“So what are we after again?”
Kana eyed her companion with a look of disapproval as they walked together down the stone corridors of the Sanctum. “Didn’t you pay attention during your briefing?”
“Of course I did,” he countered immediately. “I just wanted to be sure. I’ve never—”
She stopped in her tracks and grabbed his shoulder, likewise halting his advance. “Hold it. What do you mean, ‘never’? Please tell me this isn’t your first field assignment.”
“Not really,” he replied, fighting off any sound of hesitation in his voice. “I’ve been on a few gathering missions for the Apothics. Once I retrieved several of the Lorians’ lost tomes.”
Kana’s eyes widened and she snarled under her breath. “Flowers and books? Pah!” she spat angrily. “You have got to be kidding me!” She took two steps forward so that she was nose-to-nose with the slightly shorter man. In a flash, her hand latched onto his crotch and squeezed it roughly. “You ever been sent out to nab something that wanted to rip this off and jam it up your nose while it tap-danced on your forehead?” she growled.
“N-no!” he stammered, his composure quickly fading under her harsh stare and iron grip.
“Then why the hell were you paired with me?” she demanded.
“I volunteered!” he blurted, suddenly aware of a new sensation stirring in his captive crotch. Summoning his courage, he swatted at her hand. His index and middle fingers tagged her arm on the underside of her wrist and her grip vanished. Quickly backing away a step, he smoothed down his tunic in an effort to hide his growing erection.
She raised her arm and tapped her wrist twice, restoring her control over it. “Chi diversion,” she noted with a grudging respect. “Nicely done. You have any other skills that might prove useful?”
“I have been trained in all of the arts required by members of the Spectral Corps,” he replied, his confidence returning.
“Trained by…?”
“First Seer Qa Shon.”
Her dark eyebrows raised almost impossibly high. “Old Qa trained me. I thought he gave it up after that.”
Her young companion shrugged. “I was told he requested to train me upon my arrival.”
Kana pursed her lips and thought a moment. “Same as me,” she noted to herself. A bright blue aura of power quickly enveloped her right hand and she lunged forward, her fingertips aimed to pierce his chest.
A similar burst of red light intervened, deflecting her strike, and he snared her right hand in his left. His right hand flashed out, poking her left breast in two different spots with his fingertips before driving an open palm just below her breastbone. Her body went limp in an instant and he quickly wrapped an arm around her to keep her from falling to the floor. Her body molded to his and her head flopped back so that she ended up looking up his chest at him. “Why did you do that?” he asked, flustered by both her attack and her sudden nearness.
“Had to see if you were any good,” she mumbled, her words slurring as the side of her face pressed harder into his chest. Her free hand came up and clawed weakly at the side of his tunic.
“I would find it most inconvenient if you blew up my student,” a serene yet incredibly powerful voice declared.
Kana stood up straight, easily prying herself from her companion’s grasp and showing no sign of weakness. “No worries, Qa,” she noted to the small gray-haired man standing up the hall. “I wasn’t going to blow him up. Just singe him around the edges a bit.”
“Master!” the younger man blurted in confusion. “I was—” He turned back to Kana. “You were what?”
“The side of your tunic, perhaps,” Qa suggested. “You must never let your guard down around Kana Morel.”
The young man directed his attention to his side and saw a glowing glyph inscribed on his tunic. From the crafting of the sigil, he quickly determined that its effects could range from a light shock to full-scale immolation, depending on the caster’s wishes. In only a few seconds, she had marked him for certain defeat. “You were going to—!” he started.
“I do not believe she would have done you permanent harm, Jamon Siska,” Qa offered. “She was likely about to demonstrate how she never falls for the same attack twice.”
Jamon suddenly recalled her amazing recovery from his last hit. “You cast a chi shield upon yourself to absorb my strike!” he said, his amber eyes wide with disbelief.
“Then drew you in close for the kill,” she added with a sly grin, enjoying the look of sheer dismay on Jamon’s face. “Get the enemy’s attention and then club him over the head with it.”
“Which brings us to your current assignment,” Qa declared. “What are we after today, Kana?”
“A twitch,” she replied without thinking, then bit back a groan.
“No, no,” Qa said, shaking his head. “You still insist on calling things what you wish them to be.”
“It helps unclutter my head,” she muttered. “I know we’re after a mind mite.”
“Then call it a mind mite,” Qa instructed. “Any trace of confusion—”
“Leads to defeat,” she recited. “I know that, Qa! But we’re not in the field right now, so what’s the difference?”
“You forget that the field may come to you, not you to it. You must be in full control of yourself at all times in case of such an event.”
“Let it come,” she grumbled. “I can handle it.”
Qa sighed. “Your faith in your abilities is commendable but—”
“It’s not faith!” she shouted at last, her restraint falling away completely. “Faith does not defeat the enemy. Strength does! You do not believe your way to victory. You fight your way there. Faith is not a shield. Using faith as a shield is like a rock standing against the waves. It will eventually crumble and fall unless it does something to prevent the relentless onslaught. Faith is knowing that you can weather the enemy’s charge and that you can then return it in kind!”
“Turn the enemy’s attack against itself,” Jamon mused aloud.
Kana stopped her tirade and stared at him in surprise, almost as if she had forgotten he was still standing there. “That’s right,” she replied with a curt nod.
“This is why I nearly gave up teaching,” Qa noted sadly, though with an amused glint in his eyes. “And now she’s corrupted my latest hope.”
Kana relented and laughed. “Stow the drama, Qa. I haven’t corrupted him yet.”
Qa shrugged. “Well, at least allow me to demonstrate that sometimes the master is correct.” With this, he raised his hands and shouted, “Vosh tu convi!”
“Hey!” Kana protested as space started to warp around her and Jamon. Before she could cast a counter-spell, they were gone.
* * * * *
“Damn that old fart to the Seven Hells!” Kana grumbled.
Jamon blinked several times and looked around. “Where are we?”
Kana snorted. “I don’t know, kid,” she replied in a mockingly gentle voice. “You tell me.”
He frowned at her condescending tone but forced himself to look around the room. Between the staggered rows of folding seats and the enormous curtain covering one wall, it looked like a movie theatre. The only thing out of place were the numerous depictions of a large red bird adorning the walls. “School auditorium,” he noted. “Site of our assignment.”
“Very good,” she replied, clapping her hands twice.
“Master Qa gated us here?” he puzzled.
“Wow. Nothing gets by you, huh?” she snapped. “Damn it all. He knew I wasn’t ready to go and he sent me anyway!”
Jamon watched her seethe and asked, “What else did you need?”
“A change of clothes!” she cried, flaring out the heavy fabric of her ceremonial robes. “I hate having to put these damned things on for briefings. He knows I would never wear ’em into the field!”
“You could always gate back, get changed and then return,” he suggested.
With this, she eyed him with a look of intense scrutiny. “And how did you know I can gate?” she inquired.
Jamon’s stomach turned a backflip. “I—”I did some research on you when I heard we were going to work together,” he stammered, his gaze dropping to the floor. “One of the things I heard was that you can successfully gate.”
“And?” she asked pointedly.
“And that only you and Master Qa are able to do that,” he added, making an effort to look anywhere except at her.
“And?” she said yet again, amused at his obvious discomfort.
His gaze lifted but not enough to look her in the eye. “And I’m really impressed?” he offered.
She nearly laughed but forced herself to remain serious. “So that’s why you volunteered for this mission,” she mused. “You wanted to check out the Sanctum’s official raving psycho bitch for yourself to see if all the rumours are true.”
His head snapped up and his eyes locked with hers. “No!” he protested. “It’s not like that at all!”
“Why then?” she asked, surprised by the fire that suddenly simmered in his eyes.
“Because of everything you’ve done and seen!” he gushed. “You’ve been up against things that most in the Sanctum have never even heard of, let alone experienced themselves! Someone with your vast knowledge should probably be a member of the Inner Cabal by now, but you’re still out here in the field. When I heard that you needed a partner for a mission, I jumped at the chance. Hell, who wouldn’t?” His brain finally caught up with his mouth and he winced as he saw her eyebrow arch in a look of sheer amusement.
She couldn’t help but smile at his enthusiasm. “Most sane people,” she replied. “So I get to be your next research project, hmm?”
“N-no!” he blurted. “I would never—!”
“Good to hear,” she interrupted, “because I don’t want this to be common knowledge.” She reached inside her robes and pulled out a small leather sack.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Something you never saw,” she replied, her voice now deathly serious. “Got it?” He nodded so she undid the lashings and reached inside the sack. She dug around for a few moments before reaching in even further. Suddenly her arm disappeared into the bag up to her elbow.
“A Bag of Constant Supply?” he gasped in wonder.
“The very same,” she answered, still rooting around. “I call mine the Stash. This thing has helped me out almost more times than I can recall.”
Jamon was clearly astonished. “I didn’t think any of them still existed.”
“Most of them don’t,” she replied, moving her arm this way and that inside the bag as she continued her search. “A lot of them were destroyed through misuse. A couple were stolen and then never located. Got this one from a wandering spectre during an astral suppression mission. Ah!” she cried. She appeared to grab on to something inside the bag and then withdrew her arm. In her hand she held a small bundle of black cloth. Looking at him, she asked, “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Well turn around, fanboy!” she replied in exasperation. “Keep your eyes open, but aim ’em away from me!”
“Oh! Of course!” he said before quickly spinning on his heel. He could feel a blush creeping up his cheeks and fought to change the subject. “So why do you call mind mites ‘twitches’?”
Kana groaned as she stripped off her robes. “I’ve always done that. It’s a mnemonic trick that helps me get things right in my head. I had a variety of learning disabilities growing up, which made me kind of a difficult case. I never really got my act together until old Qa showed up and set me down the path.”
“I see,” Jamon mused, trying to ignore the sounds of her undressing behind him. “But why ‘twitch’?”
“Mind mites feed on stray thoughts, right?” she asked. “Ambient mental energy.”
“Right.”
“Well sometimes they take a bigger bite than they should. Sink their chops into an active thought. When that happens, the victim can lose their train of thought. Forget something in mid-sentence and all that. Most people calls those brain farts. I thought of ’em as twitches. Thus, the twitch.”
“I get it,” he offered. “So that’s what we’re after here. A twitch who has been doing a bit more than nibbling around the edges like it should.” A hand on his shoulder startled him and his head turned to look behind him.
Kana looked him in the eye and nodded. “Now you’re getting it,” she said with a smile. “With any luck, we can nab the little devil before it goes psychoholic on us.”
“Hmm?” he forced out, his attention riveted on her hand.
She removed her hand from his shoulder and walked around in front of him. “If a twitch keeps feeding uncontrollably, it develops an addiction to it. It’ll start feeding on every thought it comes near.”
“So like an alcoholic needs booze, a psychoholic craves thoughts!”
She took a long look at him before shooting him an approving smile. “Exactly!” she laughed. “Maybe old Qa was right. Maybe I have corrupted you!”
Jamon chuckled. “I don’t think so,” he replied. Without thinking, he looked down at her new outfit and was unable to suppress a gasp.
“Ah, crud,” she noted with a sigh. “I’m used to working alone, so I don’t usually have to worry about my wardrobe. Is this going to be a problem?”
His eyes raced from the cut-off t-shirt that barely dropped below her breasts down to the tight black leggings that hugged her every curve below the waist. “No!” he said before internally cursing the sudden pitch change in his voice. “No, that’s fine,” he assured her, forcing his voice back to normal. “It just kind of caught me off-guard.”
“Well we’ll have no more of that,” she warned. “Shields up and eyes open!” With this, she cast a suite of charms upon them both so rapidly that he was barely able to keep up with the incantations.
“What was that last one?” he asked.
“Special one I whipped up just for twitches,” she replied as they started down the main aisle of the auditorium toward the stage. “It releases a thin stream of what appears to be stray thought energy from each of us.”
He nodded as he followed behind her. “Bait for the trap.”
“You got it, babe.”
A tingle raced through his body and he stammered, “W-what?”
“I said that’s right,” she repeated with an impatient sigh. “Something wrong?”
“No, I’m okay,” he replied, though his mind was suddenly unsteady. “So what happens if a twitch goes psychoholic?” he forced himself to ask.
“It becomes a menace to anyone around it,” she answered as her cautious gaze swept the entire area. “Clear thought becomes almost impossible. Last one I took out was at 1600 Pennsylvania. Little prick was sunk in there balls-deep.”
“It was?” he said weakly as a flood of lusty thoughts bombarded his mind. He caught a whiff of her scent and the room started to spin.
“Must’ve been there for decades. Finally came to a head a few years ago. You think those guys all got that stupid on their own?” She laughed to herself and then added, “There’s also a chance of the twitch mutating, but that’s pretty rare, lover.”
Jamon tried to respond but his voice failed him as he stared at her shapely ass. An uncontrollable urge filled him and he lunged forward, but a powerful force seized his mind and sent him toppling forward until he lay sprawled out on the floor.
His fall went unnoticed and Kana frowned to herself as the temperature around her suddenly seemed to skyrocket. “Keep close,” she breathed while a thin trickle of sweat meandered down between her breasts. “Something’s going down.”
In response to her words, a pair of strong hands gripped her waist and pulled her backwards. Soft lips nibbled her neck right below her ear before whispering into it, “Going down on you would be my pleasure.”
An involuntary tingle rippled up her spine and she spun around. Her eyes locked with Jamon’s and she blurted, “What?!”
He lifted a hand to her face and let his fingertips graze across her cheek and down to her lips. Tracing their outline, he smiled and murmured, “Or perhaps you could go down on me. These lips look divine.”
Her first instinct was to punch him hard enough to make his ancestors bleed, but it was quickly muted by a raging desire that tore through her like wildfire. She reached up under his tunic and then slid her hands around to stroke his back. “They are,” she heard her voice whisper back seductively.
“I’m sure,” he agreed while he let his fingers skim down her chin.’ Cupping it in his hand, he stared into her eyes and breathed, “I have wanted you for so long.”
“You have?” she whimpered, her body pressing closer to his until his hardening cock nudged her thigh. Her hands pulled at the small of his back and she ground herself against his bulge.
“I have,” he replied. He raised his free hand to her breasts and lightly brushed his fingertips over the thin fabric encasing them. “Would you have me, sweet Kana?” he asked, his voice a pleading rumble.
Her consciousness bobbed to the surface for a second, filling her mind with a wave of alarms and counter-spells, but then his fingertips casually stroked over her nipples and the torrent of lust overtook her again. She reached down and seized his cock before stroking it firmly from root to tip. “I am yours, darling Jamon,” she purred, lowering her lips to his. Their lips met, barely brushing against one other. They remained that way as his fingers started to stroke and pull her nipples while her palm skimmed up and down his cock. Their passion rose to almost unbearable heights before his eyes started to drift closed. She closed hers as well and fell into a kiss that completely shattered her senses. His lips caressed and nibbled at hers, in turns skimming over them almost imperceptibly and then landing with crushing insistence. Their mouths opened and his tongue flicked against hers, teasing and tempting, demanding and pleading. All the while their hands wove their own spells over each other, his lavishing attention upon her breasts and ass while hers tormented his raging erection.
A flash of light bathed their bodies and suddenly their clothes fell to the floor and landed in a pile of cloth pieces, their seams magically disintegrated. He reluctantly broke their all-consuming kiss and took a step back so he could look at her. A thin sheen of sweat made her bronzed skin glisten, even in the dim light. He let his eyes drink her all in at once, racing over her pendulous breasts then down across her belly and neatly trimmed thatch to her long muscular legs. In response to his appreciative gaze, she ran her hands down over her body, stopping to tease both of her nipples to full hardness and then stroking down to the tops of her thighs. He bared his teeth and loosed a low growl of sheer want.
She started to smile at his reaction but then her breath caught in her throat as she took in the sight of his naked body. Every muscle was taut and straining, ready to pounce forward to claim her. His broad chest heaved like a bellows and she marveled at the way his entire being seemed to radiate his desire for her. Her own lust surged as she realized that every part of him appeared to be built per her innermost wishes. His hairless chest and dark nipples, the sculpted majesty of his limbs, the thunderous cock aimed at her in blatant need—all of it made her body tremble with uncontrolled passion. In a heartbeat, she flew into his arms and impaled herself upon his throbbing erection. He quickly palmed the globes of her ass and started guiding her body’s frantic pumping upon him. She entwined her fingers in his hair and rained hot wet kisses over his face and neck.
He slid her down his shaft to its base and strained, flaring himself deep inside her, and she moaned loudly into his shoulder. In one smooth movement, he dropped to his knees and laid her down upon the worn carpeting. Without pause, he started to long-stroke his cock in and out of her yearning body, withdrawing until his engorged head was just nestled between her lips and then thrusting forward until he was fully encased within her heat. Over and over he drove himself into her, loving her moans and whimpers of delight as well as the way her legs wrapped around his waist and urged him on. Looking down into her eyes, he asked suddenly, “Kana, my love?”
“Yesss?” she replied in a long seductive hiss as his length slid into her yet again.
“Keep your eyes open,” he said through gritted teeth as she clenched her pussy around his shaft.
She stared into the glowing pools of amber that were his eyes. The fires within him were obviously peaking and she felt herself climb ever closer to her own release. At the same time, a whisper started up in the back of her mind. A memory of her telling him the exact same thing surfaced and the shroud of lust clouding her mind receded slightly. Suddenly she caught sight of something hovering just beyond Jamon’s shoulder, like a vapour hanging in the air. She puzzled over it until an urgent thrust drove his cock even deeper and she cried out in ecstasy.
“You see now?” he panted, driving himself forward and back even faster.
Despite the jolts of delight radiating from her pussy and throughout her body, she looked back into his eyes and nodded with a weak whimper. Incantations raced through her mind as her orgasm loomed dangerously close.
He reached down and started stroking her clit in time with his frantic pumping. “Now, my love!” he cried as his body stiffened and he drove himself deep within her.
She came in a rush of power that flooded her entire being. In the same second, she directed a hardened stare beyond his shoulder and screamed out a trio of charms. The mysterious vapour shrieked in terror before dissipating with a loud bang. Jamon’s body vanished, leaving Kana’s arms and legs holding nothing but air. Her limbs fell to the floor and her breath came out in one long sigh.
Several minutes later, she opened her eyes and sat up. She was dressed as before, but now her clothes were soaked in sweat. Jamon lay face-down on the floor halfway up the aisle. Quickly attuning her senses, she scanned all around her but could not detect anything else amiss. Slicking back her short black hair, also dripping with her sweat, she took a deep breath and frowned. The twitch had obviously mutated and she quickly went over the short list of things that could have attacked them in such a manner. As she pondered, her mind drifted back to everything she and ‘Jamon’ had done. Her nipples stiffened and she ran a thumb over one slowly, remembering the way he had so masterfully pleasured her. A sharp pinch of the nipple helped to restore her concentration, though it also sent a throb of need straight to her pussy.
A weak voice from up the aisle called out, “Kana?”
She stood and rushed to his side. Dropping to one knee beside him, she said, “I’m here.”
Despite his weakness, he lurched up to a sitting position. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” he demanded.
His obvious concern for her quickly narrowed her list of potential attackers to one and she nearly gasped. “I’m fine. You all right?”
He looked her over from head to toe before relenting and slumping back against the side of the nearest seat. “I’ve been better,” he admitted. “What the hell happened?”
Her mind raced to concoct an explanation. “That twitch probably took a nice big bite out of your head,” she replied. “What do you remember?”
“Not much,” he said with a frown. “We were talking and you seemed to say some… strange things.” He fought off the start of a blush. “Next thing I knew, the room started to spin and it was like every random thought and daydream I’ve ever had in my life was being sucked out my ears.”
Her hunch was now a dead certainty and she swallowed hard, trying to subdue the memories of their fucking that had suddenly surged forward in her mind. “Not uncommon,” she lied, trying to sound unconcerned. “They can be pretty ravenous once they start in on you. Kind of like an id frenzy. Ever hear of those?” she asked in the most casual tone she could muster.
His body stiffened. “You don’t think it was one of those, do you?” he asked in a worried voice.
“No, no,” she said, waving a hand dismissively. “It wasn’t nearly that bad. If it would have latched onto your mind that hard, I would’ve had a lot harder time getting rid of it.”
“That’s good,” he said in relief. “So what did you have to do?” He took another long look at her and tried to stifle a gasp at the sight of her erect nipples poking at the drenched fabric of her shirt. “Looks like it gave you quite a fight.”
“Bit of a workout,” she replied, trying not to notice his attention to her aroused state. “Ended up hitting it with a triple-shot of spells.”
“Capture, bind and greater dispel,” he mumbled to himself.
“That’s right,” she breathed in surprise. “How did you know? Did you hear me cast them?” Waves of alarms went off in her head as she recalled not so much speaking the incantations as shrieking them at the height of her climax.
“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I remember thinking that we were in danger and then wanting you to cast those spells in that order, but I don’t remember telling you or then hearing you do it.” He frowned and looked into her eyes. “Can you even do a greater dispel?”
She nodded. “It turned out to be exactly the right spell for the occasion.” She stared back at him and forced a smile. “Maybe that twitch was on the verge of becoming a frenzy. It might have fed your thoughts into my head by mistake.”
At this, Jamon looked like he was about to be ill. “But an id frenzy doesn’t just stop there, does it? It dives into your emotions and subconscious desires and all that. That would be horrible.”
Her thighs clenched as everything became crystal clear. The frenzy did dive into all that, she thought, and it fed it right to me! The entire episode was an illusion inside my mind but the lust behind it was all his. Everything that happened, everything we did, was his deepest and most fervent desire! She looked back at her companion and a rush of warmth overtook her. He doesn’t know that I know, she thought as a throb of need started to pulse throughout her body. She started to sway and his hand latched onto her arm to steady her.
“Kana!” he cried. “Are you okay?”
She covered his hand with hers and smiled. “Yeah, I’m good,” she replied, noting the strength of the hand holding her. “I think we’ll just chalk this one up to a twitch getting its penny’s worth out of you and call it a day.”
“‘Penny’s worth’?” he puzzled.
She laughed. “Sure. ‘Penny for your thoughts’ and all that.”
“Oh! Yeah!” he said with a laugh. He stood up and helped her to her feet with incredible ease.
Her eyes went distant and a thought came to mind. “Jamon,” she asked slowly. “When an id frenzy attacks, it doesn’t augment the thoughts it steals, does it?”
“What do you mean?”
She struggled to phrase her query. “Like if it stole thoughts about a person or a situation, would it change details like appearance or abilities?”
He thought for a moment. “No, it doesn’t do that. The situation it digs out would be the only fictional bit. Everything else would be the same as in real life. Like if your fantasy was to be able to fly, it would still be your body doing the flying. It would also do it the way you wanted.” He looked at her and frowned. “Why do you ask?”
Her mouth went dry as she pictured the chiseled perfection hiding beneath his tunic, as well as the firestorm of desire dwelling within his calm demeanor. She patted a hand against his chest and hid the secret thrill that shot through her when it felt as hard as stone. “Just been a while since I read up on them,” she replied. “Maybe you can help me catch up on the rest of my reading?” With this, she raised her arms to her sides and said, “Stand close! I’m gating us back!” Before she started the spell, however, she reached into her pocket and pulled something out. She held out her closed hand to him and he took her parcel in his own.
Opening his hand, he looked down at the small silver disc on his palm. “A dime?” he asked in confusion.
“Down payment,” she replied with a dazzling smile that made his heart leap. In a flash, she raised her arms and cast her spell, gating them both directly to her quarters in the Sanctum.
Story inspired by the word ‘psychoholic’, found in the song ‘More Human than Human’ by White Zombie (Astro Creep: 2000 — Songs of Love, Destruction, and Other Synthetic Delusions of the Electric Head, Geffen B000000OUE).
© 2009 B.K. Bilicki. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.