayed around the establishment in knots and bunches. A few friends who hadn’t yet been seated when Alan and Kate arrived invited them to join them, and the hostess led them through the restaurant section to a booth in the back, away from the jam packed ice cream counter.  Alan ordered a large chili fries for them to share, and a coke, and Kate chose a chocolate milkshake.  All in all they spent a happy hour, gorging themselves and catching up with friends.  

“Well, that was fun,” he offered, and Kate agreed.

As he turned off State Street towards their neighborhood she put her hand on his arm.  “No, keep going, up to Staunton Road.”

“Huh?” he asked.

“Trust me,” she shot back, a sly smile crossing her lips.  She directed him to a back road, behind the old, now disused, post office, and he pulled the rickety car into a small opening among a copse of trees.  In an instant they were in the spacious backseat.  As they kissed Kate pulled his shirt from out of his waistband and ran her palms up and down his body.  Alan had his hands on her butt, massaging her gently.  She moaned, her tongue vibrating within his mouth, and before long he was stripped to the waist.  Now it was Alan’s turn to moan.  

Kate had broken their kiss, attacking his nipples with her lips and tongue as her hands went furiously to the task of unbuttoning her blouse and shedding her brassiere.  That done, she slipped out of her skirt as he was unbuckling his belt.  She grabbed at the waist of his chinos and yanked them down, her fingertips curling around to grab his briefs as well.  As Alan kicked off his pants from around his ankles and sat back, she descended on his hardening cock, first licking around the head, and then taking him in a few inches.  He ran his fingers through her dark hair as she did this, and it wasn’t long before he was completely erect.  

He pulled her off of him and laid her down on the wide bench seat.  She scooted back and brought her knees up, spreading them just enough so he could settle between them.  As he caressed her inner thighs as he moved to her, she began to hum to herself.  It had been ages, she realized, since she had been with him last, and she really missed it.  His shaft settled against her moist and hairless slit, and she loosed a small moan, calling out to him.  Slowly he rubbed himself against her tacky flesh, and after a very short while his cock was coated with her secretions.

“Oh, Alan, yes,” she hissed as he entered her slowly, their eyes locked to each other’s.  Before she knew what was happening he was laying atop her fully, his mouth once again pressed to hers, his slithering tongue seeking hers.  He began to fuck her gently, only very gradually upping his pace, and even then he never approached a full head of steam.  To Kate it seemed to be going on forever.  He moved back into a crouch after a few minutes, and she could see the moonlight shining off their sweaty bodies.  The insides of the car’s windows began to steam up as she moaned out her passion.  He was still giving it to her slow, and it was inscrutably pleasurable, his thrusts making her climb higher and higher on a ladder of ecstasy, though not permitting her to make the ultimate leap.  Through near chattering teeth she began to chant, “Alan, Alan, Alan...”

He realized something as they made love.  He had been home for nearly a week, but until this moment he hadn’t really felt fully returned.  Being with Kate was special to him, though she wasn’t his only partner, and wouldn’t be going forward.  Lost in his musing he wasn’t paying full attention to her, and the suddenness of her climax startled him back into the here and now.  Her back arched, and she let out a stifled scream, her teeth grinding together in an attempt to control her volume.  Alan at last began to increase the rapidity of his thrust, and after a few minutes of this they came together.  He collapsed, falling off the backseat for a moment before righting himself.  Kate turned on her side and made herself small against the seat back and the snuggled together for a while, chatting of frivolities, her hands languidly rubbing all around his bare chest.  The necked for a bit, and then redressed and made for their neighborhood, laughing at their luck at not being caught.

* * *

The sleep did her good, though she had found the soft mattress less confortable than her usual spartan sleep mat.  She was up more than two hours before the call was expected, so she meditated for one of those hours, and used the other to do her sword exercises.  If she had her way she would move against him this very night.  She was anxious for the call to come, and anxiety was very out of character for her.  With nothing left to do she went over the maps and photos once again.  There was a particularly good aerial shot of the target’s house, and she pored over it, focusing on the large tree in the front yard.  A good place to conceal one’s self, a good place from which to strike.  Five minutes after five.  “What is this delay?” she thought.  The phone chirped, and she speeded over to the table to answer it.

* * *

The whole day seemed off putting.  Something was seriously wrong.  If he was more of a comic book fan he might have said his spider sense was tingling.  As it was, all day long the small hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end.

He didn’t know it, but Jack was having the same experience.  All through his long trans-Atlantic flight he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going wrong.  He had planned to head straight for the sublet apartment, but by the time he landed he had changed his mind, directing Karick to drive straight to Alan’s house, hoping against hope he was not too late.

Next chapter: If I had a hammer... 

Author: Julian Coreto
Title: Alan
Part: 24
Summary: Alan and Kate both come home; a nemesis explores a new avenue.
Keywords: mc MF

Chapter 24
Hammer

The street was dark as she briefly exposed herself to view.  The Indian had dropped her off a few blocks from the target’s house, and she stealthily moved through various yards; each time she had to cross a path she made a complete job of looking all about, making sure she was not seen.  It was slow going, but before long she was standing in the Marshall’s back yard.  She pressed herself against the side of the house, inching to the front.  Taking a deep breath she then darted out of cover, and in seconds was silently scampering up the tree.  There she waited.  She inserted the tiny speaker in her left ear and scanned up the road.  It really was a good place to set up.  The road dead ended a few meters behind her, so there was no way Alan Marshall could hope to sneak up to her.  Her muscles tensed as she spotted headlights turning onto the street, but the Indian transmitted into her ear that this was not her target’s arrival.  Her hands were sticky, and she wiped them free of tree sap against her black robes.

She waited a long time.  Most of the lights in the houses were already out for the night as she ate a simple meal of sticky rice wrapped in seaweed.  From time to time a car came down the lane, but each time her earpiece crackled with the information that the vehicle in question was not her target’s car.  She wore no timepiece but knew the hour was very late.  Many a time as she waited she considered meditating, but rejected the idea, wanting to remain fully alert.

Two pinpricks of light appeared in the distance, enlarging as the car approached.  This time it was him.  She rolled her head, loosening her muscles.  The car pulled up to the house, not coming up the drive, but taking the spot by the curb.  This came as no surprise to her. Hours before she had watched as Marshall’s parents returned home, the vehicle, piloted by the father slipping in next to another one in the two car garage.  Her body tensed as she prepared to spring from her hiding spot.  She heard the engine shut down.  There was a brief pause before she saw the interior lights of Marshall’s car come on and the driver-side door swing open.  The wind was picking up as she dropped to the grass below her.

Alan got out of the car and shut the door.  The whole day he had been bothered, a feeling in the back of his mind that something wasn’t quite right.  It had receded by late afternoon, after he had left to pick up Kate at the train station, and by halfway through their sushi-and-a-movie night out it had disappeared almost completely.  Now, however, it was returning, and with a bit of a vengeance.  After dropping Kate off at her house and steering his dad’s station car the few blocks home, the dull throbbing reappeared, something like a faint headache.  He had looked around after cutting the engine, but had seen nothing, and reassured by the presence of the security men in the van halfway up the block, he had gotten out.

* * *

Karick had been pissed off for the last three hours.  His hands gripped the wheel tightly as he drove, too tightly for comfort.  He had just picked up Jack at the International Terminal at JFK, and had been relieved that the old man--well, not so old man now that he inhabited the body of Theodore Dickinson--had ordered him to take him up to see Alan at once.  The problem was that Alan wasn’t answering his cell phone.  Karick didn’t know how long Alan had been off the air, but he knew that he’d been trying to get a hold of him for the last three hours, and had as yet been unsuccessful.

Jack was in the back seat, reading over some papers as Karick sped up the Bronx River Parkway, doing at least twenty over the limit.  His new assistant, Peter Gant, a former U.S. Army Ranger, was trying to calm him.  

“Slow down, slow down,” he counseled, “You’re just going to get pulled over, and that’ll just set us back.”

“Young man,” Jack piped in from the backseat, “We are in dire circumstances.  There is no risk of our being pulled over.  Leave the local constabulary to me.”

Peter did not understand, but decided not to question how their passenger would prevent the smokies from stopping them.  Karick put his foot down, and the car rocketed farther ahead.

Patrice and Eric, the two watchers on duty a few doors down from Alan’s house set their cards down as they saw his car come down the street.  Their shifts were soon to end, and they were looking forward to the rest of the night off. Eric turned in his swivel captain’s-style chair and checked the monitor.  The tiny transponder implanted behind Alan’s knee responded to the signal and chirped an answer to the machine’s interrogator.  A small blip appeared on the screen and he keyed the two-way radio feature on his cell phone, paging Karick.

“Nest to Sentinel, Alan pulling up now.  Are you still unable to raise him?”

The frantic quality to Karick’s voice was evident through the ether. “He’s there?”

“Affirmative.”

Karick picked up speed.  Jack then suggested that the two guard grab Alan and get him away from the house.  Karick relayed the message.  Patrice grumbled at these new instructions, ones contrary to the protocols he had been briefed with when he started this job.  As Alan got out of the car they did the same.

* * *

She was about fifteen meters from him, advancing steadily.  He had only taken a few steps towards his house when the quiet of the street was broken by voices coming from up the block.

“Alan!  Mr. Marshall, sir!” two men cried out as they made their way towards the driveway.  She watched her target pause, turning to face the calls.  She sprung, her sword held high in a two-handed grip.

Just as he was completely turned around Alan noticed something out of the corner of his eye, a tiny flash of reflected light off a long thin metal object.  “A sword.  Headed at me,” his brain instantly processed.  He took a step backwards, the sole of his right foot coming down on an acorn, one still green from the recent rain, one scattered by the recent gust of wind.  He fell on his ass, hard, but luckily as he saw the sword miss him, whistling through the air where he was, seconds before, standing upright.

A figure, clad in all black, its face obscured by a mask, twisted around, bring the sword towards him.  Not thinking he reacted, using his powers to defend himself.  With a clatter, the long weapon went flying down the road, more then twenty feet.  He expect the bearer to be startled, allowing him a second or two to regroup, but the ninja-like figure paid this development almost no heed, kicking him while he was attempting to lift himself up, the crepe sole of her shoe smacking against his face, the back of his head striking the pavement with force.

“Hey!  You there!  Freeze!” Alan heard one of his guards yell.  His vision, though blurry from the blow to the head, could still make them out, advancing toward him rapidly, their sidearms drawn, pointed at his assailant.

Her attention distracted momentarily, Alan hoisted himself to his feet and began to inch away from the scene as quietly as he could, his steps wobbly.  The ninja person had turned his back on him, dealing now with the others.  She waved her arm out, and to Alan’s shock his two rescuers crumpled to the ground in midstride.  Alan had managed to put about a dozen feet between him and the attacker before the ninja turned back.

“Keep away,” he mumbled as loudly as he could through his swollen mouth.  A warm trickle of blood was flowing from a small gash on the back of his skull, down his neck and under his collar, and he was slightly groggy.  She sprung at him again, and it was all his effort to repel her with his mind.  She was practically flying at him, her right foot tracing an arc through the night air headed right for his chin when he pushed against her with his mind.  She missed him and curled into a ball as she landed, rolling over and bouncing up into a battle position in a single smooth motion.  Her eyes darted over the landscape, searching out for her blade.  She spotted it almost at once, lying on the hard pavement almost at the mouth of the next house’s driveway.  Clapping her hands together dramatically she concentrated on it and it lifted off the surface of the road, soaring to her hand.  Alan saw it too, and he diverted it with his TK.  It flipped over, the point of it now flying towards Michiko, and she dove out of its path so as not to be impaled.

Alan kept with it, causing the shaft of the blade to be impaled in the oak in his front yard, halfway to the hilt.  The ninja, who by this time Alan had deduced was a woman, jumped up again, but he was quick enough on his feet to dodge this time.

“You’ve made a mistake coming here,” he said with more confidence than he actually felt; blood was dripping from his mouth, and he spat to avoid swallowing some of it.  He watched her wheel around, and midway through her move he reached out with his power to seize her mind.  To his consternation he couldn’t get a grip on her consciousness.  Furiously he concentrated, but it was futile, like trying to hug a greased sow.

His mind probe momentarily startled her as she was in mid-kick, but she brushed it off easily; it did, however affect her aim, and her blow to him was only glancing, connecting with his side.  Twisting her body around she struck at him with an open hand, connecting with a chop to his gut, and he doubled over in pain, the wind knocked out of him.  Seeing this she scampered over to the tree and began to wrestle with the handle of her sword, trying to pry it from the trunk.  She could hear him gasping a few meters behind her as she freed the weapon.  Turning to him again she raised the sword high and advanced.  Just as she was about to strike the deadly blow something went wrong.

She was flying backwards, and with a crash she collided with the oak tree, a massive blow, her whole body aching at the impact.  “The little bastard,” she thought bitterly, picking herself up off the grass, one hand brushing dirt and debris from the front of her robes while the other hand seized the handle of the sword.  “Two can play at this game.”

He was running down the road, trying to get away.  A quick thought and he was down, having tripped over an invisible obstacle she had created in his path.  By the time she had caught up with him he was on his feet again, making to run.  A flash of steel and he was bleeding from a cut, though not as deep as she would have hoped, a gash running from his right shoulder to his left hip.  His shirt was in tatters, and soaked red.

Alan lashed out with his TK and she went flying again, landing with a thud about thirty feet away, but to his chagrin she was on her feet within a second or two, charging again.  Behind him he could hear a car approaching, its headlights casting long shadows on the roadway.  She was almost at him once more, and with his strength abandoning him he repelled another attack, knowing within himself that he had not the vigor to do so again.  His vision was blurry, both from the pain he felt and the copious amount of sweat dripping off his forehead and stinging his eyes, as he watched her approach again.  With a vague sense of distraction, like he was a character in a martial arts movie, and not a soon to be victim, he watched the steel blade as it swooped towards his neck.   He was going to die.  He was going to die in the next three seconds.

She heard the squeal of the brakes, but paid it no heed.  The moment of victory was at hand, and she would not be distracted from her mission.  Two hands gripped on the handle of the sword, one quick slash and it would be over.  She was already thinking about the follow through of her slashing action when the sword once again skipped from her hands, clattering to the pavement.  Three men were approaching her, two with handguns pointed right at them.  “Well,” she thought, “This wont be anything but another slight annoyance, like the first two.”  Once again she waved her arm in the prescribed motion and said the proper incantation, but to her horror, nothing happened.

She was struck by a blow of immense proportion, not a physical blow, but a battering ram of pure mental energy, flooring her.  This new player, the man in the middle of the pack of three walking towards her position, was playing the game on a higher order of magnitude, she feared.  Slowly she rose from the ground to confront this new threat, but no sooner had she righted herself, spitting blood, than another wave of psychic power overwhelmed her.

Alan was sitting, propped against the Anderson’s mailbox, blinking rapidly. Jack and the two others ran up to him.  “I’m alive,” he croaked, straining with effort to get the words out.

“Yes, my friend, but only just,” Jack said quietly, crouching beside him.  A few lights went on in the houses on the street, but with a quick global command from Jack they were swiftly extinguished, the residents returning to their beds.  Alan could see his attacker, laying flat on her back in the center of the road, unmoving.  Karick and the other man were tending to the two guards, trying to rouse them while Jack tended to his wounds.  He could feel Jack’s hands on the back of his head, and it felt as though he was being tickled as the skin on his scalp was knitted back together.  A similar process took care of the bloody wound to his torso, and he attempted to stand up but Jack held him still, telling him not to move.

The former Dr. Massimo left his side and went to help with Patrice and Eric, all the time keeping a sharp eye on the attacker lying in the road.  The two security men had been stunned into unconsciousness, and it wasn’t long before they were finding their feet, slowly making their way back to the surveillance van, Peter and Karick fast on their heels carrying the ninja’s limp body between them.  Jack returned to the mailbox and sat beside Alan, his eyes closed.

“You’re still a trifle shocky, Alan,” he said very quietly, taking one of Alan’s hands in his own.

Alan felt soft pulses of energy pass through their manual connection, and was soon feeling a whole lot better.  Karick went over to the van and instructed them to wait, then returned to Alan and Jack, standing guard, his gun at his side.

By his wristwatch Jack spent almost ten minutes pulsing Seed energy into him as they sat quietly on the semi-deserted street, Karick pacing around them.  At long last he felt his two companions grab him from his underarms and lift him up.  Karick went and moved the car, parking it around the corner and out of sight as Jack led Alan back to his house and up to his room.  Tadeusz joined them shortly thereafter.

“That was some scary shit,” Alan commented after quickly downing a glass of water Jack had fetched.

“You’re telling me!” Karick laughed, though his face was all business.

“Who is she, Alan?” Jack asked, his features circumspect.

“No clue.  She was powerful.  I couldn’t penetrate her mental defenses.  She came this close to killing me.  It’s a good thing you got here when you did.”

“Yes,” Jack replied dryly, “But it would have been a better thing if you would have answered you cell phone.”

“Fuck!  I turned it off when I went into the movie theater, and forgot to turn it back on when we left.”

“Well, that’s water under the bridge now,” Karick said, “But I do hope you’ll be more attentive in the future.”

“Well, I’d love to stay and chat all night, but there are matters pressing, none more so than the young woman now out cold in the van.  Rest up, my young friend,” Jack said as a farewell, patting Alan’s head paternally.  He was asleep in minutes.

Jack stopped Karick as they were halfway down the driveway back to the car.  “I think it is time to pick up the Indian.  He is near, but headed back to Manhattan, to the hotel.  We will collect him there.  You and I will ride back in the van with the girl.  Leave Peter and the Buick here to guard Alan.”  Karick nodded and jogged ahead to issue instructions to his team.

* * *

He didn’t see all of it, but he did catch the end of it, and that was enough.  After signaling the woman he had put his car in gear and made his way to the end of Marshall’s block, parking just around the corner.  With great care he inched his way on foot through the first yard to see the battle, and to be ready when the mission had been carried out.  The appearance of the newcomers was a sorry happening, but there was nothing for him to do but flee.  It was his luck that he was an unknown element as yet, he believed.

* * *

“OK, boss, where to?” Karick asked as they pulled away from Alan’s street.  He was driving with wet shoes, something he had never really liked, but was tonight a consequence of having to hose the blood off of the pavement in front of the Marshall house.

“Federal Plaza, in Manhattan,” Jack instructed, and Karick accelerated through the dim streets towards the highway onramp.

“This time of night?”

“The guardians of democracy never sleep, my friend, though I myself could use some.  I’m a little jetlagged.”

It was child’s play for Jack and Karick to gain admission to the building.  Within minutes the INS and the FBI were in possession of the photo of Patel snapped just a few days before as he left London for Heathrow and the USA. The agents didn’t know why they were to detain the Indian, but the knew that Mr. Lazarus was to be informed immediately when it happened.

The assassin was lodged in the secure office in Wilkins’s suite, and at long last Jack was able to rest.

Two days later Mr. Patel was removed from a Dulles to Heathrow afternoon non-stop, and within hours the FBI had turned him over to Jack.

* * *

“I don’t remember if I said this the other night, but thank you for saving my life.  And thank Karick and the other guy, too.

“What I don’t understand is the why of it,” Alan was saying as he took a bite out of his steak.  Jack paused as he brought his wineglass to his lips.  They were in a semi-secluded booth at a midtown steakhouse a few days after Patel had been caught.

“My stepbrother is smart, but sometimes that is not enough.  One can be too persistent for one’s own good, a lesson he is dire need of relearning.  I think a small part of him understands that this obsession of his, his thirst for power, is going to one day spell his doom, but his arrogance clouds his judgment to such a degree that he denies the folly of his course.”

“What has the woman been saying?”

“Nothing, not a word, at least with her mouth.  Her mind, on the other hand, is quite a revelation.”

“So you’ve been successful in penetrating through her defense?  I tried that night, but I couldn’t get a hold around it.  It was...”

“Slippery, yes, I’ve run into that problem myself,” Jack chuckled.

“So how do you get around it?”

“Well, first thing, when you and her were doing battle she was honed for combat.  Over the last few days I’ve been keeping her unconscious most of the time, and taking my time working around her ingrained defenses.  I haven’t learned much from her, but Patel has been most illuminating.  Just the fact that she can repel our advances as she is able is the illuminating thing.”  Jack proceeded to tell Alan what her had learned by interrogating the Indian.

“But, but, but,” Alan sputtered, “That wouldn’t have worked!  He really wanted to kill me and take my ring?  Cut my hands off?  Why would he think that my power derived from the ring?”

“Unlike us Vessels, he knows nothing of the true nature of the Seed, of its history, its origins.  After his first attempt failed he became even more obsessed with the promise of the Seed, and is now willing to do anything, not matter how rash or badly thought out the plan might be. To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”

“So, what do we do now? Are we going to go after him, neutralize him as a threat?”

“For now, we do nothing, at least nothing overt.  I’m going to release Patel soon, let him go back to his master if he wants, and if he has the balls to go back to London, he’ll report to me, though I doubt he’ll risk the wrath of my brother.  The female presents a far greater threat, and I will be concentrating my efforts on thoroughly shattering her defenses.  When the house is ready she will be moved there.  I had one of the small rooms in the basement made into a sort of makeshift brig.  It’s getting late.  We should adjourn for the evening.  I’m meeting your friend Anne-Marie tomorrow,” he added with a wicked grin.

* * *

The limousine Mr. Lazarus sent arrived at ten in the morning, and Anne-Marie was ready for it, having awakened at six.  She was nervous.  She really did love her work at the casino, and could see herself making a career there, but the picture Carl had painted for her, a glamorous life filled with travel and interesting--and varied--work had its attractions as well.  The struggle within her caused a restless night, and so, when the summer sun rose over the shore and filled her bedroom with early morning light she was almost relieved that the suspense was nearly over.  She would know.  Today was the day she would know whether she would be departing her comfortable existence for a new more cosmopolitan way.  In the four hours between her rising and the arrival of the car she fussed.  First over her make up, spending more than twice her usual time applying the cosmetics, albeit with her usual feather-light touch, and then over what to wear, settling, after numerous false starts on a just-above-the knee tan skirt, a matching jacket, and her fanciest, most stylish white blouse, one that was cut low, but not too low.  She checked her hose over and over looking for runs, putting aside three pair before finding a completely unblemished set, and then donning them in an extremely careful fashion.  Too nervous to eat she sat at her kitchen table, nursing a mug of coffee for more than an hour waiting for her ride, looking at the morning paper, but not actually focusing on it enough to read the words.

She took the paper with her when the chauffeur had led her to the car, and during the ride up the turnpike she managed to stanch her nervousness enough to read it.  She was surprised when she reached the office building that Mr. Lazarus was waiting on the pavement to meet her, but he explained as he climbed into the car that their first meeting was to be over lunch, and he directed the driver to a nearby restaurant.

The lunch went well, she thought. The job, as he described it sounded interesting, and had he asked her for a decision right then and there she would have accepted, but he made no such gesture.  After lunch they returned to the office and she met Karick.  Immediately she liked him; he seemed very competent, and she was put at ease by being among a fellow security professional, though he was reticent about clueing her in fully to his background.  He showed her around the small offices and gave her a brief about what her position would entail.  Mr. Lazarus disappeared for a few hours, upstairs to his lawyer’s office he had said.  Karick drove her to her hotel around four in the afternoon and got her checked in.  She would be meeting the board of directors the next morning for her final interview, and tonight Mr. Lazarus was taking her out to dinner and a show.

* * *

“Alan, she’s everything you said she was,” Jack enthused over the line.

“Yeah, she’s great, huh?”

“Pretty, intelligent, good at her work.  Even Karick thinks we should hire her!  And those legs, wow!  It’s very good not to be an old man anymore.”

Alan suggested he suppress her memory of Carl Sutherland.  “I think it would make things less complicated, and anyway, she’s going to know me as Alan, so I’d rather not have to keep two stories straight in my head.”  Jack agreed.

“So, what are you going to do with her tonight?” Alan asked.

“We’re going to the dinner and the theater, and then I’m going to seal the deal.  Gotta run,” he said, finishing up the call, the lascivious tone of his voice fully transmitted.

Alan went back to his books, a high afternoon sun the only source of illumination as he reclined on his bed.  He had to declare a major at the end of the coming school year, and he was leaning towards something to do with ancient history or archaeology.  The department at Columbia for these topics is called Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures, or MEALAC, and he had spent yesterday afternoon browsing through its homepage, making printouts of the class pages which had reading lists and syllabi.  He had ordered a great many of them from Amazon, and found others in the local public library.  Jack had even volunteered to teach him some languages, Classical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Akkadian, and with his abilities he would be able to take them in in no time.

He had wanted to spend the day with Kate, but when he called her earlier in the afternoon Mrs. Van Devanter had told him she’d gone out, not knowing where she went.  He tried to raise her by cell phone, but it just clicked through to her voicemail each time he had called.  They had soft plans for that evening, and he wanted to talk to her to firm them up.

Around five o’clock in the evening he finally reached her.  She wouldn’t say where she was, telling him she had a surprise, so he returned to his reading, losing track of time.  When he looked up from his pages twilight was falling.  The doorbell had just rung, and he heard his mom greet the visitors.  He got up from his desk making towards the door, figuring it was Kate, and just as he pulled it open she came barreling into the room, smashing into him and wrapping him into a ferocious embrace, kissing him, and turning him around in place all in one motion so that his back was to the door.

“So what’s my surprise?”

Kate cleared his throat, and taking that signal Scarlet appeared in the doorway.  “My I present...Miss Scarlet Cavanaugh!”

“Wow,” he smiled, “Good surprise!  When did you come in?” He gave her a peck on the cheek.

“Just now,” she answered, returning the kiss.

“I was picking her up at the airport,” Kate chimed in.

“So how long are you in for?”

“I’m in for good,” Scarlet informed him.  “I was working for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency as a paid intern this summer, collecting and analyzing water and soil samples, but the budget crunch forced not only all of us interns being let go, but a whole bunch of the real employees got laid off.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Alan told her, sympathy drawn on his face.

“Yeah, well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles, as my dad would say.  It was a great summer, anyway.  Kate said she’d find work for me for the next few weeks down where her dad works, so I got a flight, and here I am.”

“What about your stuff?  Don’t you have to go home to pack?” Alan asked.

“Nah,” Scarlet explained, “I stored a bunch of stuff in Kate’s basement at the end of the semester, and I brought two big suitcases with me, plus my parents have to drive my kid brother to Boston College in a few weeks, so they’ll all swing by with the rest of it.”

“Yeah,” Kate added, “And she’s staying with me until school starts, plus when her folks and brother come through, they’re staying with us too.  I just have to clear it with my mom, but I’m sure it’ll be OK.”

“ALAN!” his mom yelled from the foot of the stairs, “ARE KATE AND SCARLET STAYING FOR DINNER?”

Kate and Scarlet nodded, and Alan went down to tell his mom.  The girls followed, and soon Mrs. Marshall taken up Kate and Scarlet’s offer to help; Alan was given the task of making the salad, Scarlet at setting the table, while Alan’s Mom and Kate fussed over the rest of the cooking.  Mr. Marshall got home just before seven, and they all repaired to the dining room.  Both of Alan’s parents had a great deal of questions for Scarlet, not having met her before, so dinner took longer than usual, and it was after half past eight before the table was cleared and the dishes and pots in the dishwasher.

Alan was wiping dry a serving platter Scarlet had just handed to him when Kate excused herself to use the bathroom.  She leaned closer to him and dropped her voice.  “What happened to Kate?  She looks like a skeleton.”

“Don’t worry, we’re working on it.  She lost some weight on her canoe trips, and she was thinking about keeping off, but I told her she looked unhealthy.  Trust me, when I picked her up she was even thinner.  Her mom even approached me and we talked about it out of Kate’s earshot.  I seems that she was anorexic during her sophomore year in high school.  Mrs. V said it wasn’t too bad a case, but she did see a psychiatrist for more than a year.”

They heard the toilet flush, and Alan continued, sotto voce, “I don’t think its that, and I’ve been pretty much on her to put some of the pounds back on.”  He was going to keep telling, but Kate reappeared.

“So what do you want to do tonight?” Kate asked.  She had a feeling they had been talking about her, judging by the way they had both clammed up upon seeing her come back, and she wanted to break the tension.

“What’s there to do in a small suburban town on a Thursday night?” Scarlet asked.

“Well,” Kate told them, “My folks are in New York for the night.”

“Why is that, dear?” Mrs. Marshall asked reentering the kitchen.

“My mom’s Aunt Vicky broke her hip, and she was released from the hospital today, and the private duty nurse doesn’t start until Monday, so my folks are staying in her guest room until then.”

“How ‘bout we rent a movie or two, pick up some ice cream?” Alan offered.

Kate wanted to object to the ice cream, she was getting sick of it, really, but held her tongue as she saw that Scarlet thought it was splendid idea.  Because Alan had to phone his Uncle Lou--it was his birthday--the girls left without him for the grocery and the video store, thanking his mom for dinner as they left.  It wasn’t until he had hung up that he realized that he didn’t have a car, his still with Karick.  The station car was making funny noises, probably because with Alan using it at night it had seen more miles than usual. He went to the garage and took his single-speed off the rack on the side wall.  It was the only bike he owned which had its original pedals, ones which didn’t require him to wear specialized cleats.  

He reached the house before the girls returned, and waited for them on the front porch.  He was surprised to find the house empty.  Conchita, he knew, wasn’t due back for a few more weeks, but he wondered about the whereabouts of Pauline and Cal. 

Kate cleared up the mystery when thy returned.  First, she had Alan take Scarlet’s heavy suitcases from the trunk of the Jetta, and then she told him that Cal was in Philadelphia taking the tour of a few medical schools he was interested in applying to, and Pauline was a chaperone at a campout for her summer charges.  Alan hauled Scarlet’s stuff up to the guest bedroom while Kate fired up the DVD player, and Scarlet scooped out the ice cream.  Alan was pleased that the one of the pints the girls had bought was pistachio, his favorite flavor.  The film was “Secretary,” which surprised him, as it was very risqué.  As they watched the movie Alan plunged into Kate’s mind.  She had, he learned, never gotten her courage up to take Scarlet to bed.  Dipping into the redhead’s thoughts he learned that Scarlet didn’t even know Kate was bi.  He was also surprised to find out that Scarlet had been sleeping with guys over the summer, well, just one, but it was still a surprise nonetheless.

The film was making Kate hot.  The scene where the lawyer spanked the secretary and then jerked off over her ass was kind of gross, but on the whole she was turned on.  Alan hadn’t tied her up at all since she returned from Maine, and now with Scarlet’s arrival she wouldn’t get the opportunity to fuck him tonight.  She rubbed her legs together, hoping neither of her companions would notice; Alan did.

After the movie was over Kate took the bowls into the kitchen and washed up.

“So, your job was good, I mean besides the budget cuts?”

“Yeah,” Scarlet answered.  “Commuting sixty miles to Columbus five days a week was draining, but I liked it, and I made some good friends, well, one, really.”  She blushed.

Alan arched an eyebrow, though he didn’t betray that he knew Scarlet had been fucking a guy while home for the summer.  “Good friend?  Does she have a name?” he asked, eliciting a blush.

“Jeremy,” she croaked, embarrassed as all get out.  Kate had always told her that Alan could see right through a person, and this was the first time she had experienced it first hand.  They way he looked at her, the arched eyebrow, the inflection in his voice when he asked the question, it was like he was penetrating her innermost thoughts.

“Jeremy, interesting name for a girl,” he kidded.  “So, tell me about him.”

Kate called over from the kitchen, asking each of them if they wanted a beverage, listing off what was in the fridge, and Alan asked for a root beer, Scarlet for a diet coke.

“He’s from the next town over, a junior at Ohio State, and we carpooled.  One day I would pick him up, and the next he would come get me.”

“Who’re you talking about?” Kate asked, coming back in.

“Scarlet’s boyfriend.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend!”

“Did you sleep with him?” Alan asked, his expression sly.

“That’s none of your business!” was her shocked retort, but he was looking at her again, that same piercing glance.  “Well, um, OK, yeah, we, uh, yeah.”

“Scarlet!” Kate exclaimed, a faux horror in her voice.  “What happened to ‘Lesbian until graduation?’”

“Well, you see,” she started, grasping for an explanation, “Technically, I wasn’t in school, you see, and uh, he was, uh, is, really cute, and you see, really good at, you know, uh good in, uh, bed.”  The color on her face matched that of her name, as she kept on sputtering.

“So, are you and this Jeremy a couple?” Kate asked, taking a seat after handing out the cans of soda and placing a bowl of fruit along with a bowl of pretzels on the table in front of them.

“No, it was just a summer thing.  Long distance relationships suck.”

“Oh, poor baby,” Kate said sympathetically, stroking the other girl’s red hair.

“Oh, Kate, it wasn’t like that.  We agreed to, uh, hang out again next summer, or maybe this Christmas break, if both of us were still single.”

“So you’re no longer an LUG?” Alan asked.

“I’m not sure,” Scarlet admitted.  She hadn’t been with another woman since the school year had ended, mostly because she wasn’t ready to reveal that part of herself to her friends and family back home, and that made finding a willing female partner impossible over the summer.  She was beginning to get confused.  Was Kate just being nice to her, or was she coming on to her?  They had shared a room for ten months, and never had her roommate held her they way she was doing now.  Even more confusing was the fact that her boyfriend, a boyfriend Scarlet knew Kate was madly in love with, was sitting five feet away, watching them from his seat in an overstuffed den chair, and amused look on his face.

“I uh, found that I missed being with a guy, and,” she paused shivering as Kate’s hands migrated down to her back, massaging it gently.  Her nipples popped out, so she hugged herself so he wouldn’t see.  “I uh still like girls, very much, and uh, I think a small part of me wanted to sleep with a guy so I would see if I, uh, really wanted just to be an LUG, or maybe see if I was becoming an out and out ‘L,’ you know?.  Kate, what ARE you doing?”

Kate had managed to untuck Scarlet’s t-shirt from her jeans during Scarlet’s explanation, and was now under the fabric.

“I never told you,” Kate began, “But last year, after you told me about you and Jessica, ah, doing it, I began to have fantasies about doing another girl.  Right before spring semester started Alan and I had a threesome with this really really cute grad student he knows.”  She punctuated this revelation with a lazy swipe of her tongue across Scarlet’s earlobe.

“Really?” Scarlet gasped in a breathy whisper.

Alan nodded.  Kate popped her bra clasp.

“Hey guys, I’m not sure about this.”

“Why?” Kate teased, licking her again on the ear.  Scarlet shuddered, feeling her panties moisten.

“Well,” Scarlet began, marshaling her thoughts, “When you and Alan and the grad student had that, ah ah ah, threesome,” she started as Kate began distracting her by playing with her pointy nipples, “You were just--JESUS that feels nice.  What was I saying?  Oh ummmmmm, yah, you weren’t really a couple yet.  But now.”

Kate cut her off, “But nothing,” she insisted, ending the conversation with a tender kiss, which Scarlet returned with passion.

* * *

Jack put on his jacket and stowed his necktie in the left pocket.  The night had been a success in more ways than one.  Over a pre-theater dinner at Picholine Anne-Marie had agreed to come work for him.  She would be in charge of his personal security force, as well as being a consultant to Cyaxares, reporting to Karick.  He had made a significant breakthrough with the Japanese woman, penetrating her memories for the first time earlier in the day, and the sex he had just had with Anne-Marie, his first since his resurrection, was smashing.

He had dismissed the driver at the theater, with the intention of walking her back to her hotel after the curtain fell.  All through the show, a new musical, one which featured puppets having sex, no less, but one which had garnered excellent reviews, he had slowly increased her level of arousal, reducing it when the play ended, but only slightly.  They chatted as they walked up Seventh Avenue towards Central Park South, where the hotel was located.

Using his mind to distract her she didn’t even realize that her new boss was walking her up to her room.

“So,” he began, his voice soothing, “To a new beginning.”  He had opened the mini-bar and poured out two nightcaps.  She glanced over the rim of her glass as she took a sip.  He was very handsome, different from the guys she was regularly attracted to.  His brown hair was salted with bits of gray, but that would have been more noticeable if it wasn’t cut as short as it was.  There was a rugged quality about his face, and he had a strong chin.  His eyes, in her opinion, were perhaps his most alluring feature, a steely blue, almost gray.  He was older than the men she had previously dated, but that just made him seem more debonair in her eyes.  “Salut,” she answered his toast before taking a sip.

Suddenly he was closer.  She could feel his whisky-scented breath on her face.  “Welcome to the team, welcome to the big city, Anne-Marie.”

She kissed him, softly on the lips, both of their mouths closed.  It was a fleeting buss, in no way obscene, but she recoiled.  “I shouldn’t have done that, sir.”

“Quite alright, quite alright,” he answered, holding his ground.  They were still standing face-to-face inches apart.  He put his hand on her bare shoulder, brushing her hair off of it and leaned in.  This time their mouths opened as they came together, and by the time she broke it off she was panting slightly.

“Sir...”

“Call me Jack.  I don’t stand on ceremony.”  He leaned in again, but she retreated.

“Sir...Jack, we shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I wont tell if you wont,” he joked, pressing his mouth to hers.  He arousal returned, and she slipped her tongue past his lips, tasting him, tasting the slight sour flavor of the liquor.  His hands ran up her back and she shivered in the embrace.  A terrible thought flooded her mind.  Carl Sutherland had pimped her to this man.  She tried to break away, but he resisted.  With more force she extricated herself from his arms and turned her back on him, stomping over to the window and looking out on the beautiful city, a small tear staining her cheek, her mascara ruined.

“What’s the matter, Anne-Marie?”

“Is this a set-up?” she sobbed.  Carl had done this to her, too.  Seduced her.  Now it seemed like he was just passing her around.  She didn’t love Carl, but he had been her lover, and now feelings of betrayal were welling up inside her.  She was nobody’s whore.  Shit, even her current arousal was similar to when she was around Carl.  She felt she had been manipulated, and she didn’t like it.

“Carl?  Who is Carl?” Jack asked, sincerity dripping from his voice.

“Pardon?” she asked bewildered.  In an instant all memory of Carl Sutherland was wiped clean from her mind by the man a few feet away wielding the power of the Seed of Paishiya’uvada, the third Seed, the Seed first given to Cyaxares of Akkad.  She crossed the carpet to stand near him again.  “Where were we?” she asked with a smile.  He arms encircled her again as their mouths met, and she held his wrists briefly, guiding his hands down to cup her ass.  She was very horny, her previous upset completely vacated.  Soon he had maneuvered her over to the bed, his jacket strewn over a chair, her heels left by the window.  He was strong, she felt in her bones, and not just physically.  He had a magnetism about him she had noticed upon their meeting.  His lips and tongue explored her neck, some of her most sensitive locations, and she writhed and moaned in arousal.  Her hands were all over him, feeling him through the soft cotton his shirt, scrabbling fingers dispensing with the buttons.  After she had stripped him to the waist her hands explored his chest.  He had a very good body for a man his age, which she pegged somewhere in the mid-forties, hard but not bulging muscles, a sprinkling of soft brown hair covering his pecs and middle, tapering off as it wended its way down to his navel.  She bent forward and licked one of his nipples, bringing out the desired response.

He lifted her onto the bed and knelt on the bedspread next to her.  He held her left leg in his hands, slowly working at removing her stocking.  He took the top of it, which came to an end just above her knee, and gently started rolling it up.  In less than a minute both were off, and she shucked up her hips as his hands rested against the waistband of her panties, allowing him to get them off her.  He moved north, raising the hem of her dress up, and she held her arms straight of as he stripped it off her.  His mouth came to rest in her cleavage, and to her surprise and delight he managed the to undo the closure with his teeth.  She giggled at that, and he shot her a devastatingly handsome smile.  She felt gooey between her legs as she reached over to him and unbuckled his belt, then fought his hands off so she herself could get his pants open.  They both laughed at that, the light giving off from the fixture sparkling off his unusually colored irises.  As their tongues danced against each other’s she was aware that he was taking off his pants, and she had no objection.  Down to his shorts he pushed her back against the mattress and crouched between her legs, licking at her moist center.

“Oooh, that feels nice!” she exclaimed as he tongued her pussy, adding his moisture to her own.  Her hips bucked up and her clit was crushed against the flesh of his nose.  She howled in delight and repeated the action after hearing no complaint from his end.  Through two gasping, screaming orgasms he licked her with no let up, and she was covered with a shiny sheen of sweat before she pushed him away.  He rolled over next to her and they kissed again, and this time she tasted herself, not single-malt on his mouth.  The idea of it turned her on even more.  As he settled against the headboard she pulled off his underwear and began to lick his rod with soft small strokes.  He moaned her name aloud, which cheered her to no end.

After a few minutes she felt a hand on her shoulder.  “Anne-Marie, you’d better stop.  I don’t want to...finish...like this.”

She came off him with a pop and looked him square in the eye, a loopy grin plastered across her face.  “Jack, do you have a problem getting it up?  Getting it up again?”

“Not in the slightest, my dear. Not in the slightest.”

“Then lay back and let me finish.”

He came in her mouth and she swallowed it down in a nasty gulp, and to her glee she noticed he barely softened after the orgasm.  She straddled him and rubbed her wet slit against his cock.  Soon it was as hard as before, and he brought his hands up to hold her at the hips, guiding her over his erection, the head poised at her soaked entrance.

“Do it,” she moaned, “P-please.”

He pulled her down, penetrating her, his groin rising to meet hers.  A shock of electricity went through her, or so it felt, as he began to fuck her with long even strokes.  He was a better lover than that guy, whatshisname, she mused, though it was a fleeting thought as she swiftly approached orgasm.

“Aieeeeeeeeeee!” she screeched as her pussy contracted, clamping down around his hot cock.  He paused in his motions, letting her spasms pass before continuing, but soon he repositioned himself, him on top, thrusting between her clammy thighs.  She was tiring quickly, and glad to be underneath now as the pace of his fucking accelerated, bringing her closer and closer to release as the minutes wore on.  She felt him tense above her and she exploded again as he spent himself within her.

They snuggled for awhile, each unable or unwilling to speak for a moment.

She broke the silence.  “Wow.  I mean, wow!  That was, well, wow!”

“I’m glad you liked it, Anne-Marie,” he whispered, tilting her head and giving her a small kiss on the tip of her nose.

She giggled.

“I’m glad I took this job.”

“You speak for both of us, I assure you.”

She sighed and began to drowse in his arms, her silky hair rubbing against his shoulder. He held her for awhile before rising.  The Japanese assassin was awaiting him, and it was unwise to leave her without proper supervision for long stretches of time.  Before he left her wrote a short note on hotel stationary for Anne-Marie.  He checked his left pocket again, assuring himself he wasn’t forgetting his tie, and then made a quick stop in the bathroom, stealing one of the hotel’s washcloths, stowing it in the right pocket of his jacket.  He clicked off the bedroom light and quietly shut the door so as not to wake Anne-Marie.  The curtains were blocking the rising sun as it tried to infiltrate the room.

* * *
She had always been attracted to Kate, even before she knew she was bi, but Kate had-- for as long as she had know her--Alan, so she never even dreamed that what was now happening would ever possibly happen.  Her eyes closed, she found herself lost in the kiss.

This was so weird, Scarlet thought as the worked their way up the stairs to Kate’s bedroom.  Kate had spent the last five minutes kissing her and mauling her on the couch.  Now here she was, topless, Kate holding by the hand, leading her up to her bed.  Alan was acting strange as well.  He just sat there across from them, a wry smile on his face.  Kate had wiggled her way behind her, and she found herself resting her back against Kate’s large firm breasts.  She had half expected to feel the nipple rings, but the fabric of the bra obscured them.  She felt a hand work the snap on her jeans, and the other rubbing circularly, rhythmically on her tummy.  She took a deep breath as Kate drew down the zipper; Kate smelled really nice.  Alan was watching still, not doing anything; it was unnerving, but she stared at him, finding that she couldn’t look away from the amused expression he was showing.  Kate licked the back of her ear as she snaked a few fingers under the waistband of her panties; her eyelids clamped down and she shuddered as those digits made gentle contact with her wet center.  The pad of Kate’s index finger came to a halt resting on her burning clit, and Scarlet could feel her stickiness seep through her panties and trickle down her thighs.

“Kate,” she called out, half in whisper, half in moan.  “Kate, p-please.”  The black-haired girl’s answer was to bring her other hand to the red-furred pussy and worm a finger in as she continued to massage the clit.  “P-please,” she entreated again, tears of pleasure running uncontrollable down her freckled face.  Kate made a long and lazy sweep around her ear again, causing her to shudder with even greater intensity, finishing off by taking the lobe between her lips and giving a playful suck.  Trembling, Scarlet tried again.  

“P-p-please, K-kate,” Scarlet sobbed.  Through her blurry eyes she saw that Alan was unstirred.  Blinking through her tears, unable to articulate herself she focused on his face, trying to get a message to him without having to speak.  This attempt was complicated, in fact compromised, because even if she could get a meaning across she had no idea what that would be.  She parted her lips in an effort to say something, but Kate was moving, no longer behind her, but right at her side; her hands continued their manipulation despite the shift.  As she finally concentrated the will to open her mouth Kate shifted her body slightly, tilted her head, and kissed her, her tongue swirling about behind Scarlet’s teeth.  Scarlet moaned into the kiss, her body shivering in pleasure.  Out of the corner of her eye she could still see him sitting placidly, like this sort of thing happened every day.  Kate broke the kiss and began kissing and licking her neck, and she gasped.  Her verbal abilities returned.  “What are you doing?” she croaked.

Kate looked her right in the eye and gave her a quick kiss on the lips, “Whatever you want.”

Kate’s face filled her whole field of vision, and she blinked a few more times in rapid succession, trying to gather herself.  “Why am I fighting this?” was the only thought running through her bliss-addled brain.  She closed her eyes trying to summon another thought, but Kate’s lips had returned to her own, and she returned the kiss.  Her whole body shuddered with a mini-tremor, her hips grinding her pubis into Kate’s palm.  Suddenly Scarlet felt Kate pull away, her hand removed, her lips gone.  Scarlet’s eyes fluttered open in time to see her roommate stand and take the first step towards the stairs.  Alan remained in place.  Scarlet realized she was panting.  She could feel individual beads of her own moisture clinging to her crotch and upper thighs.

She was confused.  Why did Kate stop?  Why was she leaving?  Where was she going?  She looked at Alan with questioning eyes, but he was riveted to the sight of the retreating Kate.  Scarlet turned her head to follow his gaze.  Kate was taking her time moving to the stairs leading up to the bedrooms.  Without thinking, without actually making a decision, Scarlet hoisted her butt off the couch and fell in line behind Kate.  Kate was now a few steps up, and when Scarlet reached the foot of the stairs she heard him move in the background.  She twisted around, and to her surprise saw that Alan was tidying up the living room, collecting the empty cans, picking up stray bits of snack food, and the like.  She resumed following Kate, bewildered, but taking her offered hand.

The upstairs was dark, the only light coming from Kate’s bedroom.  Scarlet moved slowly, because she was unsure of her steps in the dimmed hallway, and because if she were to walk any faster her unbuttoned jeans would fall down.  Kate stopped her just inside the door, and Scarlet was greeted with a french kiss, Kate’s hands busy beneath with her chest once more.  They could faintly hear Alan moving about downstairs, but Scarlet could tell Kate was paying it no mind.  She shivered in the coolness of the heavily air-conditioned room.

Kate led her to the bed and put her almost limp body in a sitting position on the edge of the mattress, kneeling on the carpet to grab the blue jeans at the cuffs.  With an almost violent flourish Kate yanked the pants right off of her friend, and then was up, pouncing like a great tiger.  Scarlet was now on her back, Kate lying right on top of her.  Kate grabbed her head and held it still as their lips met again.

Scarlet lost all sense of time as they made out on the bed.  She had no idea how long they had been embracing before Kate slithered down her body, giving her rock hard nipples a tweak as she did so.  She raised her ass of the bed to allow Kate to remove her sopping panties, and squealed as she felt Kate’s tongue part her cleft.

She wanted to watch, so she propped herself up on her elbows, knowing she wouldn’t be able to sustain the effort for long.  She could only see Kate’s lustrous black hair busy at the apex of her thighs, but she could certainly feel the magic her mouth was doing.  Just before her stamina failed her she saw him enter the room.  In a way, he was coming to help, and he stood beside her next to the bed, repositioning Kate’s pillows so she didn’t have to hold herself up any longer.  Then he retreated to the foot of the bed and began undressing Kate, starting with the sneakers and shorts.  Kate slowed her licking, shifting so Alan could strip her properly, and Scarlet moaned in disappointment when Kate lifted her head from her crotch so Alan could removed Kate’s t-shirt and bra, dropping all the garments in a mound on the floor.  Kate returned her face to Scarlet’s pussy, and the red-haired girl sighed with satisfaction.  She was nearing her peak, her hips a dervish of motion as she rubbed her womanhood into Kate’s eager mug.  “Ohhhh!  That feels s-s-s-s-o, mmmmmmmmmmmm!” she moaned as her body bucked with arousal.

As she returned to earth she realized that Alan hadn’t yet joined them on the bed, but she was in no condition to ask because Kate’s tongue was rapidly sending her into orbit again.  He body shook with orgasm again, and she melted into the bedding, too exhausted to move a whit.  Kate’s body covered her again, and she found herself licking her own juices off the other girl’s face, though slowly, as she had little energy.

“Kate?” she asked between licks.

“What, baby?”

“Is he just going to watch?”

Kate slid off her body and turned to Alan, who had seated himself in the armchair near the door of the bedroom.  “Well, how ‘bout it, champ?” she asked him with a playful wink.  “What’s the holdup?”

“Just waiting for an invitation, s’all,” he chuckled.

Kate turned back to Scarlet.  “So?  Should we invite him?”

Scarlet nodded weakly, just happy to be following Kate’s lead in this.  Alan moved to the bed, and Scarlet was between them.  Each of them took one of Scarlet’s pink nipples in their mouths and began to suck gently, causing Scarlet to sigh.  Alan lifted his head and suddenly Scarlet found herself kissing him, their tongues dueling as they explored each others mouths; she could taste the last residue of root beer in him as her eyes fluttered shut.  Kate was fingering her tenderly, and her thighs closed around the invading hand, holding it tightly to her.  Her eyes snapped open as Alan broke the kiss and Kate wrestled her hand away at the same moment.  She looked both of them in the eyes, one at a time, as she felt Kate’s hands on her knees, parting them for Alan to settle between, and then turned her focus downward as she watched him disrobe and maneuver his penis, the biggest one she had ever seen, her foggy mind was able to note, to the outer lips of her red-haired pussy. 

“He’ll kill me with that thing,” Scarlet gasped, addressing Kate.

Kate stroked her hair reassuringly, “No baby, you’re wet enough.  Don’t worry, I should know.”

Alan fed a little bit of his cock into her and she felt her petals part to allow him the entry.  He was thick, wider than to what she was accustomed, the feelings a mix of pleasure and discomfort, though biased to the former of the two; a small tear began to roll down her face, but Kate swiftly licked it away.

“Do you want some more?” Alan asked, concern evident in the tenor of his voice.  Scarlet nodded, and she grabbed Kate hard as more of Alan’s dick invaded her.  Alan took his time, slowly feeding his cock into her dripping channel, and Scarlet gasped and moaned at the progress.  It took more than a few minutes of rocking in and out before all of Alan was inside her, and when that happened Scarlet looked up to see Kate taking position over her, presenting her shaved pussy to the now upturned face.  As Scarlet began to tentatively lick the smooth lips Alan began to pull out and push in, at first using far less than half his length, but gradually building speed and using nearly all of his shaft.  Kate faced Alan, and the leaned into each other as he fucked Scarlet and she rode her face.  As Alan kissed Kate, Scarlet sucked her to a quivering orgasm, and her shouts echoed off the bedroom walls; neither Alan slowed the pace of his fucking, nor Scarlet the slithering of her tongue in and around Kate’s pussy.

As Kate steadied herself against Alan, her hands gripping his shoulders to stay upright, she felt Scarlet moan into her pussy, and could feel her quiver and shake in a mighty climax.  Now it Alan’s turn to be kept upright as he growled and came in Scarlet’s trembling depths.  He was leaning against Kate, who was pushing back so he wouldn’t topple.

Scarlet was having trouble breathing steady as Alan and Kate dismounted from her.  She watched as Kate reached over to the nightstand and turned off the lamp.  In the dark Kate nudged her over and laid down; the cuddled, Alan on the other side of Kate, holding her.  Scarlet was asleep within minutes.

* * *

The sun was rising higher over the East River as Jack approached the office building.  He bought a pair of cheap sunglasses from a West African street vendor right after leaving the hotel, so he wasn’t bothered by the glare.

As he expected, Harriet, Stan’s secretary was already in the office as he entered, but what she was doing took him aback.  She was hammering away at the lock on the steel door with her stapler.

“What are you doing?” he asked, alarmed.

“Hmm?  What?” she asked.  Her eyes were glassy, and as he interrupted her she came to realize her surroundings.  Jack sent her back to his desk, removing the commands the girl had implanted there.

“So,” he thought, “She is awake.  Awake and scheming.”  He went to the bathroom and wet the washcloth with cold water.  Back in the office he unlocked the door and entered, not turning on the overhead lights, just the small desk lamp.  She was feigning sleep.  He wiped her forehead of sweat and grime with cloth, then pulled a chair over to the couch where she was bound.

“You cannot fool me, young lady.”

She made no movement.  Jack peered into her memories; she resisted.

He could see it now, in the chapel of the monastery, on a raised wooden platform in the middle of the room, surrounded by dozens of prayer mats.  A piece of black glass resting on a cushion.  Twenty or more of the monastery’s residents bent in prayer, with some sort of energy emanating from the crystal, washing over their prostrate forms.

“Perhaps the source of their powers, this energy,” Jack thought as he attempted to probe farther into her mind.

A meeting, in the abbot’s office.

“Ouch!” he swore, rubbing the pain out of his forehead.  This memory she was desperately trying to protect.

He pulled the door closed behind him, and sent Harriet out for coffee.  Try as the assassin might, her resistance would crumble, and he would learn the secret of the meeting with the abbot.  It was just a matter of time.

* * *

Next Chapter: Sophomore year


Author: Julian Coreto
Title: Alan
Part: 25
Summary: Alan, Kate, et al, start their second year on Morningside Heights
Keywords: mc MF FF md

Chapter 25
Sophomore Year


The rest of the summer had passed happily, blackout notwithstanding.  Scarlet’s parents had swung by with the rest of her things, and Alan enjoyed meeting them and her brother.  A few days later Alan’s folks and Mrs. Van Devanter drove the three of them and their stuff back to campus; Mr. Van Devanter was still in Cambridge with Pauline, getting her settled into her dorm and attending some parent orientation and welcoming events.  He was on cloud nine, one of his offspring at last following in his Crimson footsteps.

Alan was rooming with Soren again, this year in Shapiro Hall, a dorm on the opposite side of Broadway from the center of campus.  They liked it because it was quiet; a great many of the buildings on campus were undergoing renovation due to the upcoming 250th anniversary of the founding of the college.

Kate had a single in Brooks, a dorm right on Barnard’s campus.  Scarlet was in another single just across the hall.  

A week into classes Alan met Jack at the office.  Jack updated him on his last month of progress with the female assassin.  He hadn’t fully exploded her mental shields, but he was getting close.  Most of what he learned concerned her last mission, and he was viewing tantalizing memories concerning some kind of crystal artifact, the details of which the ninja (ninjess?) was trying desperately to conceal.  Wilkins, Karick, and Anne-Marie joined them after a scant hour, and Alan was updated as to the efforts in securing the Iraq contracts, and on security and business matters in general.  Anne-Marie mostly kept out of the conversation, chipping in a comment or two when the talk touched on one of her areas of responsibility.  When the trio had left Alan asked why Anne-Marie had been taken notes.

“A promotion, my dear fellow!” Jack enthused.

“What?”

“She is now an ex-officio member of the board, and the corporate secretary, on top of her regular work.  She was compiling the corporate minutes.”

“So she’s working out?  I’m glad.”

There was a twinkle in Jack’s eye, the source of which Alan was knowledgeable.

Harriet, Stan Wilkins’s secretary came in with coffee service, and Alan and Jack helped themselves to some brew.  Jack asked about his classes, and Alan pulled out his schedule.

“Hmm,” Jack said between sips of coffee as he examined the printout.  “You’re taking both Aramaic, at school, and Classical Hebrew with me; that’s ambitious.  Well, well, well, I see you in good hands with your other classes as well.  Mancini for Literature and Sources of the Ancient Near East.”

“Do you know him?” Alan asked.

“Know him?  Know him?” he was almost choking.  “Why, he trained at my feet!  An excellent sort, yes.”  He scanned the paper again, taking note of who was teaching the Aramaic language class.  “S. O’Dwyer?  I didn’t know Seamus was at Columbia.  A very able chap, but be careful, or you’ll be speaking Aramaic with an Irish brogue.”

“I keep that in mind,” Alan answered with a chuckle.

Jack couldn’t make out the rest of the classes on Alan’s schedule.  “What’s CC?”

Alan explained that Columbia had a rather extensive core curriculum, the centerpiece being a lit course known as CC, covering stuff from the ancient Greeks to the modern period.

“Well, enough of that. Are you ready?” Jack asked as he made to unlock the heavy door.

“Ready,” he responded, steeling himself.

The door swung open slowly.  Alan followed the older man in, his eyes adjusting to the dimness of the windowless office.  The young woman was wearing a collar around the neck, attached to a heavy bolt in the center of the room.  The leash had only five feet of slack, so her movements were quite limited.  She was handcuffed with two soft leather cuffs encircling her wrists, connected by a short length of steel chain.  Her ankles were bound likewise.  She was blindfolded with a black nylon cloth, and she was wearing gym shorts and an I <Heart> NY t-shirt.  


Alan arched an eyebrow at Jack, and he responded telepathically.

“She is still dangerous.  He physical combat skills match her mental acumen, therefore the cuffs and collar,” the former professor projected.  “As for the clothes, well, what can I say, or in this case, think.  The shorts have an elastic waist. I couldn’t very well nip her off to the shops to try things on, could I have?  A very nice young man from Senegal, proprietor of a small table right outside the train station, sold me the chemises,” he added, gesturing to the touristy shirt, “ten tees for forty dollars.  I could never pass up a bargain.”

She had been asleep when the pair had entered, but she was clearly awake now, her head swiveling around trying to hear the movements of her captors.  She could sense them communicating telepathically, but was unable to tune into their mental conversations.  Her frustration mounted, a she squeezed her eyes shut under the sash of cloth which blinded her.  She had no idea how long she had been imprisoned, and her terror was starting to build.

Dying in battle was one thing, but capture was a far worse thing.  She knew her mission was a dangerous one, but never had she imagined circumstances like the one she now found herself in.  The man, the older one, the one who had thwarted her at the last moment of triumph, was getting to her, breaking her down, eroding her mental defenses, and she was coming to realize that it was just a matter of time before she crumbled completely.  Nothing in her training had prepared her for this.  The arrogance of her training astounded her, overwhelming the sense of shame she knew she should at this instant be rightly feeling.  Never in her years of training and mastery of the Art had she been instructed against the possibility of capture.  Such a fate had never befallen a member of her noble order.

One of them was touching her, holding her by the shoulders and lifting her into a crouch.  She was pushed onto the sofa, on her back.  She did not resist, knowing she had no choice.  The only saving grace was that she hadn’t been raped, but she feared that this would not be the case for long.  She trembled. A hand on her head, attempting calm her.  Sympathy, just what she needed.  With a mighty effort she lashed out with her weakened mind, hoping the physical contact would help transmit her commands more powerfully.

Alan tensed, feeling her mental energy stream forth.  His hand hurt as he held it to her forehead. It stung, but was bearable.  “What’s she doing?” he asked Jack, speaking aloud for the first time since they entered the room.

“Attack,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders.  Alan withdrew his hand and the sting dissipated.

“She’s much weaker,” Alan projected, resuming the communication by mind.  “It was almost effortless to keep her from my mind.  In fact, I didn’t even know she was attacking until you said it.”

Jack approached the couch and sat her upright.  Alan took the left flank, his partner the right.

“I think it’s time we double up on her,” Jack projected into Alan’s mind.  “She’s been eating of late, a good thing too, because she refused the smallest bite for quite a while.  I think the isolation has been trying on her.”

“What do you need me to do?” Alan asked, his lips not moving.

“Try to scan her.”

Alan tried.  He got virtually nowhere.  He could see inside her mind, but all was shadowed by the shields protecting her consciousness.  Jack was monitoring his progress, and shot him a wry grin as Alan withdrew his ineffectual probe.

“What were you looking for?” the older man asked.

“I was trying to learn why she allowed herself to be set against me.  We already know some of it, the part having to do with Lord Thornbow.  What we still don’t know is why she and her order have allied themselves with him.”

“A vexing point, yes.  Did you see the crystal, the black crystal on the wooden stand in the center of the chapel?”

“What about it?”

“I believe,” Jack said slowly, marshaling his thoughts, “that we have reached the ineffable core of our dilemma, and by ‘our’ I am referring to all of us, you me AND the girl.”

Before he went on he tightened the assassin’s bonds and led Alan out of the secure room, into the conference room next door.

“I’ve been making some calls, asking around, making inquiries,” the European gentleman began as he gestured Alan to have a chair.

“But, but, you don’t know anyone, or rather no one knows you,” Alan sputtered in reply.

“My dear boy, when you are a Vessel of the Seed, introductions, and, dare I say, earthly pedigree means nothing.  There are numerous human resources available here in your fine city.  I had a very interesting afternoon with an elderly professor down at NYU yesterday afternoon, and another interesting meeting the day before last up at your current place of education.  If you didn’t know it, the Starr East Asian is an excellent resource.  Sad to say, I haven’t discovered too much about this monastery, but time, young man, is most certainly on our side.”

Alan voiced his doubts.  “Your brother--”

“STEPbrother,” Jack corrected sharply, but without malice.

“Your stepbrother has made two attempts on me, and tried to kill you in London last year.  Tell me again: How is time on our side?”

“We have a number of natural advantages, or supernatural advantages, you might say.  First, we are Vessels.  Second, my stepbrother thinks there is only you.  Third, Mr. Patel informed me there is no firm backup plan if the young lady next door was to fail.  Fourth--no--I could go on, but you get the point.

“There are legends, Alan, legends of ninja assassins with almost supernatural power.  Never confirmed to the most slightest degree.  I believe our female guest is myth personified.  We need to find this mysterious order, and perhaps ally ourselves with them.  I’m somewhat surprised that nobody’s come looking for her.”

Jack went on to tell Alan of his research, but Alan didn’t follow much of it.  After a while Harriet came in and asked if they wanted to order lunch up, and they did, Jack ordering for himself and a separate meal for the prisoner.

Wilkins came in after lunch and the rest of the afternoon was spent at business.  Jack had sheltered some of his investments and business concerns from his estate, and Wilkins had spent much of the summer reorganizing them under the Cyaxares umbrella.  The lobbyist in Washington was making progress with the Iraqi contracts, but the three of them agreed that Jack’s presence in D.C. would be required to close the deals.  He and Anne-Marie would be leaving Monday, and spending the whole week away, and Alan agreed to stop by the offices each day to feed and tend to the prisoner.

Still, Alan was uncomfortable as to the manner in which the corporation was now structured, specifically that he was President and CEO, and he made his worries known.

By the time they adjourned Jack was President and CEO, and Stan and Alan were board members.  Karick and Neil were also added to the board, and Anne-Marie was confirmed as corporate secretary, a non-voting member.

* * *

A few weeks later...

Kate sat with her friends at a table in McIntosh picking at her food.  Alan was late, something very out of character for him.  She was following the conversation, but not really participating, and with a shock she realized that Scarlet was leaving, along with almost all of her companions.

“Hate to dine and dash, dear,” the redhead said as an apology as she bussed her stuff of the tabletop, “but I have about two hundred pages of sociology to read by tomorrow.”

The only one left at the table beside Kate was a fellow sophomore, a pretty blonde named Jenna, who Kate had noticed being increasingly catty towards Scarlet over the past week.

“I know you were roommates and all,” Jenna sneered, “But I can’t for the life of me understand why you’re still friends with her.”

“Who?” Kate asked, “Scarlet?  Scarlet’s great.  What the beef between the two of you?  I thought you liked her.”

“Really?” Jenna sniffed.  “How much do you really know about her?”

Kate turned away for a second, troubled by what Jenna was insinuating, and she saw Alan enter just as Scarlet was exiting.  They met near the door and exchanged pleasantries.  Kate stood and waved so Alan would see where she was sitting.

“That your boyfriend?” Jenna asked, watching Alan and Scarlet chat.

“Yeah, that’s Alan.”

Kate had only begun hanging out with Jenna since the start of this term.  They sort of knew each other freshman year, but they had lived in different dorms, and hadn’t shared any classes.  This year they were in two classes together, and lived only a few doors down from each other.

“Well, from what I’ve seen, Kate,” she said acidly and starting in again, “You wont have to worry about Scarlet stealing him,” she said, smugness clear in her tone, “I know for a fact she’s a dyke.  You know, a--”

“Excuse me?” Kate said with indignation dripping from her voice, now that Jenna was laying her cards on the table.

“You know, a lez, a carpet muncher, a--”

“I know what you meant,” Kate huffed, “And you shouldn’t spread rumors.”

“It’s not a rumor.  I saw her kissing Jess Starmer.  Her door faces mine, and last Sunday night Jess went in there and didn’t come out until morning.  And when she left I saw them swapping spit, and--”

“Just can it, Jenna!  Scarlet’s like my best friend, and you shouldn’t be a gossip.  Hi Alan.”  He had just arrived with a sandwich in hand from the Montague’s Deli counter.

“Are you two ladies gossiping?  Anything good?”

“No, nothing really,” Kate said quickly, her eyes shooting daggers at Jenna.  The other girl took the hint.

“Nice to meet you Alan. Gotta run, I’ve got Latin American Literature in Translation in five.  See ya ‘round.”

“She seems nice,” Alan said, putting his tray down next to Kate’s.

“I thought so until just now,” Kate answered.

“What happened?”

“She called Scarlet a dyke.  Scarlet is very private about her sexuality, you know, and by this time next week everybody’s going to know she does it with girls.  You and I plus a few more people know, but her boyfriend back in Ohio doesn’t, her family has no idea.  It could get back to them,” Kate sighed.

“Maybe we can figure out a way to have Jenna not tell.”

Kate snorted, “Fat chance of that.”

“Don’t be so sure,” her boyfriend replied, a wry smile plastered across his face.  He changed the subject.  “I’ll come by tonight, we’ll get some dinner, and I’ll study in your room.”

“Sleepover?” she asked expectantly.  He nodded.

* * *

Jenna Roush stepped off the elevator; it was near ten o’clock, and she was satisfied that she was prepared for her next day’s classes, having cloistered herself all afternoon in a library carrel.  As she made her way down the hall greeting friends she could see the dyke’s door was closed.  The idea of having a lesbian right across the hall disgusted her.  What was worse was that she had actually witnessed it.  She had heard a quiet rumor that Scarlet was gay, and so she had mostly tried to avoid being near her when she could avoid it, and she made it her business never to be alone with the damned dyke.  She liked Kate, admired her really.  Kate was rich, exceptionally smart, pretty, and had a cute (but not movie-star handsome) boyfriend.  All of her friends who knew Alan thought he was great, but, in her mind, if Kate was friends with that fucking rug muncher, this Alan fellow could do better.

Kate’s door was open as she passed, and to her surprise, the only occupant of the room was Alan, lying on her bed propped up with a big bunch of pillows, a book in one hand, a pencil in the other.

“Hello.”

“Oh, hi. Jenna, right?”

“That’s me,” she giggled seductively.  “Where’s Kate?”

“Finished her coursework, so she went to UFM to get some sodas and snacks.  Should be back soon.  Are you looking for her?”

“What are you reading?” she asked, twirling a finger through her blonde locks.

“Enuma Elish.”

“Huh?  What’s that?” she asked as she moved towards the bed.

“The Epic of Gilgamesh.  I’m reading it for this great class I’m taking.  Literature and Sources of the Ancient Near East.”

She was standing right next to him, so close he could smell her perfume.  “You can read that?” she asked.

“Sure.  I’m still learning the cuneiform, but it’s an interlinear translation and transliteration.  See, 
each line of Akkadian text is followed by a phonetic rendering, and then a translation.”

“Impressive.”  She sat down next to him, her boob pressing into his arm.  “Is that what you want to study?  Old stuff?”

He laughed, and she knew she was getting to him, her feminine charm doing its business.  Guys were easy, calculus was hard.

“Yeah,” he said, “I like this stuff.”  He made a last note in the margin and closed the book.  “How was your class?  Latin American Lit?”

“Great.  It’s a great class.”  She leaned against him with more of her body.  He didn’t object.

“Hmmm, maybe I’ll take it next year.”

“I,” she started, leaning in to him, her face approaching his, Alan not objecting, “Highly,” she continued, her lips almost brushing against his, “Recommend it,” she concluded, pressing her mouth to his.

“Stop,” Alan commanded, holding her by her shoulders, pushing her away and holding her at arms length.  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

“She’s not good enough for you.  Her best friend’s a lez.  Hell, they probably were licking each other out all last year, when they were roommates.”

“What’s going on in here?” Kate asked, setting the shopping bag down.

“Kate,” Jenna gasped, “I can explain.”

Kate shut the door and turned the desk chair to face the bed and sat.  “This I’ve got to hear.  OK, Jenna, shoot.”

“I’m sorry Kate, I really am.  He started coming on to me, and I should have tried harder to get away, but he grabbed me, hell, he’s still grabbing me!”

“Oh?  And what, pray tell, were you doing in my room, with my boyfriend.  I know you tried to steal Carole Foster’s guy last semester.  Keep this up and you’ll get a rep.”

“You don’t believe me!” she gasped in false indignation.  “Your animal of a boyfriend tries to feel me up, and you don’t believe me?”

“Alan?” Kate asked, looking right in his eyes.  Verbalizing the question was unnecessary.  He shook his head, grinning, winking at her.

“You bitch!” Kate yelled, though not loud enough for her voice to carry.

“You’re the bitch!” Jenna shot back.  “Just you wait.  The minute I leave this room I’m going to tell everybody on the hall that your boyfriend is a filthy rapist who tried to get over on me because you and your bitch friend Scar-lez go down on each other every other night!”

Kate shot out of the chair, moving faster than Alan had ever seen her reach and slapped the blonde girl on her cheek, hard.

Jenna was stunned, and decided to flee before things got out of hand.  She shoved Alan off of her and sprang off the bed, heading for the door.  “Fuck, I’ll tell everybody that you and Scarlet started hitting on me, and it was a close escape just to get out with my panties intact.”

“Stop,” he said again.  His voice was calm and measured, and for some reason she couldn’t fathom she obeyed, her hand inches from the door knob.  “Turn around,” he commanded so quietly she had to strain to hear him, but she acquiesced nonetheless.  He was looking right at her, and for the life of her she couldn’t tear her eyes from his.

“You owe us an apology.  Scarlet, too, but that will come later.”

She tried to speak, but couldn’t find her voice.  She was outraged, and as her lips flapped soundlessly as bile built up within her.  She tried to scream, to berate the pair of them, but nothing came out.  As her hate built within her she became more and more frustrated, her horror boiling over as she realized she was unable to move or speak.  She passed out, her back sliding down the door until she was sitting, her head lolling forward.

Alan took two steps to the door and grabbed her under her arms, lifting her up, turning, and the dropping her flat on her back on Kate’s mattress.

“What happened to her?” Kate asked in horror.

Alan turned to her and locked his eyes to hers.  He stepped forward as she collapsed towards him, and he caught her before she fell.  

“Pleasant dreams, ladies,” he chuckled as he nudged Jenna aside to make room next to her for Kate on the narrow dorm room bed.

* * *

Jenna opened her eyes, scared by her unfamiliar surroundings, and by the fact that she was naked.  The torch on the stone wall cast dim light through the dungeon.  She tried to get up and look around but she was shackled to the damp wall by her wrists, flat on her back, reposed on a 
straw mat; it was itchy on her soft skin.

She started as she heard the door to the cell open with a rusty squeak and tilted her head as far as her stiff leather collar would allow.  Through the bars she could see Alan, his hand moving the barred opening over to the side, allowing his entrance.  Once the cell was open she strained against her bonds, trying with all her might to free herself, but it was useless.  Through teary eyes she saw him watching him from the entrance.  He had made no move to enter.  He was laughing at her, a soft yet powerful sort of chuckle, and it sent chills running up and down her spine.

“W-what are you doing--”

“Silence, slave,” he boomed.

Her mouth closed in mid sentence, and she looked away from him in fear.

She heard him take a few steps into the room, but she refused to look up.

“Look at me, slave.”

His voice was so powerful, and she was unable to remain defiant.  Her body was wracked with the shivers as she looked upon him.  He was chilling to behold.  He was dressed in black, from top to bottom, his boots, pants and jacket leather, a fabric shirt under the jacket.  Suddenly he was leaning over her, and she felt him fiddle at her wrists, releasing her from the wall.

Her first thought was to fight, to knock him down and run away, but she was unresisting as he pulled her up and spun her around.  He clipped the wrist cuffs together and spun her back.

Her eyes were glued to the floor, well, as much as the uncomfortable collar would allow.  She felt his hand on her neck, and he played with the collar for a few seconds before cupping her chin and forcing her gaze upwards.  She gasped as she saw his face clearly for the first time.  The light of the torch reflected off his gentle eyes, but she felt the power that was emanating from them.

“Do you know why you’re here, slave?” he grunted.

“No, Alan, I don’t. P-p-please let me go,” she sobbed.

She squeaked as he swatted her bottom.

“I am your master, and you will address me as such.”

She tried to spit in his face, but she was restrained by fear.

“Do you know why you’re here, slave?”

“No.  LET ME OUT OF HERE RIGH--” Slap, harder this time.  “N-no, Master.”

“You’ve been naughty.”  He placed his palm flat against her forehead and a stream of words and images swam through her mind, the scenes of this afternoon and evening played like a movie through her brain.  A tear escaped and slid slowly down her cheek.

He unshackled her with his free hand.

“I’m sorry,” she cried, understanding filling her.  She was wrong.  Her Master had shown her that.  She felt an overwhelming need to repent.  Master’s hand skimmed up her head to the top, and he took her by her hair; it hurt a little, but she knew she deserved it.  He pushed her to her knees.

CLIP CLOP CLIP CLOP.  Footsteps approaching.  Her terror returned.

* * * 

Kate stood at the entrance of the cell, a little disoriented.  She was in a dungeon, torches lining the hall as she had passed a series of empty cells on each side.  It sort of reminded her of her dorm, both from the smallness of the rooms, and the same distance between each door.  She could see that the last cell on the right was open, and she made her way there, though she couldn’t say why.  As she entered she saw Alan and Jenna.  He was clad in black and she was naked.  Kate smiled, a wicked look on her face.  Right then she noticed her own attire.  Like Alan she was in all black, all leather in her case.  Her boots were knee high, four-inch heels.  She wore a bustier and black leather panties.  There was a riding crop in her right hand which she hadn’t previously noted.

“Mistress Kate, so glad you could join me,” he said, not turning to greet her.  Kate fell into her role in an instant.

“A pleasure, Master Alan.  Has this one been naughty?”

“Indeed, indeed.  In deeds and words, Mistress Kate, she has been very naughty.”

Jenna moaned in despair, and to her alarm, arousal.  She could feel moisture at her cleft, a bead of her feminine nectar dripping down her inner thigh.  Alan took one step to the side, and Jenna gasped at the sight of Mistress Kate.

“Hmmm, Master Alan,” she said in a thoughtful tone, “Be so kind as to remind me what we do to naughty slaves.”

“Tell us, slave, what do we do to naughty slaves?”

“I don’t know,” she said morosely.  Alan leaned over and slapped her on her butt again, this time harder than the last.  She yelped at the sting.  “I don’t know, Master,” she whispered, her voice bursting with fright.

“Mistress Kate, please be so kind as to tell this little slave what we do to naughty slaves.”

“It would be my pleasure, Master Alan.”  She strode with confidence to the cowering blonde girl and hoisted her to her feet.  In her high heels she towered over the shivering slave, when without the shoes they would have been roughly the same stature.  Jenna shivered when Kate cupped her chin just as Alan had, and she looked up into the raven-haired girls eyes as her whole being shook in fear.  Though Kate was looking right at her, the answer was directed at him.  “We punish them, Master Alan, we punish naughty slaves so they wont be naughty anymore.”

* * *


Though hoping against hope that this nightmare would end this instant, Jenna resigned herself to her fate.  She watch in horror as Alan (“Shit, Master Alan, Master Alan, Mistress Kate, Mistress Kate,” she drummed into her own mind, hoping to avoid another smack on her ass) pulled a leash from the pocket of his leather jacket, handing it to Mistress Kate.  She heard a click and realized that the leash was now attached to her collar, and she offered no struggle as she was dragged across the stone floor to the other side of the room.  She allowed herself to be bound to a leather upholstered sawhorse, her cuffs fastened to opposite ends of the horse, her leash wrapped around the crossbar so that there was less than two inches of slack from her collar.

She could hear them behind her, feel the breeze caused by the air being displaced by their movements.  Neither of her tormentors spoke, nor did they touch her, but she could hear their footfalls nonetheless, preparing something.

Suddenly Alan stood before her, his groin inches from her face, the smell of his leather tickling her nose.  He fiddled with the leash and she felt more slack come to her leash as he held her head between his powerful hands, lifting her view to him.  His eyes were scary with determination.

“I want you to count each one,” he said in that quiet and commanding tone of his.  She betrayed no reaction, not quite understanding what was about to happen to her, not quite knowing exactly what was expected of her.

* * *

With a start Kate realized she was gripping a paddle in her right hand.  I was padded with calf leather, and she stroked the fingertips of her left hand over the surface of it.  The handle was walnut, and she thought the piece was beautiful as she admired it in the flickering torchlight.  She felt his eyes on her and looked his way.

“Now,” he said sternly.

Kate struck Jenna, the blow slapping across her cheeks.  Jenna screamed, though louder than she should have considering the force of the smack Kate had dealt her.

“Count it,” he ordered the bound girl.

“Why are you doing this?” she sniffled once she was able to deal with the pain.

“Now,” he repeated.  A replay.

“Please,” the blonde girl cried.  “I’m sorry!  I-I-I’m a liar!  I admit it!” she bawled.  “Kate, please don’t do this to me.  I lied!  I came on to him!  I admit it! I admit it! Please!”

“Again!”  Smack. “Count it.”

“Three,” she whimpered, her face wet with tears.

“No, little slave.  No.  That was one.”

“NO!” she screeched.  “That was three.  She hit me three times!  Please.”

“Count it, slave.  That was one.  If you don’t count it, it doesn’t count,” Kate said, and even though Jenna couldn’t see her, she could almost visualize Kate sneering at her.


“One.”

Her head was yanked up by her blonde mane, and she shook in terror as she saw Kate before her, Alan having taken a short step aside.  The paddle was right in front of her face, just below the eye level, and she whined, fearing Kate was about to hit her in the mouth.

“Kiss it,” the black-haired girl commanded, “Kiss it and thank me for punishing you, you worthless little lying slave.”

“Thank you Mistress Kate for punishing this worthless little slave liar,” she moaned as she showered the shiny leather of the instrument of her torment with little kisses.  She moaned again as Kate retreated to the position behind her, steeling herself for another blow.

“Two!” she screamed out, her ass afire in pain.  “Thank you Mistress Kate for punishing this lying slave,” she sobbed.  Kate held the paddle before her once more, and she worshipped it with her trembling lips.

“Three!  Thank you Mistress Kate...”

“Four! Thank you Mistress Kate...”

“FIVE!  Oh my GOD!”

The bound coed trembled as ecstasy consumed her.  Her body convulsed and she thrashed against her bonds.  Her pussy spurted girl come and she felt both her inner thighs soaked, almost to the knees.

A sinful smile spread across Kate’s face.

Jenna felt weak.  Her tremors had not yet subsided, yet she felt her arousal accelerate again.  As she gathered her wits about her she realized that someone was playing with her pussy, dragging their fingers through her silky blonde pubic hair and rubbing their fingers against her dripping slit.  Her eyes shot open and she saw Alan still standing in front of her, so by simple process of elimination it was Kate diddling her.  Just the thought of it made her want to vomit, but her body was betraying her, and she felt unable to control her reactions, wiggling her butt against Kate’s probing fingers.

“Uh, ugh UGH UHUHUHUH!” she screamed, her voice echoing off the stone walls of her cell as she approached her peak.  Kate withdrew her hand and Jenna slumped against the hide cover of the sawhorse, whimpering in frustration.

“Did she thank me for number five?” Kate asked with an arched eyebrow.

“No, Mistress Kate, she most certainly did not.”

Black leather obscured her vision as she was at last able to pry her eyelids open.  Without bidding her kissed it, slobbering all over the smooth surface.  “Thank you, Mistress Kate,” she hissed between kisses.

“Why are you thanking her, little lying slave?” Alan asked, his voice hard.

“For punishing me, Master Alan.”

“And why are you being punished, slave?” Kate asked, gripping her by the hair to look her in the face.

“B-b-b-because I’ve been bad,” she said with a gulp.  Salty tears slid down her pretty face and into her mouth, her mouth she was unable to close to her continued panting.

“And how was it that you were bad, slave?” Alan asked quietly.

“I was going to accuse you of rape, and Mistress Kate of being a lesbian,” she whimpered.

“So being a lesbian is an accusation?” Kate asked the bound girl, outrage clear in her tone.

“It’s disgusting,” she whined, quickly adding, “Mistress Kate.”  She opened her eyes as she heard them move about her.  Before she knew what was happening each of them were unlocking her wrists.  She felt like a used-up rag doll, unresisting as they each took one of her arms and led her a few steps away from the sawhorse.  In mere seconds she was on her hands and knees on the damp stone floor of the dungeon, each wrist anchored to a peg set in the floor.  Alan put similar 
cuffs on her ankles, and she offered no opposition as he attached these to another pair of pegs.

* * *

Alan decided to awaken Kate first.  She was confused and disoriented, but he used his powers to allay her concerns.  He instructed her to retrieve her gear from the closet and don the dominatrix outfit.  She was excited, never having an opportunity to wear it as yet.  Together they undressed the unconscious blonde, and Alan let Kate have the honor of snapping the collar closed around Jenna’s neck.  The split duties when it came time to put the cuffs on her, Alan handling the ankle set, Kate the wrists.

* * * 

The room began to change subtly as she scanned around.  The walls became less blurry.  As she looked up at Alan she noticed over his shoulder that a poster of Rene Magritte’s “The Betrayal of Images” was tacked to the stone wall.  Jenna found that curious, because the same poster, a painting of a pipe with the legend “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” scripted at the bottom, also hung on Kate’s wall, right over her desk.  The lines between this dream and reality were smudging, and it was starting to make her even more upset.

As these disturbing thoughts coursed through her brain she abruptly realized that the scene was continuing to shift; no longer, she realized, was she bound to pegs on the floor.  The walls surrounding her were still wet stone, but she was now half on a bed, her wrist cuffs clamped to the metal frame.  The bed was identical to the one she slept in, and she was startled to comprehend that she was now bound to Kate’s.

She blinked.  The walls changed.

She blinked.  The torches were gone, the room now illuminated by the overhead lights and the lamp on Kate’s desk.

She blinked again.  All trace of the dungeon was gone.  She was in Kate’s room, she was sure.  It had been a dream.

She sighed in relief and closed her eyes, happy the nightmare was over.

“So, my little lying slave, you are awake?”

The shock of hearing those words jolted her and she tried to stand up.  To her horror she realized she really was tied to the bed.  She was naked.  She felt a collar around her neck, and she could feel the leash resting centered on her back.  She tried to shift position, rattling the cuffs on her wrists against the bed frame.  Her knees dug into the bare floor, and she could feel the moisture drip slowly down her inner thighs.

Her ass hurt, like she had been--"Ohmigod! NO!” her mind screamed “It was just a dream.  This can’t be true!  This cannot be happening!”--spanked.  She wriggled in her bonds, her chest rubbing against the bedspread.  The coolness of the room was soothing against the overwarm skin on her butt.  Kate walked into her line of vision, and she gasped as she saw Kate was wearing the dungeon apparel like in the dream.

“Please just let this be more of the dream,” she thought.

“If you will it, it is no dream,” Alan said from behind her.

She was shocked, it was like he could read her mind!  She tried to kick back at him, but to her dread she realized that her ankles were shackled as well, the bond connected to each other by a short length of chain.  (She figured this out by the tinkling sound made when she tried to attack him.)

“What did you say?” Jenna asked, bewildered.

“If you will it, it is no dream,” he repeated.

Kate arched her eyebrows, amused.  She came over to him and whispered, “What in god’s name are you chattering about?”

“It’s a line from a movie.  The Big Lebowski.”

She giggled.

Jenna shivered despite the warmth of the room.  Alan picked up the paddle from the desk, and Jenna flinched when she felt him rub it over the flesh of her ass.

“P-please,” she begged.

“Why are you being punished?” Kate asked, her voice sharp.

“Please,” she cried.

“Master Alan,” Kate said, nodding towards Jenna’s upturned butt.

SMACK.

“Why are you being punished?” she repeated.

“Be-because I was bad,” she whimpered.

“And what happens to little slaves who’ve been bad?”

“They get punished, Mistress Kate, they get spanked.”

SMACK.

She gasped aloud at the sting but she could feel her slit moistening again, droplets wetting her thighs.

“Thank your Master,” Kate instructed.  “Thank him for taking the time and trouble to punish you, you little liar.”

“Thank, ah ah ah, you,” she gasped out as she trembled.

“How many more, do you think, Mistress Kate?” Alan asked through his grin.

She shared his smile while she considered the situation.  “Hmmm, well she has been bad, hasn’t she?”  Jenna quivered as Kate debated with herself.  “Hmm, but it’s just her first time, so I figure two more.  Sound about right?”

Kate ordered Jenna to count off the two remaining swats and thank her Master for both, and she complied.  After that Kate released Jenna from the shackles, rubbing her wrists and ankles to help get the circulation flowing.  When at last she was free Jenna dropped to her knees and hugged Kate around her waist, crying and thanking her new Mistress.  Kate stroked the girl’s hair gently, consoling as the blonde got the shakes out of her system.

“It’s going to be OK, little slave, I promise,” Kate assured, and Jenna looked up at her with a look an admixture of fear, arousal, joy, and submission.  Kate pulled her up and sat her on the bed, allowing her to use a small blanket around her shoulders to keep the shivers away, and Jenna was profoundly grateful.

"Where are my clothes?"

Kate took her by the chin and kissed her lightly on her lips.  "Don't worry your pretty little head about that, little slave," Kate assured, kissing her again.

And she didn't.

She could hear Alan move about the room, doing things, but she didn’t have the will to raise her eyes, which were fast on her hands folded in her lap, to see what he was doing.  He had obviously turned on the heat, because she felt the room warm, and heard the rattle and hum of the unit kicking to life.  Still, she shivered slightly.  Kate held her tight, her arm slipping under the small blanket, and if Jenna had the energy to be startled by anything she would have been startled to realize that she was enjoying the touch of the dominant girl; she purred quietly as Kate massaged her.

“Are you OK, hon?” Kate asked, her mouth inches from Jenna’s ear.

The blonde nodded, and Kate repositioned them so that Jenna was on her lap and she herself was half-reclined against her pillows, her hands lightly caressing Jenna’s belly and hips.  “She has a really nice body,” Kate judged.  Jenna was firm of flesh with small perky breasts.  Her stomach was flat, and her body tight, unlike Kate’s own curvy form.  The blonde shivered as Kate lazily stroked her flesh.

She recoiled slightly, fearful as Alan sat at the edge of the bed right before her, and began to tremble as she watched him place a hand on her knee; the leather paddle rested across his lap, and she stared at it with immense dread.  Kate took this as a signal to continue, and Jenna gasped when she felt Kate’s fingers ruffle through her golden thatch.  Her head began to shake as Kate masturbated her, signaling her objection to this handling, and she fought the pleasurable sensations in order to speak.

“No!” she hissed, “P-p-please Kate.  Don’t do that.”

“Doesn’t it feel good?” Kate whispered, her mouth less than an inch from the trembling girl’s ear.  She gave it a slow lick around the perimeter for punctuation.

“It’s wrong.  It’s wrong.” Jenna cried as she bucked to and fro, trying to shake herself loose from Kate’s soft embrace.  In response Kate tightened her arms around Jenna, and her free hand seized one of the girl’s nipples, pinching it hard.

“Ow! Shit!  That hurts!” she cried as Kate began to twist the nipple.  The hand massaging her pussy picked up speed, and despite the discomfort of her chest her arousal accelerated.

“Kate, please, stop tha--”

The hand at her pussy shot up and now Kate began abusing both her breasts, and the pain silenced her long enough for Kate to speak.  “That’s three times, just now, Slave Jenna, that you have failed to address me by my proper title.”

To Jenna’s relief Kate ceased to pinch and twist, and instead began to lovingly stroke her nipples and breasts, and it felt divine, at the very least in comparison, uncomfortable as she was with the situation. “I’m sorry, Mistress Kate.”  Her pale face was wet with tears.

“We must punish you for that,” Alan put in, his right hand closing around the handle of the black leather paddle.

“No, please Master, please Mistress, I will do anything.”

“We will hold you to that, slave,” Kate murmured in her ear, licking it again.

A flurry of movement; Jenna’s languid mind could barely keep up as she was repositioned and Kate and Alan took there places.  She was now kneeling on a small throw rug in the middle of Kate’s room, her wrist cuffs clipped together behind her back.  

Kate stood before her, her eyes fierce. “You called Scarlet very bad names.”

“I’m s-sorry Mist--”

“No slave, don’t speak, just listen.”  Jenna shivered and nodded.  “Scarlet is you Mistress’s friend, and a beautiful person.”

Jenna nodded, and Kate continued, “Just because she takes pleasure in the touch of another woman doesn’t make her any less of a person than anyone else.”  Kate reached to the snaps on either side of the waistband of her black leather bikini undies, and they fluttered to the ground between the high gloss leather boots.

“Pick them up, slave,” her mistress demanded.  Jenna struggled to get free of the cuffs which had her arms pinned behind her.

“How do you expect--”

SHWISH.  The end of the riding crop came down and struck her left nipple, and Jenna bit back a scream; it wasn’t that bad, compared to how Kate had twisted it, and in fact Jenna sort of liked the way it was tingling, the aftereffect of pain as the hurt receded.

“Don’t be stupid, slave,” Kate said, her words clipped.  Jenna understood and bend over and took the panties between her teeth.  With a big effort she righted herself back into the kneeling position.

One of Kate’s hands patted her head like one would an obedient pet, and the other took the panties from her lips, handing the to Alan.  She felt so humiliated, but she realized, again to her horror, that this whole scene was arousing her.  It was then she realized that Kate’s vagina was void of hair, and though she was slightly revolted she could not stop staring at it, and a small part of her brain wondered what her pussy would look like bald.  She shuddered.

And now the smell was affecting her.  She knew what that smell was, she knew from long experience lying awake in her dark bedroom back home, and her dorm room here.  She had always had a healthy sex drive, and she got herself off almost every night, though only once in a while cleaning the wetness from her fingers in her own mouth.  She liked the taste each time she did so, bit always had tried to resist the temptation, hating herself when she gave in, thinking it belied homosexual tendencies she wanted more than ever to eradicate from within herself.

She was terrified, her worst nightmare coming true.  She knew that Kate would demand her mouth on the bare pussy, and she knew she would be helpless to resist, not only because she feared the paddle and the crop, but because her own lust would get the better of her.  She realized she wanted to taste that.  She believe she wasn’t attracted to girls, but as the aroma invaded her nose and brain, she knew she was at the very least attracted to the taste, to the smell.  Her eyes itched, and she become conscious of the fact that she hadn’t blinked in far too long, so she did, but her stare was fixed on Kate’s exposed flesh.  It wasn’t until Alan spoke (and even then, she was so concentrated that his words meant nothing to her) that she remembered he was still with them.

“Yes, Alan, she does seem interested.  Isn’t that right, slave?  You like my pussy?”

“Yessssssss.”

SWISH!  Her other nipple now stung.

“What?!?” she cried, but quickly saw her mistake.  “Sorry, Mistress,” she mumbled.

“Better,” Kate said.  “What do you like about my pussy, slave?”

“It-it-it smells nice, Mistress.”

“You like the smell, huh?”

“Yes...Mistress.”  She was glad she hadn’t forgotten again, but it was close.

“Do you like how it looks, slave?”

“Yes, Mistress, it’s very pretty, smooth.”

“What about how it tastes?  Do you like how it tastes, slave?”

“I-I-I don’t know, Mistress.”

Alan stood next to Kate, and he dipped a finger in the shaved pussy.  Kate sighed in delight as he stirred his finger around her insides.  He withdrew his digit and held it in front of Jenna’s mouth, but to their surprise Jenna clamped her lips shut, her head shaking from side to side.  If the wanted to taste that they would have to spank her, or whip her with the crop, she decided defiantly.  She refused to be a willing participant in tasting another woman’s juices.  Despite this resistance she was unable to look at anything other than Kate’s moist hairless slit, or Alan’s fingers, shiny with those juices, but she remained steadfast.

“That’s funny,” Alan said to Kate.

“What is?”

“Well, our little slave here really gets off on the taste of her own pussy,” Alan explained as Jenna cringed, “So I’m just surprised that she wouldn’t want to taste yours.”

As Jenna’s jaw dropped as a result of the revelation Alan quickly pushed his finger past her lips.  She tried to bite down hard, hurt him bad so he would retreat, but to her alarm she merely closed her lips around it instead, and began to suck Kate’s stickiness off him.  Alan pulled his finger out slowly, amused that Jenna pursed her lips around it trying to keep him from escaping.  He scanned her thoughts and found she was much more comfortable submitting herself to him than to Kate.

“It tasted good, didn’t it, Jenna?” he asked.  He called her by name intentionally, trying to throw her off guard.  It would be interesting to see how she reacted to his calling her Jenna, and Kate referring to her as a slave.

“Um hm,” the cowering blonde nodded as she responded.

“Would you like more, Jenna?”

She nodded, embarrassed to admit she did, ashamed that she enjoyed having Alan’s finger in her mouth.  She watched in with dread as Kate inched her crotch closer to her face, and wanted to protest, wanted to ask him to get more of the tasty juices with his finger and feed her, and her stomach heaved as Kate pressed her shiny slit against her lips.  She kept her mouth shut for almost a half minute, but the smell was so seductive, sweet and maddening.  Her resistance crumbling, she felt her tongue pass through her closed lips and wiggle in Kate’s sex, and soon thereafter she was licking all around, trying her best to gather all the juices secreted.  She could feel Kate tremble with excitement, and she was please with herself for doing a good job.

Kate was panting when she pulled Jenna away from her gooey center, and the kneeling coed looked up with her at fear.  Kate understood that Jenna was afraid she had failed to please her Mistress, so she patted her on the head again, and Jenna’s eyes relaxed at the implied praise.

“What are you?”

Jenna knew how to respond right away; it was not for nothing that she had gained admission to such a good college.  “Slave, Mistress,” she whispered.

“You just licked me out.  What does that make you?”

Jenna shut her eyes as tears ran down her cheeks.  “Don’t make me say it, Mistress, please?”

“You liked licking me out, I can tell.  So, that makes you a lez, a dyke, a rug muncher, if I had a rug to munch, that is.”

“NO!” she gasped.  “No, you made me!  Tied me up!  I didn’t want to...”

Alan leaned behind her and unbound her hands.  Kate removed the collar and the leash.  Jenna sighed with relief.  “It’s over.  It’s over.  It’s over,” she thought with glee, though not daring to move an inch without their by or leave.  She rolled her head around, grateful to be able to move it at last, and she rubbed her wrists as Alan removed the ankle cuffs.  She stood after he tapped her shoulder, her eyes darting over the room to find her clothes, hungry for escape.  When she turned towards the bed she saw Kate reclined against some pillows, her ass up to the edge, feet flat on the floor.

“Kate, where are my clo--”

But she was cut off, both by Kate’s harsh tone, and the fascinating vision of seeing Kate caressing her denuded crotch with the flapped tip of the crop.  “Come over here and lick my pussy, finish what you started.”

As she fell to her knees and bustled towards the bed and Kate’s wet slit she appreciated the fact that she was unbound and Kate hadn’t called her a slave.  Just as her face was within a few inches of Kate’s pussy, Alan stopped her.

“Why?”

“What?  I don’t understand...Master?”

“Why are you about to go down on her?  Did she order you?  Are you tied up?  Is she forcing you?  And you can drop the ‘Master’ for now.”

“N-no...”  She looked up at him, and didn’t see the paddle.  Kate had stashed the crop behind her under the pillows, and it was now similarly out of sight.  She looked back at Kate, and recognized that despite her prejudices, she wanted this.  Badly.  Her own pussy was drenched, she could feel little drops of her own nectar clinging to her bush and sliding down her thighs.  She had never been this aroused.  She leaned in again attempting to bury her face in Kate, but he held her, frustrated her.

“Why?”

“B-because I want to!” she groaned, lunging at Kate, burying her lips and tongue in the puffy flesh.

“Good girl, good girl,” Kate moaned as she played with the blonde mane at her waist.  She pulled on the hair gently, not enough to hurt, or even to move Jenna’s mouth off her pussy, but just enough to expose the kneeling girl’s neck so Alan could reattach the collar.  Jenna groaned as she felt it snap closed around her, sending delightful sensations tingling up her Mistress’s spine.  She groaned again as Alan gave her a few light slaps with the paddle, driving both girls to orgasm.

She lifted her mouth off Kate’s pussy, licking around her mouth to capture the juices covering her face, shivering with satisfaction.  She heard Alan address her from behind, but her mid was still swimming.

He repeated the question.  “Why?”

“Because I liked it.”  Her mid rocked at the recognition that she did indeed enjoy this.  He slapped her again with the paddle, and she added, “Eek!  Master!”

Kate was going down on her as she laid flat on her back, and she panted with arousal.  She could feel something pressing at her lips. something warm, something hard, something huge.  Both her eyelids and her lips popped open as Alan pressed his erection into her mouth, and she was proud as he groaned aloud as she began to play with his cock with her lips and tongue.  Kate was driving her mad with the sucking and licking, and her ministrations with the end Alan’s cock--a cock so large she had to cross her eyes to see fully down the shaft--accelerated.  As her groans transformed into feral grunts it took supreme effort on her part to not let him escape from her jaws, but she managed.  As she writhed on the bed in the most enormous climax yet this evening he spurted a prodigious blast, and she did her best to take it all, but there was far too much. Semen escaped from the corners of her mouth as she at last released him, screaming so loud she worried the whole hall would hear, not knowing there was no chance of that happening thanks to Alan’s abilities.

She felt at once sluggish and stimulated, and offered no resistance as her two dominants rearrange her on the bed.  Alan was now reclining, Kate on top, slowly bobbing up and down on his immense erection, screaming out her passion as he fucked her to orgasm after orgasm while Jenna licked at their joining as she had been directed.  After a slew of climaxes Jenna was now right on Kate’s hairless pussy as the black haired girl continued to scream as she bobbed now, her ass impaled.

It when on for more than an hour, the positions and the level of arousal entirely new to the new slave girl.  She screamed so loud she thought she would have a sore throat the next morning as Alan fucked her from behind as Kate rubbed her clit with gentle fury.

“PLEASE MASTER ALAN!  FUCK ME!  FUCK YOUR LITTLE SLAVE!  COOOOOMING!  COMING!  COMING!  COMING!  COMING!” she shouted at the end as she felt him spill himself in her wildly undulating pussy.

She passed out.

When she awoke she was startled to find herself in her own bed, lying atop the covers, Alan and Kate  at the edge of her mattress.  Kate cleaned her face and groin with a warm washcloth.

“How did I get--” she croaked, her throat throbbing, her mouth dry

“Shush,”  Kate ordered, holding a bottle of water to her mouth.  It was one of those sports bottle, the kind with a hard nipple at the end, and she blushed, remembering spending much effort licking and sucking Kate’s hard and ringed nipples, but she was grateful her Mistress was taking care of her.

Alan stroked her yellow mane as he forced commands into her mind.  She would not speak if Scarlet’s orientation to anyone.  He had mined her memories and was relieved to see she hadn’t already revealed anything yet.  She would be submissive to Kate, and , to a lesser extent, him.  He didn’t shackle her mind so that she wouldn’t be able to speak about this night.  He wanted to see if she would have the courage to talk about it.

“Almost time for bed, sweet slave,” Kate said, withdrawing the bottle, but leaving it within reach.

“Thank you, Mistress,” Jenna mumbled as best she could.  “Please, blanket.”

“Just one last thing,” Kate said.

Jenna opened her sleepy eyes, but couldn’t react at all when Kate reached into the pocket of the her robe and took out a small dildo with a notch near the end, a small perpendicular handle right at the top.  Without outward expression she cringed as Kate lubed it with a small amount of jelly and brought it to her crotch.  She did manage a gasp as she felt it against her rear pucker, and she shook in terror, clenching as hard as she could to prevent the anal invasion.  Alan put his hands on her blonde muff, casually exploring her mound.  She let out a tired breath and relaxed, but this ran counter to her position, as Kate used now had a much easier time inserting the plug up her butt.  When it was securely in place, her ring of flesh tight around the notch she let out a small breath.  It didn’t hurt, yet it didn’t feel good.  It was weird, but strangely sexy.  It made her wonder again how a cock, a cock like Alan’s, would feel back there, thought she had first encountered watching Kate thrash in ecstasy as Alan did her back there.

“One last thing before we leave, slave.”

Jenna pricked up her ears, concentrating though the overwhelming fatigue.

“You are not allowed to remove the plug.  If you have the need, you must come and see me.”

Jenna nodded, and drifted off.

* * *

Alan held Kate as she drifted off.  He was not too tired, and he extricated himself shortly thereafter and sat at the desk and studied.  He would slip back in before she awoke.

* * *

The junior diplomat stood at the arrival gate.  Though he had never heard of the passenger, he had his orders.  The man was traveling with full diplomatic protections, and should be accorded deference at a ministerial level.  He was told that this man would be the first of the flight.

To his surprise the man coming down the jetway looked more like a holy man than a politician, but he wasn’t paid to be caught off guard, so he buried the thought.  He reached for the man’s carry on bag, and the man allowed him to take it.

“Arigato,” he said with a weary voice.

“WELCOME TO JOHN F. KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT,” the sign overhead said in huge letters.

Next Chapter: Entente Cordiale