Chapter Nineteen

Everything was frozen and silent. Color bled from the room until the basement was a monochrome still-life painted in varying hues of gray.

The absence of light no longer blanketed Bernie’s view as she surveyed her destroyed surroundings with newfound night vision.

Yep, Daphne had done a number on the place. Really went on the warpath and trashed what little was left of the archeology department. There was no coming back from this.

Bernie’s heart sank at the realization.

Otherwise, she felt strangely calm. Tranquil. Disassociated from recent events when she ought to be flipping her lid. Konoha was atop her, unmoving, but after some struggle, Bernie slipped free and climbed to her feet.

Turning to inspect her attacker, she found a many-tailed fox girl wearing an ornate black silk kimono floating a foot above the ground she previously occupied. The adorable face was the same, scrunched in confusion, but the tufted fox ears were a surprise.

“A Japanese temple guardian. He actually did it.” She whispered, touching the unmoving kitsune. Her fingers passed through fur and flesh as though they were smoke. “What the heck did she do to me?”

A mortal calls on me after centuries of desolation. How… unexpected. Garbed in the raiment of my priesthood, too. How can this be?

The voice thundered in Bernie’s mind. Feminine, curious, and demanding. Compelling a reply from her lips with all the command of an empress.

“I don’t know! There was a girl–no, wait… a fox spirit. She attacked me with a headdress, and now I’m here but don’t know what’s going on. Am I dead? Did she kill me?”

Calm yourself, daughter. You have pierced the shroud of Mictlān; the land of the dead. You are the first to do so since the Spaniard Cortés eradicated my followers five hundred years ago and plunged me into obscurity. You are alive, but the sacred vesture on your head is that of a high priestess devoted to me, Xōchiquetzal, which opened a conduit to my realm.

Xōchiquetzal.

Bernie recalled the name from her Native American anthropology classes—the Aztec goddess of fertility, beauty, and love. She was also the protector of young mothers and the patroness of pregnancy, childbirth, and (weirdly) flowers.

That all seemed hunky-dory at first blush, but her worshippers also decapitated and flayed young women to wear their skin at religious festivals.

Yeah… that Xōchiquetzal.

Ah, so my legacy was not entirely lost to the shifting sands of time. I read your thoughts, daughter, and while the modern world is strange beyond reason to me, I can sense you are troubled. The goddess mused, a buzzsaw in Bernie’s brain. My power is much diminished but not inconsiderable. I would lend you a portion in memory of my fallen people. One last favor to memorialize a once-great nation built from gold and blood sacrifice. Would that I could help you, but something throttles our tether and weakens the connection.

Xōchiquetzal was fishing. Probing Bernie’s mind for the source of the interference. She directed her thoughts away from the iron bracelet.

Feeling the feathers of the headdress trailing down her back, she pulled at the beaded leather band around her skull, but it was securely fixed in place. That would have been too easy.

With a shrug, Bernie carefully picked her way across the debris-strewn floor, placidly totalling the butcher's bill. The complete lack of color was oddly soothing, but when she bent to retrieve a lion statue's broken paw, she found it as insubstantial as the Kitsune.

“Huh, I can’t interact with anything while like this.” She pondered aloud.

No, child. You are suspended between the material plane and Mictlān while we commune. My high priestesses always found rapture in the incorporeal state, gaining great insights from opening themselves to the cosmos. Alas, you only experience a tiny fraction of that unfathomable vastness through our tenuous bond.

“That explains the serenity.” Bernie found her workstation swept clean. The tools, notepads, and stationary scattered to the four winds. No matter, she hopped up to sit on it instead. “Except when you speak in my head. That feels like a bullhorn on steroids. Can’t imagine what you’d sound like on full volume.”

My words would be irrevocably etched into your soul if I wished. I am a Goddess, after all, no matter how reduced in divinity. You are trying very hard not to think about something. What are you hiding, darling mortal?

Shit. She focused on adjusting her long skirt and deliberately smothered the mental knee-jerk reaction to cogitate on the answer to a question. Instead, she calmly distracted herself with something random.

Pineapple. She loved fresh pineapple. Pineapple was delicious until you cooked it on a pizza. Even her usual disgust at that aberration was muted.

“You can read my surface thoughts but can’t rummage any deeper, or you wouldn’t have to ask.” Bernie said, untying her shawl and examining the crochet pattern. Lots of complicated knots and stitches. “I’ll bet your priestesses were soft clay ready to be molded into whatever shape you desired while stoned out of their gourds on galaxy juice.”

Such was their function—service to a god used to be the greatest honor. Maidens wept tears of gratitude when they laid themselves on the sacrificial altar. Xōchiquetzal’s wistful sigh shook Bernie’s skull like an airbus hitting turbulence. Apparently, those times are long past. I am impressed by your resilience and fortitude, daughter. You guard your mind well and would have made a fine priestess. The mantle suits you. So be it. An honest exchange of knowledge then. We will take turns in questioning one another. You may begin.

Bernie wanted to inquire if the goddess could lie but immediately recognized the futility of asking. An amused chuckle jiggled her gray matter like a blamange.

I am capable of deception, assuredly. But in this instance, I swear an oath of honesty on what power remains to me. Just this once, let us engage in a battle of wits as equals. Test your will and cunning against my millenniums of wisdom and experience. You intrigue me, daughter. Disappoint at your peril.

“That’s very comforting.” Bernie remarked dryly. Marshaling her free-floating thoughts and picking her words with care. “How do I return safely to my plane of origin?”

Ha! You may be surprised how many aspirants forget to include terms of safe passage. Or not. To answer; you can accept my offering, escape via arcane methods, or remove that holy vestment to sever our connection. Which is entirely possible if you are willing to part with your scalp.

“Ugh, talk about gruesome.”

I’m a firm believer in personal sacrifice. My turn. What will you do now your hopes for the future are shattered? What fate awaits you in that dismal hole in the ground?

“That’s two questions.” Bernie objected, wary of the ancient deity’s antics.

They amount to the same thing. Pick one. I care not which. We both know the answer is not what you’d describe as a “positive outcome.” Xōchiquetzal resonated with airy indifference. Stars, but I am learning all manner of modern parlance this day.

That was true. The longer she skittered across Bernie’s neurons like a spider in a web, the more information and nuance the goddess absorbed. If that spider were thirty stories tall and attacking Tokyo.

Either way, she was an exceptionally dangerous opponent.

“If I can escape the crazy fox spirit, and if the archives aren’t totally destroyed… oh, who am I kidding? There will be a massive backlash from the Dean’s office. My professor already has two feet out the door. The archeology department is cooked, and my master's degree–if I can salvage it–won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.” Bernie’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “My academic career is over. Done. Kaput. I don’t know what I’ll do next. Are you satisfied? Good. You may as well tell me what’s happened to Franklin.”

That didn’t sound like a question, daughter.

Drat.

“Fine. What has become of Franklin since I last saw him?”

I can only glean insight from your most recent memories and what little you have observed since donning the mantle of my priesthood. However, I would conclude that an artifact of great power has bolstered his strength, and he is currently… fucking. What a strange word. It has so many usages. Yes, he is rigorously fucking the woman you call Daphne. Potent magic pours from them both, though I do not know the origin.

A dagger of anger pierced Bernie’s placidness. “I goddamn knew it!”

He promised her, and she’d trusted him with the glittery party ****. Clearly, she was naive to believe that a socially awkward, so-called nice guy could resist the temptation the horny Fae magic offered. Betrayal scalded her heart.

Franklin had spoken earnestly of how badly he needed the breakthrough, swearing to be careful, and sure, Konoha’s furry presence revealed he’d successfully restored the temple guardian. But Bernie had softened her tough outer shell for the guy–someone she almost considered a friend–and he exploited that moment of weakness to get balls deep in the psycho bitch who’d single-handedly demolished her life's aspirations.

All to **** a spiteful cunt they all hated/feared into a torrid night of **** fucking.

What was Franklin’s malfunction? He had to know there would be consequences come sunrise.

The sting of disloyalty is most painful, daughter. The goddess's commiserations throbbed like a migraine. A blow to the ego, yes, but also a lesson. A man you admire is in the arms of another woman. Not just any woman but your nemesis. What will you do?

Bernie seethed under the back-breaking burden of presumption.

“Seriously, that’s your question? News flash: Franklin barely ranks as a colleague–”

Keep telling yourself that.

“–and even if I hypothetically harbored some small affection for him, this would be a total deal-breaker. It’s called self-respect. Have you soaked up that concept yet?”

Answer the question.

“What can I do?” She jumped off the workbench only to prowl in frustrated circles. “I’m trapped in limbo with the deity of a long-dead civilization breathing down my neck and no reasonable way out. Let's stop dancing in circles and get to the point. Ask what’s blocking our connection and be done.”

Petulant child. Did you ever consider that some of us enjoy the dance? I care not about the source of the spiritual interference. My interest is wholly in you. Now tell me what you would do if you were freed at this very moment.

Instead of responding, Bernie stalked to the back of the basement. Rounding the rear shelves, she was confronted by a scene of abject debauchery.

Her fellow postgrads were virtually unrecognizable.

Daphne’s resting bitch face was twisted in a feral grin where she lay naked on her back atop a wooden crate folded in half like a human stapler, bound in painfully taut red silk ropes.

Her long, lithe body looked more svelte and refined, no longer starvation-level skinny but still achingly thin except where her knees sunk into boobs large as airbags. Both ankles were pinned above her head in the meaty hand of a muscle-bound Adonis, with the other clamped around her throat.

The guy was huge. Strapped. Ripped. Dressed in shredded clothing, frozen like a Greek statue in the lurid act of violating the batshit hellion’s tight ass. Fully half of his engorged member was buried in that tiny pucker. Its sphincter-stretching size proportionate to the rest of him.

Only his face was passingly familiar atop that cairn of rock-hard muscle, and even in monochrome, his ten-dollar haircut was unmistakable.

“Dammit, Frank!” Bernie threw a punch that passed through the still form as though he were mist. “How could you? I trusted you!”

My patience is finite, daughter. Answer me. The demand almost split her skull.

Looking around, the redhead felt helpless. She could barely move. She was so drained. Worse, a crushing sense of powerlessness threatened to overwhelm her. Through no mistake or action of her own, Bernie’s years of hard work and diligent study were rendered worthless. Her fantasies of a successful career filled with travel, adventure, and the thrill of discovery snuffed out like a candle flame.

And the awful truth was, even if she weren’t stuck between worlds where time had no meaning, there was nothing she could do. The circumstances were so far from any semblance of control that nothing short of divine intervention could put the breaks on this runaway train.

That revelation was suspiciously pat.

Bernie wasn’t stupid. Xōchiquetzal’s tenancy in her brain was hardly subtle, and she’d outright admitted that Bernie was the object of her fascination. Despite an Irish Catholic upbringing, she’d never considered herself religious, but when god closed a door… maybe a long-dead Aztec goddess could open a window.

Needs must, and other such nonsense. The least she could do was hear out the ancient deity.

Letting the iron band dangle loosely on her wrist, Bernie braced for a metaphysical impact, choosing her words with utmost care.

“If I were freed at this very moment… I would seriously consider any help offered while reserving the right to reject said offer without penalty or repercussions.”

Those terms are acceptable. Let’s get down to brass tacks.

“Harder… Ungh~! Harder! Give me all you’ve got, champ. Rail my filthy butt!”

A vein pulsed on Franklin’s brow as he slammed into Daphne’s rear entrance. Her virgin back door was unbelievably tight, only parting for his gigantified cockmeat in small increments like an enemy army surrendering ground by inches.

“Be silent, whore.” He growled, squeezing her neck until her breaths turned to jagged rasps. The unrepentant psycho’s mad grin only widened. “Your soul is stained with misdeeds that can only be expunged by acts of contrition, like flagellating this sinful body on my righteous manhood.”

“Whatever… you say… hot stuff. Just keep… giving me… that dick.”

At least she wasn’t running her impudent mouth anymore.

Franklin thrust forward, striking his palm across a firm ass cheek with a resounding crack. Daphne’s hide was tanned red from repeated spanks, but no matter how cruel his admonishments were, the slut only grew more excited with each blow.

Her incorrigible pussy juiced, womanly nectar splattered across his midsection, even as he sank into her clenching bowels. She would learn, eventually. She would recognize the error of her ways and seek forgiveness.

Franklin would teach her, no matter how long or arduous the path to redemption. Until then, he would carry out his sacred duty. Truly, he was a martyr to the cause of justice.

“Each of your blasphemous holes will be chastened this night,” He proclaimed, easing back a fraction only to slam in deeper. “You are nothing but a receptacle for my cleansing seed until deemed sufficiently penitent. I shall prosecute your remorseless spirit with all the holy power vested in me until you acknowledge your guilt and beg for clemency!”

“Gonna be… a long… night then… right, ace?” Daphne wheezed, long lashes fluttering with ecstasy. “Hurry up and… tear me… a new one.”

With his handhold on her neck and bolstered strength, Franklin could maneuver the short-haired pain junkie as readily as an inflatable fucktoy, balloon tits and all.

The web of silk cords magically shifted and reknotted themselves each time Franklin folded her into a more depraved position. He could contort Daphne’s super fit, top-heavy form like a pretzel, then watch new clasps form, the ropes slithering and sometimes melding together to keep her in place. Constantly pinching her firm, flawless flesh and distending her soft curves perversely.

A less godly man would have garnered sick satisfaction from witnessing their hated antagonist in such a lowly and **** position, likely enacting some dark **** fantasies. Fortunately for her, Franklin was above such pettiness.

He lifted and then smashed Daphne back down on the crate, splintering the wood, watching her shudder through an agony of bliss as he spread her sphincter wider with his tumescent girth.

”Haaah~... Do it again… rougher. Really… mess me up…”

Franklin was her salvation. The avatar of heaven’s wrath and retribution, sent to sear hell’s taint from this wicked creature’s tortured soul. The blessings of the Archangels Raguel, Michael, and Cassiel blazed in his chest, demanding judgment of all sinners and the need for penance to balance the scales.

“I brand you a Jezebel. Unclean and unworthy.” He solemnly intoned, spurting precum into her ecstatic guts. “Thank the almighty for the mercy and wisdom they bestowed upon me. Without it, you would have surely been damned for eternity. Instead, they delivered a saviour unto you to purge the sin and fill you with God’s holy light.”

“God, yes… fuck yeah… fill me up… c’mon, big guy.”

Good, she was getting the message. There was hope after all.

Franklin was not diverted from his sacred mandate by Daphne’s eager gasps nor tempted by her hyper-sexualized figure and rippling pornstar breasts. The pleasures of the flesh held no allure for him, even as his swinging balls sounded the clarion call of imminent battle. The heat of her bound body, fragile yet pliable in his masculine grasp, meant little when measured against the rapture of doling out divine punishment upon an unvirtuous whore.

No matter how phenomenal the squeeze of her anal muscles felt around his spearing length.

“Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation–”

He was beginning the liturgy of the Eucharist, preparing to bloat Daphne’s bowels with his sticky sacrament, when a deafening boom and the flare of orange flames lit up the basement.

Konoha flew through the air like a furry magenta blur, crashing through a shelf of Persian pottery before rolling to a stop at Franklin’s feet in a ball of fluffy tails.

“Whoa, that one had more juice left than I thought.” She huffed, springing to her feet as though she hadn’t been cannonballed across the room. “Oh, hey there, Master. Not to interrupt or anything, but I thought you should know Bernadette’s still here, and she’s not happy.”

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