Catherine - Growing Stronger 4

Night has fallen. Alratha has kept her word and Catherine together with the assassin herself, the twins and seven members of the former search party close in to the camp. The poison has worked wonders, in the circle of flickering campfire sit three asleep women who were on night guard duty. They and Tienal who sits there, head lowered in defeat.

“Very well done.” Catherine whispers and puts her hand on the shoulder of her former superior. “You are a good little ****.” Tienal doesn’t answer and Catherine gets to work. The invaders check the tents and count. All 19 members of the search party are accounted for. One after another, Catherine attacks their minds.

It is a gruesome process. She doesn’t have the amount of practice Uklag has in this field and the asleep victims thought processes are obscured by dreams. The glove increases her ability but it also saps away at her strength. She has to make pauses between each member but by the time the search party awakens from their deep, poison induced sleep more than half of them have been converted.

“Eight hours, huh?” Aelana says sarcastically, “We are at ten now and there are still seven unbroken ones.” Catherine is heaving for air, “Shut up.” She wheezes and closes her eyes for a second. “I am still learning this.” The sun on her face feels good. “It just shows that it was a good choice to bring you.” Aelana clicks with her tongue, “Yeah, sure, whatever.” She sloppily says and walks off.

“My sister will take a while to get used to not being at the top.” Analea says and sighs. “I was meaning to ask, why didn’t you stop her? Clearly you knew what the consequences would be.” Catherine asks and opens her eyes again. The succubus gives her a warm smile, “Being in charge of something is very rare for demons under the rank of Lord. We crave to get a taste of it.” Catherine nods, “That is why you demons are so backstabby, huh. Well then, I think I can move to the next.”

It takes another few hours but finally Catherine breaks them all in. She sends them back to Brikstrat to spread the news that the corpse that was found is reaffirmed to be her. The crisis has been averted.