Chapter 22: Healing Touch
The sterile chill of Dale Foster’s quarters was a stark contrast to the humid, living warmth of the rest of the ship. The electromagnetic dampeners in the walls emitted a faint, sub-audible whine that set Vivian’s teeth on edge. It was a void, a place where magic hesitated and her shadow-form felt thin and distant.
Dale sat on the edge of his narrow bunk, shirtless. The angry, livid burns where his Consortium implants had been forcibly scorched from his body formed a twisted, painful map across his torso and shoulder. Vivian had done what she could the night before, weaving healing shadows into the ruined flesh, pulling the corruption out. It had left him exhausted and her sated, for a moment. Now, in the cold light of the single bulb, the wounds were pink and raw, but closed. They would scar.
She stood before him, feeling oddly exposed in her simple cotton dress. The demon in her, the part that was her mother’s legacy, stirred uneasily in this dead zone. But the human part, Sam’s daughter, ached at the sight of his pain.
“It still hurts,” she stated softly, not a question.
“Like a sunburn over a broken rib,” he grunted, trying to rotate his shoulder and wincing. “But it’s a clean hurt. Not like before. That was… acid in my veins.” His clear blue eyes found hers. “You pulled the poison out. I remember that. Your hands were cold and hot at the same time.”
“I took the energy. The bad energy. I fed on it.” She looked away, shame heating her cheeks. “It’s what I do.”
“You saved my life.”
“I might have killed you,” she whispered, the confession tearing itself from her throat. “If I’d lost control, even for a second, I could have drained you dry just trying to get at the pain. It’s happened before. Not… not death. But close. Hospitals.”
Dale was quiet for a long moment. The only sound was the hum of the dampeners and the distant, muffled thrum of the engines through the hull. Then he reached out with his good arm, his fingers curling around her wrist. His grip was firm, calloused. Real.
“Look at me, Vivian.”
She forced her gaze up. There was no revulsion in his eyes. No fear. There was calculation, yes, the trained assessment of a security agent. But beneath that, something warmer, steadier.
“You really don’t give a fuck that I’m half-demon, do you?” she breathed, the words barely audible.
A slow, pained smile touched his lips. “The Consortium tried to turn me into a machine. They burned their tech into my spine to make me a better weapon. You,” he said, his thumb stroking the delicate bone of her wrist, “you used what you are to put me back together. Demon, human, fucking fairy princess—I don’t care. You’re the first real thing I’ve felt in years.”
He pulled her gently forward. She went, her knees bumping against his. She straddled his lap, careful to avoid his injured side. The rough fabric of his trousers was against her bare thighs under her dress. She could feel him, hard and eager already, pressing against her core through the layers.
Her breath hitched. The sterile air seemed to crackle.
“Your shadows,” he murmured, his free hand coming up to cradle her face. “When you healed me. They were beautiful.”
That undid her. The last thread of her restraint snapped. A low growl vibrated in her chest, not entirely human. Her eyes flickered, the irises bleeding into pools of darkness. Living shadows peeled away from the corners of the room, swirling around them both in a languid, protective dance.
She kissed him. It was not a human kiss. It was a claiming. Her lips were fierce, her tongue plunging into his mouth with a desperate hunger. She fed on the taste of him, the surprise, the blossoming desire, the sharp tang of his pain. It was a complex, potent cocktail and it shot through her like lightning.
Her claws extended, sharp and black as polished obsidian, but she didn’t scratch. She retracted them, using the smooth, cool pads of her fingertips to trace the lines of his burns, mapping his pain, his survival. As she touched him, faint wisps of shadow seeped from her fingers into the wounds, a soothing, cool balm that made him groan into her mouth.
She ground herself down against the rigid length of his cock, a slow, wet circle even through their clothes. The thin cotton of her panties was soaked instantly, a slick warmth spreading.
“Dale,” she gasped, breaking the kiss. Her forehead rested against his. “I need… I can’t be gentle. Not now. I need to feel you. All of you.”
“Then take me,” he growled. His hands dropped to her hips, gripping hard. “I’m not made of glass.”
That was all the permission she needed.
One hand tangled in his short, dark hair, pulling his head back to expose his throat. She bit down, not hard enough to break the skin, but with a possessive pressure that made him cry out. At the same time, her other hand shoved between them, fumbling with his belt buckle and the button of his trousers. She got them open, yanking them down just enough to free him.
He was thick and hot in her hand, velvety steel. She positioned him, not bothering to remove her panties, just shoving the damp fabric aside. Then she sank down onto him in one relentless, sinking motion.
They both shouted. The tight, wet heat of her engulfed him, a vise of slick muscle. For her, it was the blinding, grounding shock of full, immediate penetration, stretching her, filling the screaming emptiness inside. She rode him like that, impaled and motionless for a second, her head thrown back, shadows coiling around them like serpents.
“Fuck,” Dale gasped, his hands scrabbling at her hips, his back arching. “Vivian… God…”
She began to move. It was a brutal, punishing rhythm, her body slamming down onto his again and again, taking him so deep she saw stars. Her dress was rucked up around her waist. The sounds were obscene, wet, flesh-on-flesh slaps echoing in the metallic room, her choked cries, his ragged grunts of pleasure-pain.
“Is this what you want?” she snarled, her demon-voice layered over her own. Her claws were back, pricking the skin of his shoulders. “You want the monster?”
“Yes!” he barked, his own grip bruising. He thrust up to meet her downward plunges, driving himself even deeper. “Give it to me. All of it.”
She fed as she fucked him. With every drive of his hips, every clench of her internal muscles, she drew off the surface of his life force—the explosive physical sensation, the raw defiance, the stark, uncomplicated want. It wasn’t the deep, soul-sapping drain she used on enemies. This was skimming the crest of the wave, and it was intoxicating. His energy flooded her, not as a victim’s surrender, but as a lover’s fierce gift.
Her shadows thickened, weaving around his burns, seeping into the tissue. As their bodies clashed, the pink, raw flesh began to smooth, the color fading to silvered scar tissue. He was healing under the onslaught of their joining.
The combination was too much. Her control shattered. “I’m gonna come,” she wailed, the words a broken scream. “Dale, I can’t—!”
He solved it for her. With a surge of strength that belied his injuries, he flipped them. One moment she was straddling him, the next her back was on the thin mattress, his heavy body covering hers, pinning her wrists above her head with one large hand. He never slipped out of her, the motion just seating him deeper.
He stared down at her, his blue eyes wild, sweat beading on his forehead. “Look at me,” he commanded, echoing his own words from before.
She stared up, her form flickering between the gorgeous redhead and the creature of living shadow, helpless in the tide of her climax.
He began to fuck her in earnest. This was not her frantic riding. This was deep, measured, powerful pistoning of his hips, each thrust a deliberate, devastating claim. The bedframe screeched against the metal floor.
“You’re not a monster,” he gritted out between thrusts. “You’re Vivian. You’re the woman who saves me.” Thrust. “You’re the one who tastes like smoke and midnight.” Thrust. “You’re the real thing.”
Her orgasm detonated. It was a silent scream, her mouth open in a rictus of unbearable pleasure as her body convulsed around him, milking his cock in pulsing, rhythmic waves. The shadows in the room burst outward, slamming against the shielded walls before recoiling back to wrap around them both in a protective, shuddering cocoon.
The feeling of her tight, fluttering channel tipping him over the edge. He followed her with a roar, his own release pumping into her, hot and endless. He collapsed onto her, his body trembling, his face buried in the curve of her neck.
For long minutes, there was only the sound of their desperate breathing slowly calming. The shadows retreated, seeping back into her skin until she was just a young woman again, pale and spent beneath him.
He finally rolled off, careful of his now-silvery scars. They lay side by side on the narrow bunk, staring at the ceiling.
“The Consortium,” she said quietly, her voice hoarse.
“I’m out,” he said, just as quiet. “Hornpipe burned me out. They’ll consider me compromised, maybe dead. Redmond’s operation failed. They’ll regroup.”
“They’ll come for Jan.”
“Yeah. They will.” He turned his head to look at her. “But they don’t know about you. Not really. They think you’re just another of her… enthusiasts.”
She turned to face him. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m officially dead to them. You’re an unknown. And I know how they think, how they move on a ship like this.” He reached out, tracing her lips with a blunt finger. “We have an advantage. For now.”
“We,” she repeated, the word strange and warm in her mouth.
“You didn’t just save my life, Vivian,” he said, his voice low and serious. “You gave me a side to fight for. A real one.”
Down the hall, in the largest stateroom, Mara sat at a small writing desk, her laptop open. The legal brief on the screen was a blur. Her body still hummed with the residual echo of Zack’s possession, and the deeper, more satisfying reclamation that followed.
Zack was asleep in the bed, snoring softly. She watched the steady rise and fall of his chest.
Her phone, muted, lit up on the desk. A message from an encrypted number. It was a string of coordinates and a time. Then a second text: Evidence locker. Deck 1, Portside. Hornpipe’s personal logs. Might be something the Counselor can use.
Mara’s sharp mind, already cutting through the post-coital haze, focused like a laser. The sender was unknown. A trap? Possibly. But the language… ‘the Counselor’. That was her nickname, known only to her inner circle and, apparently, to Dale Foster, who’d heard Jan use it.
She looked at the sleeping form of her boyfriend, her paralegal, the man who lived in awe of her. Then she looked back at the coordinates. The game was still on. The chaos wasn’t over.
But now, perhaps, they had a man on the inside. Or what was left of one.
She saved the coordinates, closed the laptop, and stood. She walked to the bed, slid in beside Zack, and curled her body against his warmth. She would sleep first. Then, she would go hunting for answers. The law, after all, was just another kind of magic, and she was its most potent practitioner.
The law, after all, was just another kind of magic, and she was its most potent practitioner. That thought was still crystallizing in her mind when a soft, hesitant knock sounded at the stateroom door. Mara slipped from the bed, pulling on a silk robe and tying it shut. She peered through the peephole.
Mike and Casey stood in the corridor. Mike held a baby carrier from which the soft, sleepy snuffles of Rick emanated. Casey had a diaper bag slung over one shoulder. Polluck the cat sat at their feet, his one good eye scanning the empty hallway with profound indifference. Mara opened the door.
“Hey, Counselor,” Mike said, his goofy grin a little sheepish. “We, uh, come in peace?”
“We were debating,” Casey cut in, stepping past Mara and into the suite. She set the bag down. “And we need a tie-breaking opinion from someone with a discerning, legally-minded palate.”
Mara closed the door, leaning against it. “This sounds dangerously like prelude to nonsense.”
“It’s a categorization exercise,” Mike said, following Casey in. “We were rating our friends. You know. For sexual prowess.”
Mara stared. She blinked once. “You cannot be serious.”
“We’re dead serious,” Casey said, perching on the arm of a sofa. “It’s important data. We had Hank pegged at a seven-point-five, but I argued for an eight. Mike was stuck on the ‘he’s just one of the guys’ aesthetic dragging him down.”
Mara pinched the bridge of her nose. The surreal normalcy of this, after everything, was almost welcome. “You woke me up for this.”
“We didn’t wake you up. Your light was on. And you’re dressed. Sort of.” Casey’s eyes flicked over the robe. “So, Hank. Scale of one to ten. Your expert witness testimony, please.”
Mara sighed, surrendering to the absurdity. She thought of Hank’s solid, uncomplicated presence, his mechanic’s hands, the way Fatima looked at him. “He’s an eight. Solid fundamentals, probably surprisingly good stamina, absolutely dedicated to his partner’s satisfaction. A workmanlike eight.”
Casey shot a triumphant look at Mike. “Told you. Pay up.” Mike grumbled and fished a twenty from his pocket, handing it to her.
“Your second purpose?” Mara prompted, wanting to move this along.
“Karaoke,” Mike said, brightening. “The Splash Bar has a machine. We’re getting the band back together. The non-magical, less likely to cause an international incident band. Rebecca, Charley, Ginny, and Molly are already heading down. You and Zack in?”
Mara glanced back at the bedroom. A break. Real people, silly songs, cheap drinks. The coordinates on her phone could wait an hour. “I’ll wake him. I could use a break from the… ambient weirdness. You’re sure it’s just karaoke?”
“What could possibly go wrong with karaoke?” Mike said, his tone so genuinely naive that both Mara and Casey looked at him with identical expressions of pity.
The Splash Bar was all neon and dark wood, a long room with portholes looking out into the black Atlantic night. A screen glowed at one end, a binder of songs on a podium beside it. Rebecca and Charley were already in a booth, Rebecca sipping a Shirley Temple, Charley looking endearingly nervous. Ginny and Molly were at the bar, arguing good-naturedly over which tragic 80s power ballad to mangle first.
Zack, still yawning, slid into the booth next to Mara, his thigh warm against hers. “I still think my Barry White is impeccable,” he murmured.
“Your Barry White is a hate crime against soul music,” Mara replied, but she squeezed his hand under the table.
Mike went to the podium, flipping through the binder. “Okay! First up, for the happy almost-parents!” He scrawled something on a slip and handed it to the bored-looking crewman running the machine.
The screen lit up. The chosen title read: “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” from Dirty Dancing. The opening synth notes began. But the words that flashed on the screen, in bright karaoke font, were different. The first line appeared: I’ve been inside you, baby, all night long.
Rebecca squeaked. Charley choked on his Coke.
The male vocal part highlighted. Charley, red-faced, stammered into the microphone, “I’ve… I’ve felt your heartbeat next to mine…” but the words on screen insisted: I’ve felt your pussy, dripping, so damn fine.
Ginny cackled from the bar. Molly snatched the slip from Mike. “You did not request ‘The Time of My Life: Porn Edition’!”
“I didn’t!” Mike protested, laughing. “I swear!”
The song lurched on, the melody familiar but every lyric replaced with something bluntly, graphically sexual. Couples at other tables, who had been chatting politely, fell silent. A middle-aged man near the screen stared, his mouth slightly open. His wife’s hand tightened on his arm. The room’s atmosphere shifted, thickening. A low hum of nervous laughter mixed with something else—a quickening of breath, a subtle shifting in seats.
Rebecca, utterly scarlet, buried her face in Charley’s shoulder. But Charley kept singing, his shy teacher’s voice dutifully following the filthy prompts, and a slow, bewildered smile spread across his face as he looked down at her.
Mara watched, an analyst’s cold clarity cutting through the shock. This wasn’t Mike. This was interference. The machine. She scanned the room, looking for a green spark, a ripple of magic. She saw none.
Up next was a group of women who selected “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” The opening chords played, but the title on the screen read: “Girls Just Wanna Cum.” The lyrics detailed a very specific, noisy, and collaborative method of achieving that goal.
The hum in the room became a buzz. The crewman running the machine scratched his head, thumped the side of the console. A man at the bar ordered a double whiskey, his eyes glued to the singing women. His hand rested on his date’s lower back, fingers pressing possessively.
In his carrier under the table, Rick gurgled. His wide blue eyes, innocent of language, were fixed on the grille of the karaoke machine. A small, six-inch-tall figure with grey-green skin and pointed ears wriggled out from a vent beside the screen. It was gnawing on a handful of colorful wires.
The gremlin looked around, its beady eyes settling on the baby. Rick let out a delighted giggle, a bubble of spit forming on his lips. The gremlin stopped chewing. It cocked its head. Then, shyly, it raised a tiny, clawed hand and waved.
Rick giggled again, kicking his feet. The gremlin smiled, a jagged thing, and went back to chewing the wires with renewed vigor. Above him, a businessman from Omaha was passionately belting out a rewritten, devastatingly explicit version of “My Way,” sweat beading on his forehead as his wife stared at him with newfound hunger.
“The machine’s haunted,” Zack whispered to Mara, his voice a mix of horror and fascination.
“Not haunted,” Mara said quietly, her eyes narrowing. “Infested.” She remembered Jan’s offhand comment about “little stowaways” when they’d freed the Waterchild. The gremlins. They were drawn to technology. And they were rewriting the program with their own chaotic, id-driven sensibilities.
The door to the bar swung open. Hank and Fatima walked in, hand-in-hand. They’d gotten the ping about karaoke. Hank took in the scene: the raw, charged energy, the bizarre lyrics, the flushed faces. “Whoa,” he said, grinning. “Did we start the party without you?”
A woman at a nearby table, emboldened by the sonic onslaught of obscenity, reached over and pulled her partner into a deep, hungry kiss. The sound of tearing fabric followed.
“It’s not us,” Fatima said instantly, her magical senses flaring. She scanned the room. “There is no active spell. The energy is… reverberation. Echoes. It’s coming from the machine itself. It’s… technological.”
Hank looked at the screen, where the lyrics to “Total Eclipse of the Heart” were now graphically describing a specific act under a desk. “Huh,” he said. Then he shrugged. “Well, when in Rome.” He pulled Fatima towards the bar. “Drink?”
But Fatima was staring at the karaoke machine, then at the vent. She didn’t see the gremlin, but she saw the subtle warping of reality around the electronics, a greasy, mischievous shimmer. “The creatures from the cage,” she murmured to Mara, who had joined them. “They are in the walls.”
“And they’re horny little bastards,” Mara concluded, watching as a rendition of “Like a Virgin” began with lyrics so anatomically specific several people actually stood up and left, only to linger just outside the door, listening.
The crowd was tipping from scandalized to participatory. The gremlins’ edits were crude, but effective, bypassing civilized inhibitions and speaking directly to the lizard brain. The bar was becoming a pressure cooker of suggested promiscuity.
Hank secured two beers, handing one to Fatima. His other hand slid around her waist, dipping low to cup the curve of her ass through her silk trousers. The charged air was getting to him. The raw lyrics, the feverish atmosphere, the way Fatima’s intelligent eyes were dark with calculation and something else.
“We should go,” Fatima said, but her voice lacked conviction. Her hip pressed back against his hand.
“In a minute,” Hank said, his mouth near her ear. “I wanna see what they do to ‘Sweet Caroline.’”
Back in their stateroom, the air was still. The silence was a physical thing after the bar’s frenetic energy. Hank closed the door and locked it. He turned to find Fatima already removing her earrings, her gaze fixed on him.
“The gremlins,” she said, dropping the earrings on a side table. “They channel primal impulse. No artistry. No technique. Just… base hunger.”
“Yeah,” Hank said, setting his beer down. He walked to her, closing the distance. “Sounded fun, though.”
He kissed her. It wasn’t their usual kiss. It was all heat, a direct transmission of the energy he’d absorbed in the bar. One hand fisted in her dark hair, tilting her head back. The other gripped her wrist, pinning it gently against the wall beside the door. She made a small, surprised sound that melted into a moan.
He broke the kiss, breathing hard. “I heard what they were singing about. All of it. It’s stuck in my head.” His voice was rough. “I wanna do all of it to you. Right now.”
Fatima’s composure, her studied elegance, shattered. A flush swept from her chest up her neck. “Then do it,” she challenged, her Arabic accent thickening. “Stop talking, habibi. Show me.”
He didn’t need telling twice. His hands went to the button of her trousers, popping it open, dragging the zipper down in one harsh pull. He shoved the silk and the lace beneath down her thighs. He turned her around, bending her over the arm of a nearby sofa, her back arched, her perfect ass presented to him. He barely managed to free himself from his jeans before he was pushing into her, no preamble, just one deep, brutal stroke that buried him to the hilt.
Fatima cried out, a sharp, unfiltered sound of shock and pleasure. She was wet, but tight, and the sudden overwhelming fullness stole her breath. “Ya Allah,” she gasped into the upholstery.
Hank set a punishing pace, his hips slamming into her, the hard slap of skin on skin loud in the quiet room. It was nothing like their usual lovemaking, where Fatima often led with a sorceress’s control. This was raw, animalistic takeover. He gripped her hips hard enough to leave bruises, holding her in place for his thrusts.
“You hear those words?” he grunted, leaning over her, his mouth at her ear. “That’s what I’m thinking. That’s what I’m doing to you. I’m gonna fuck you so hard you forget your own name.”
His crude talk, so unlike him, ignited her. She pushed back against him, meeting each drive, taking him deeper. “Yes! Like that! Khalini… forget everything!” Her own fingers clawed at the sofa fabric.
He fucked her like he was exorcising the bar’s energy, like he was proving he was more than just an eight, like he was branding her with this new, untamed version of himself. The room filled with the sounds of their collision: his ragged breaths, her choked sobs of yes, the wet, rhythmic sound of their joining.
His hand snaked around her hip, fingers finding her clit, rubbing frantic, rough circles. “You gonna come on this cock? You gonna come listening to that filthy music in your head?”
She screamed, her body seizing, her internal muscles clamping down on him in a violent, rippling cascade. The intensity of it, the sheer vulgar physicality, tore the orgasm from her. He followed instantly, his own climax roaring up his spine as he emptied himself into her with a shout, his hips stuttering, driving into her pulsing warmth until he was spent.
He collapsed over her, both of them slick with sweat, panting. The quiet rushed back in, now humming with aftermath.
After a long moment, Hank slowly withdrew, helping her stand on trembling legs. He turned her to face him. Her lipstick was smeared, her hair a mess, her eyes dazed. He looked suddenly, sheepishly contrite. “Fati… I’m… was that okay?”
Fatima stared at him. Then she laughed, a real, unguarded laugh of pure delight. She reached up and wiped a smear of her lipstick from his chin. “Okay?” she repeated. “Hank, my love. That was a definitive nine.”
Down in the Splash Bar, the gremlin finally severed the main video cable. The screen went black with a pop. The music died.
A collective, frustrated groan rose from the aroused, bewildered crowd. In the sudden quiet, the only sounds were heavy breathing and the soft, contented giggles of a baby who had just made a fascinating new friend.