[Interlude] The Search for Vanessa Hawthorne: Breaking Point

Getting Tryn out of the Inferno was a relatively simple affair. ‘Lust’ had an escort service plan for customers that wanted to take their prostitutes out on a date first or who preferred having sex in the comfort of their own homes and dungeons. She’d used the platinum card to afford the most freedom she could give the goblin: a two-day exclusivity contract that included a humanizing charm and a duplicant robe to hide both Tryn’s nature and her absurd clothing.

The goblin had no issues with the charm but had taken a bit of offense at hiding her clothing until Erica convinced her that it was to save her outfit for John’s eyes only. Once Tryn put it on and Kaoru signed the paperwork, she transformed into a pretty Irish gal clad in the Ashcroft uniform. Her red hair paired nicely with a swarm of freckles that dotted her cheeks and cleavage. She remained just as stacked as her true form but gained enough inches in height to pass as a short human. Having longer legs took some getting used to and she nearly fell over every few steps until she got used to it. Erica did her best to help and not to laugh at the spectacle.

With the power of the platinum card, they’d bought private transportation from the Inferno to Ashcroft, and, just because she could, Erica made sure to buy the most expensive means possible. It was Dante’s money, after all. That was how she and the goblin masquerading as a human ended up in the comfortable seats of a stretch limousine that had been ensorceled into a police car. While they sped through traffic with the siren blazing, Erica ‘accidentally’ spilled a bottle of thousand-year old wine between the seats and dissolved tablet after tablet of expensive **** in a glass of sparkling water.

“So,” she said as she contemplated lighting one of the cushions on fire, “if everything goes poorly… its okay if you run away. Wentworth shouldn’t consider you a threat if you don’t make yourself one.”

The goblin turned from the tower she’d made out of crystal goblets and gave Erica an irritated look, “I can fight too. you know! I’m not just good for sex… though I wouldn’t mind that either…” She sighed happily.

“Really? You don’t look like the kind of girl that knows her way around knives, no offense.”

Tryn grumbled, “I can cook… I just don’t because it takes too long… but I can totally cook, you’ll see! I’ll make dinner for you and Master!” Erica made a mental note never to let the goblin near a kitchen. Those were the kind of excuses that a person with no culinary skill at all tended to make.

“Sure thing, short stuff. I wasn’t talking about that, though. I mean daggers, swords, etc. You don’t have the physique of a fighter and you don’t seem like much of an elementalist or mage.”

“Oh, that’s cause I’m not!” Tryn wiggled her fingers and a pink glow surrounded them. “We don’t use fire or ice or anything like that, sex magic is way more effective anyway. It’s hard to put up much of a fight when you’re too focused on sticking yourself in a welcoming cunt to think.” The energy swirled into the shape of pink lips, and Tryn blew them towards Erica, who instinctively shifted out of the way. It dissipated halfway across and the goblin giggled, “Don’t worry, I won’t use it on you unless you ask. It can be fun though!”

Erica was skeptical that arousal magic would work on Wentworth… but if the witch wasn’t prepared for it, then anything was possible. She looked over at Tryn with a little discomfort. The idea of an ally with that kind of power was somewhat unsettling… “What else can you do?”

“All sorts of stuff! I’m not a master midwife, but I’ve got a decent grasp on virility and fertility magic. Fill up a stud’s balls with a nice thick load of cum, make his sperm all big and wriggly, make sure a woman’s soil is nice and fertile with plenty of eggs… or if you’re a prude I can help turn off the plumbing downstairs. Don’t know why anyone would want to though…” Tryn poked her stomach with a dour look.

“That’s uh… cool, but it’s not exactly useful.”

“Oh,” Tryn bit her lip. “What about healing orgasms? I’m good at that!”

“Healing… orgasms?” the berserker asked incredulously. She’d never heard of those before.

The goblin waved her hands and tried to explain, “It’s like a normal orgasm but way better for you. How did it go again?” She took on a faux-stern posture and recited, “When your partner is about to reach climax, with the delicate application of mana to the right places, you can enhance it to boost the production of dopamine and other neurotransmitters. Adept healers can even purge curses and toxins by drawing them into the cum of their partner before it leaves their body. That’s what Miss. Togglehump said, anyway.”

Erica thought about the way she’d felt after the thing that definitely hadn’t happened. ‘Magic orgasms’ would explain a lot, and though she was loathe to have unknown magic in her system… Tryn had only meant well. She didn’t bring it up.

“I’ll keep it in mind, but I don’t think we’ll have much time for a quickie if we have to fight the witch. Hopefully, we won’t have to,” she said. Outside the window they passed through a street that was only a block from the Academy. “We’re almost there.”

As it pulled up to the front, the police car shimmered and took the form of a normal sedan, looking far less conspicuous to anyone who might be glancing out the window. Erica and Tryn got out, and it pulled away before vanishing around a corner. Together they looked up at the academy.

“A school?” Tryn asked. She sounded bitter. “I hate schools.”

Erica looked up at the building with a wry smile, “Yeah. Me too.”

Together, they headed up the main steps, passing students loitering about in their free period and the first floor main office without a second glance or being stopped. Erica marveled at the laxness of the school’s security, both the mundane and magical aspects of it. She’d brought a complete stranger onto the campus, an Abyssal no less, and nothing had happened. Tryn was dressed in the school’s outfit and wasn’t exactly a threat… but she’d expected something!

For the school that the Warden, a Slayer and a Gorbachev went to…

Erica shook her head. She’d bring it up to Lord Brighton later. Right now they had a different goal to focus on.

“We’re going up to the second floor; the stairs up are down that hall and to the left,” the berserker said, pointing in the direction they needed to go. Tryn nodded and followed obediently behind her as Erica led the way. “I don’t think she’s teaching at the moment and nobody with a sane mind would want to take extra lessons from her, so Wentworth should be there.”

“Master, I mean John, will be there too, right?”

A second-year glanced over at them from his locker with surprise at the disguised goblin’s choice of words and hurried coverup, giving them both a speculative look. Erica met it with a stone-cold glare that sent him back to packing up his stuff and hurrying off.

“Hopefully,” she said as they turned the corner, “if we’re not too-” Erica was cut off as she almost walked into a group of irritatingly familiar chumps.

“Out of my way!” Frank snapped as he practically barreled through them, several of his cronies from the football team following suit. Erica dodged out of the way and then reached through to pull Tryn to safety, but while the other knuckleheaded idiots kept going, their leader turned around. “Hey, I know you.”

His posse halted as Frank approached the berserker and shoved a thick finger into her shoulder, “You’re that fucking faggot’s girlfriend.”

Erica decided not to correct him on the irrationality of his insult and nudged Tryn to go, but the moron grabbed her collar and pulled on it. Surprisingly weakly. She looked at him, then down at his hand. Something was off about it…

“I should make you pay for what he did to me, but I don’t punch girls… even if they are brain damaged enough to spread their legs for a cockless loser.” His fingers trembled with the effort of keeping his fist clenched. Erica started to reach up to pull Frank’s hand off her jacket.

“Cockless loser?” Tryn cut in. “That’s not true! Master has the best cock!”

The berserker sighed. This was going to get ugly, wasn’t it. Uglier than it already was…

Frank shoved her back, or tried to, and turned his attention on the new girl, the other football thugs encircling them and leering at Tryn. “Yeah? I didn’t think the nerd had the balls to buy a whore. How much cash did he have to cough up to get you to suck his three-inch weenie dick?”

“More like eight! Which is five more than you have!” the ‘irish girl’ retaliated. “And he didn’t pay me anything! I did it for free.” A little smug smile plastered itself across her face and her eyes glazed over, “I’d pay him to fuck me…”

Erica let out a low whistle and Frank’s eyes ignited with fury. “I’ll show you…” He lumbered forward and the goons closed in, “We’ll see whose cock you think is bigger after the whole team is done with you, bitch!” He reached around to grope Tryn’s ass with his good hand while one of the onlookers snickered.

The berserker stepped forward and balled her hands into fists at that. The bully loved to throw his weight around and shove the weaker students about, but she’d never seen him threaten something like this. Things were getting out of hand and Frank clearly needed a lesson how to properly treat a lady. Preferably before the rest of the team joined in. She didn’t like the looks of hunger in their eyes…

“How about… no,” Tryn said, and to everyone’s surprise, the disguised goblin punched him full **** in the crotch. It sounded oddly… metallic. Frank collapsed to his knees with a little whimper and his hands fell to cover his busted balls. “I don’t do **** fantasy stuff.”

She stopped, looked at her fingers and wiggled them a bit in thought, “A ‘Bitch Boi 2k Mini’? That model’s for… oh.” She looked up at Frank with a smirk on her face, his burning red as something unspoken passed between the two of them. He whimpered in pain in response.

Tryn looked at the rest of the onlookers, her smile transforming back into a furious pout, “Anyone else want a handjob?”

There was something hilarious about a group of burly football players backing off from a short redhead threatening to give them the most aggressive jerking-off of their lives. Erica snorted, then broke into laughter as Frank tried to stagger to his feet. She crossed her arms as he stumbled and one of his goons caught him, “Don’t look at me, dude.”

“What… are you… waiting for?” Frank panted at the mook holding him up. “Get her!” Another member of his posse walked forwards, only to get a fist to his balls too. Erica watched him crumple to the ground and her respect for the goblin rose. The rest of the rapey footballers scattered, dragging a frothing Frank with them. None of them wanted to be the next recipient of one of Tryn’s ‘handjobs’.

Erica watched them go with the sense that she should be going after them. Frank had threatened to **** Tryn. It was a whole league above the worst things he’d said and done and shockingly unexpected, even from scum like him. Even more worrying was the look she’d identified in his eyes… Frank was ****. Something had scared the bully. Was it Vanessa’s absence? Whatever had happened between him and John?

It didn’t matter. There wasn’t time to waste on figuring it out. She’d keep a close eye on the bully and tell Moira to do the same. Hopefully, he wouldn’t do anything drastic.

Instead, Erica turned to Tryn and patted the disguised goblin on the head, “Good work, short stuff. Let’s get moving.”

“Yes!”

They resumed their progress down the hall to the stairs, walking a bit faster than before. Erica hastened a fraction more, then Tryn doubled that, and in no time at all, they were running past the computer lab. As they did, the door slammed open and a short blonde girl holding a black case took off down the hall in the opposite direction. Erica recognized Tricia, but whatever business the Gorbachev had… it wasn’t hers and there was no time to stop and chat.

She took the stairs two at a time, Tryn following at a slower pace and arriving on the second floor landing a few seconds after Erica. The door to the history classroom was only two to the right of the stairwell, and the berserker threw it open onto a momentary glimpse of a couple dozen students… and the irritated expression of Mrs. Wentworth.

Space twisted and the students were gone, leaving only the teacher standing in an empty, off-color classroom. She gave them both a stern look.

“Erica Carpenter, you’re late for class. Take a seat.”

The berserker felt her legs act without any orders from her brain, marching her over to the nearest chair. As the compulsion tried to make her sit down, Erica grabbed the back of the seat and dug in her fingers, using raw strength to keep herself from following the Witch’s order. Tryn was less capable and the disguised goblin plopped herself down next to her without much of a fight.

“Let John go,” Erica said through gritted teeth.

Mrs. Wentworth raised an eyebrow, “Let him go? You’re in no position to be making demands, young lady. I said ‘sit’.”

Erica’s fingers buckled and her grip slipped, her hand sliding off the back of the chair. She barely managed to replace it with her left arm instead, the surface biting into her skin painfully as she did her best to resist. “You can’t make,” she started, her words falling off as something shifted. She found herself seated comfortably with her arms resting on the table in front of her, “me.”

The Witch gave her an infuriating smirk. “Better. Now then, what was it you were saying about Mr. Newman?”

“Give Master back!” Tryn cried out. She tried her best to struggle against the magic holding her in place but only managed to make a series of ridiculous facial expressions. “We haven’t even fucked properly yet, give him back! Please!”

“Master?” Mrs. Wentworth raised an imperious eyebrow and gestured to the goblin. The disguise concealing her true form was stripped away in an instant, along with Tryn’s voice as she continued to try to plead for John. “Interesting.”

Erica’s phone buzzed in her pocket and the Witch turned her attention back to the berserker. “No phones in class,” Mrs. Wentworth snapped her fingers and the weight in Erica’s pocket vanished as her buzzing phone appeared on the teacher’s desk. It vibrated twice more and then stopped. “If you’re quite done, I have a lesson to return to.”

“Vanessa’s **** wasn’t his fault!”

The atmosphere of the room plunged several degrees instantaneously. Something imperceptible shifted behind Mrs. Wentworth’s stoicism and her eyes locked onto the berserker’s, boring past them and into her soul. “Is that so?

“Yes, and,” Erica hesitated. It dawned on her that she… had never actually had Tryn finish her story. They had visual evidence of the crime scene, she’d seen John finding it on video and there was no way that he’d been responsible, but she was counting on the goblin’s account to definitively exonerate John. Hopefully… it could. “We have evidence.”

“Very well. I expected more from the boy than cowardly running to the Order for ‘protection’, but I will respect results. Show me your proof of his innocence and I will release him from his task.”

Erica wasn’t sure what angered her more, the idea that getting help was considered ‘cowardly’ or the assumption that she was only helping John because of his contract with the Order. Both made her want to clench her fists and punch the arrogant woman in the face, but… no. That would just get them all killed.

Instead, the berserker tried to keep calm and meet the Witch’s gaze, “He found where Vanessa was murdered: in one of the bathrooms of ‘Pride’, a nightclub in the Inferno. I have pictures of it on my phone…” Erica gestured at Tryn, “but she was there with John when he found it and saw Vanessa go in.” Her phone buzzed on the table again, as if in response to being mentioned. Who was calling her at a time like this?

“Is that true?” Mrs. Wentworth asked the goblin, who immediately tried to respond. Instead of words, the breath that came out of Tryn’s mouth formed into foggy images. One of Vanessa with a tall, creepy stranger. Both of them going into the bathroom stall. John’s rock-solid cock pointing up at the underside of a wooden surface. The stall door half open and showing blood everywhere. John vanishing into a ball of water with one hand holding onto a small metal chain…

“And then Master was gone and… and it’s your fault!” Tryn’s voice came back with a scream tinged with grief. “Why? Why did you have to take him away from me? Why…” she trailed off into shaking sobs, rubbing the tears from her eyes.

To Erica’s surprise, Mrs. Wentworth seemed silenced by what she’d just seen. Anger burned in her eyes, but it didn’t seem directed at any of them… nor at John. She’d need to pick her next words very carefully.

“See?” the berserker said. “It wasn’t John. Let him go.” After a moment she added, “Please.”

The Witch remained silent as she turned her backs on them both, the magic restraining them to the desks evaporating. Erica awkwardly crawled out of hers and shuffled over to Tryn. The goblin weakly nuzzled into her arms when Erica hugged her.

“His debt to me is paid,” Mrs. Wentworth said, her voice cold and sharp. “Tell the Order that I will deal with this one personally.” She gestured to her right and a snowglobe appeared, featuring a sunken ship and a little shark. The glass shattered as the liquid inside expanded outwards into a sphere of water at least four feet across. The Witch snapped her fingers and a torrent of seaweed, barnacled driftwood and… briny blood drenched the floor of the room. Erica stared at it in disgust, Tryn clung to the berserker out of fear and Mrs. Wentworth’s eyes slightly widened as the sphere collapsed to a tiny orb. A bloodshot, reptilian eye bounced against the floor.

Erica trembled. The stench of **** in the room was impossible to ignore and the red from the floor seemed to soak into everything else there was to see. She didn’t feel the axe form in her hands, only Tryn’s hands tugging at the back of her pants as she advanced on the person who had killed her partner. Her tattoos glowed as her fury reached a fever pitch and she lunged for the Witch.

“What did you do to him?” her voice broke with the demand, somewhere between a plea and a murderous accusation.

Mrs. Wentworth didn’t move, Erica’s hand passing straight through her body. The unexpected lack of physicality caused the berserker to stumble and fall against the teacher’s desk, her axe slamming into the top and remaining lodged there as she collapsed to her knees.

“Marvelous.”

The word was the last thing anyone expected to hear whispered through the Witch’s lips, and from the way she caught herself, even Mrs. Wentworth was surprised by her own reaction. She stepped forward, past Tryn and knelt in the gore to pick up the eyeball, holding it up to the light.

“You continue to defy expectations, Mr. Newman. I am impressed,” she said. “Now… your business is complete and I have a class to finish teaching. Good day, Miss. Carpenter.”

“Wait!”

The berserker reached for Mrs. Wentworth, and her fingers hit the wall of the back of the main school building. Erica looked out in disoriented confusion at their surroundings, the theater on her right, the forest beyond that, nobody in sight but an irish girl with smudged and teary makeup. It took a second to remember that it was Tryn, reclad in the disguising charm.

As that realization sunk in… guilt dug into her chest like the point of a knife and Erica swallowed the lump in her throat.

So, that was it? After everything, they couldn’t… She was too late. Why had she wasted so much time? First it was Moira, then Dante, then Tryn. At every turn she hadn’t been there for him when he’d needed her. She’d failed her partner. She could’ve been there seven minutes sooner and maybe… maybe!

Erica grit her teeth, balled up her fist and punched the wall as hard as she could. Her knuckles tore against the cement as a crack spread from the impact. The pain cut into her anger, sharpening it into a finely tuned urge that fueled her wordless scream as she pulled back her arm for another punch.

Her phone went off. For the third time.

The buzzing sensation in her pocket disturbed her violent clarity. Without reading the name of the motherfucker who was calling her, Erica dug her phone out, hit accept and held it up to her ear.