Chapter 8: The Merlin's Embarrassment
Mike’s hips pistoned against Yukio’s ass, the thick length of his cock gliding in and out of her soaked cunt with a steady, wet rhythm. The shag carpet fibers stuck to her knees and his. Yukio’s face was pressed into a cushion, her muffled curses and moans vibrating through the fabric. Casey knelt beside them, her artist’s fingers nimble and relentless on Yukio’s swollen clit, rubbing tight, focused circles that made the shorter woman’s thighs tremble. Casey’s mouth was latched onto one of Yukio’s nipples, her tongue flicking the hardened peak, her teeth grazing it just shy of pain.
“Fuck, yes, right there,” Yukio grunted, pushing back against Mike’s thrusts. “Don’t you dare slow down.”
Across the room, the sounds were a messy counterpoint. Jason had Amy bent over the arm of the sofa, her blonde hair spilling toward the floor. He held her hips, his own driving forward, his balls slapping against her thighs with each deep, claiming stroke. Amy’s eyes were squeezed shut, her mouth open in a continuous stream of pleasured sounds, but she’d turned her head, watching Yukio’s conquest.
“Come on, Yuki,” Amy panted, her voice hitching with Jason’s thrusts. “Let go. I wanna hear you scream.”
The room was a symphony of slick flesh, slapping skin, and gasped obscenities. The air tasted of sweat and sex and the faint, nostalgic dust of the old carpet. Mike’s breath was hot on Yukio’s shoulder, his grip on her hips bruising and perfect. Casey added a second finger alongside the first, plunging them into Yukio’s tight heat alongside Mike’s cock, the incredible, stretching fullness tipping Yukio over the edge.
Her scream was raw and unfiltered, tearing from her throat as her cunt clenched in a violent, rippling spasm around the double invasion. Mike groaned, burying himself to the hilt as she milked him, his own orgasm triggered by her intense contraction. He pulsed inside her, his hips stuttering.
The front door burst open.
The calm, suburban air from the hallway rushed in, a jarring contrast. Casey’s Aunt Calista, the Merlin of the Golden Wands, strode in with purpose, a squad of four agents in identical charcoal suits and sunglasses filing in behind her. Her sharp grey eyes swept the room, taking in the toddler toys, the crayon-smeared walls, and then the tangled, glistening knot of naked bodies on the floor.
She froze. Her impeccable posture didn’t waver, but her face flushed a deep, mortified crimson that clashed with her silver-streaked hair. The agents behind her stood like statues, their sunglassed faces unreadable.
“Oh, for the love of—” Calista stammered, her authoritative Merlin-voice cracking into the register of a flustered aunt. Her hands came up, waving backwards as if pushing the very scene away. “Casey, I am so sorry!”
She was already retreating, shooing her agents back into the hallway with frantic gestures. “Standard threat-assessment intrusion, I—we had a ping on the narrative residue from the painting, I thought—never mind! You’re friends with Green Moons, of course you are. Carry on!”
The door slammed shut with a definitive click.
The silence that followed was brief, punctured only by heavy breathing. Mike, still nestled inside the aftershocks of Yukio’s clenching cunt, blinked. He slowly pulled out, his cock glistening. He put a hand under Yukio’s hip and flipped her onto her back. Her dark eyes were wide, not with shame, but with blazing, indignant curiosity. Without a word, Mike guided himself back to her entrance and pushed in again, filling her anew. She let out a sharp, approving gasp, her legs locking around his waist.
“Another Tuesday,” Casey shrugged, a smirk playing on her lips. She crawled away from Yukio, across the carpet, her own body gleaming with a light sweat. She reached Amy, who was still bent over the sofa, Jason frozen behind her. Casey placed a hand on the small of Amy’s back, leaned in, and pulled her into a deep, messy kiss. Her other hand slid between Amy’s thighs from the front, her fingers finding Jason’s slick cock driving in and out, and Amy’s sensitized clit. Amy moaned into Casey’s mouth, her hips beginning to move again.
Jason, released from his paralysis, resumed his rhythm with a grunt, his hands reclaiming Amy’s hips.
“Okay, what the actual hell was that?” Yukio managed to say, her voice strained as Mike established a new, grinding pace inside her. “Your aunt is a… a uniformed stormtrooper?”
“Golden Wand,” Mike corrected, his voice tight with focus. He braced himself on his arms above her. “She’s the boss. The Merlin.”
“And she just… leaves?” Yukio arched a brow, then her eyes rolled back as Mike hit a devastating angle. “Fuck. Okay. Magical HR must be weird.”
Ten minutes later, the group was in various states of re-dress and recovery, sprawled around the living room. The atmosphere had shifted from hedonistic to tactical, though the scent of sex still hung in the air. Yukio, now wearing one of Mike’s t-shirts and nothing else, was insistent.
“So this Nergal guy,” she said, accepting a glass of water from Casey. “He turns people into art. And your aunt’s the head of the magic CIA. And you all just… shrugged it off?”
“We’ve been a painting,” Mike said, pulling on his boxers. “It was boring. You can’t move. You just… exist. The weirdest part was the gallery owner trying to sell us.”
“And you!” Yukio pointed at Amy and Jason, who were curled together on the sofa under a blanket. “Figurines?”
“It was very detailed,” Amy said, her face still flushed. “My sundress had stitching.”
The front door opened again, slowly this time. Calista stepped in alone. She had shed her suit jacket, revealing a crisp white blouse, and the overwhelming Glamour that usually obscured her features was gone. She was just Aunt Calista, though her expression was grave. She carried a small, polished steel briefcase.
“I’ve, ah, neutralized the perimeter surveillance for fifteen minutes,” she said, her voice calm but layered with urgency. “And I owe you all an apology for the intrusion. Truly. I am operating with a… heightened level of concern.”
Casey walked over and hugged her. “It’s okay, Aunt Cali. We’re pretty un-shockable at this point. But Jan called. She said you were going to ‘war footing’.”
Calista returned the hug, a brief, tight squeeze. She set the briefcase on the cluttered coffee table, moving Rick’s plastic cup aside. It clicked open not with a physical latch, but with a soft, golden chime. Inside, nestled in gray foam, were devices that looked like a cross between steampunk gauges and modern tablets.
“That is an understatement,” Calista said, picking up a slender rod with a crystalline lens at one end. She aimed it at the space where she and Mike had been transformed. A faint, shimmering golden thread, nearly invisible, became apparent in the air, floating like ghostly spider silk. It led from that spot, through the wall, and out into the world. “Narrative residue. Every ‘Edit’ leaves a thread back to the source, back to Nergal. But they’re fragile. Temporal. Most fade in hours.”
She moved the device, and another thread, newer, glimmered into view near the sofa. “This one is from your… recent activities. A very low-level imprint. Desire, release. Harmless. But the Edits…” She took out a different device, a flat slate, and passed it over the older thread. Text scrolled across its surface. “They are solidifying. Becoming part of a permanent narrative lattice. He’s not just collecting. He’s world-building.”
Mike’s goofy grin was gone. “Building what?”
“A story where he is the sole author,” Calista said, her grey eyes hard. “Every person he Edits becomes a character, locked into a role. My analysts believe the end goal is a complete, localized narrative overlay—a pocket reality where his whims are law. He started with the easiest targets: those with no magical defense. But the lattice needs strengthening. He’ll need to Edit more powerful subjects to stabilize it. Green Moons. Kaboom mages. Perhaps even a Wand.”
Yukio whistled softly. “So you’re not here to save the day. You’re here because you’re next on the menu.”
“I am a likely high-value target,” Calista conceded. “But my immediate concern is that the lattice now has two strong anchor points in this city: the painting he made of you two, and the law book containing Mara Henderson. They act as conduits, spreading the narrative rules. It’s why non-magicals in your friend group are being targeted with such ease. The infection is here.”
Casey crossed her arms. “What do we do?”
“Jan is pursuing a line of inquiry at the Dark Market for a direct counter-measure,” Calista said, closing the briefcase. “I have a different proposal. A preemptive strike. We use the threads.” She looked at Mike and Casey. “They lead back to him. But following them is dangerous. You’d be walking into his developing story. You would have no powers, only your wits. Your ability to… annoy.”
A slow smile spread across Mike’s face. He looked at Casey, who met his gaze with a spark of grim recognition.
“You want us to get captured,” Casey said.
“I want you to be a trojan horse,” Calista corrected. “Let him think he’s Editing two more perfect, non-magical specimens for his collection. We will equip you with sub-dermal trackers my techs can follow, and narrative dampeners—weak ones, so he doesn’t detect them. Once you’re inside his workspace, you find the core of the lattice. You break it. Or you give Jan the location to break it.”
“And if we get turned into a commemorative plate set?” Mike asked.
“Then Jan and I will smash the plates,” Calista said without hesitation. “But you have a unique advantage he underestimates: you have been Edited before. You know the sensation. You may retain some… immunity. Or at least, memory.”
The room was quiet. From the baby monitor on the bookshelf, a soft gurgle sounded. Rick was awake from his nap.
Yukio stood up. “I’m going.”
Everyone looked at her.
“I’m non-magical. I’m connected to Amy, who was already a figurine. I’m a perfect fucking candidate,” she said, her chin raised. “And I don’t like the idea of this creep writing my friends into his bad fanfiction.”
“Yuki, no,” Amy said, sitting up.
“It’s not your call, Willow,” Yukio said, her voice softening only slightly. “This is what I do. I see a line, I cross it.”
Calista studied her, then nodded once. “It could work. A trio might seem like an even richer prize. More risk, but more potential disruption.” She turned her gaze to Mike and Casey. “This is your home. Your son is here. The decision is yours.”
Mike looked at Casey. He saw no fear in her eyes, only a calculated intensity, the same look she got when staring down a blank canvas. He thought of being trapped in the painting, the maddening stillness. He thought of Mara, stuck in a book, and Rebecca as a doll in a chair.
“We’re already characters in this story,” Mike said, his voice quiet but firm. “Might as well try to screw up the ending.”
Calista opened her briefcase again. “Then we have no time. The threads are fading. I’ll need to calibrate the dampeners.” She pulled out three devices that looked like simple, silver stud earrings. “You’ll need to wear these. They’ll hurt going in.”
As Calista began her work, Amy rushed over and hugged Yukio tightly. Jason stood close, his hand on Amy’s shoulder, his face a mask of helpless concern.
Mike walked to the nursery door and peeked in. Rick was sitting up in his crib, clutching the rails, his face breaking into a gummy smile at the sight of his father. Mike’s heart clenched.
He walked back into the living room, meeting Casey’s eyes. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. They had survived being art. They could survive being bait.
The silver studs, pressed against their skin just behind the jawline, burned like ice and then melted inwards, leaving no mark. The path was set.
The path was set.
Calista’s portal deposited them at Dock Seven with a taste of ozone and a silent, golden nod. The Chicago night air was a cold slap after the cloistered warmth of the living room. Jan tugged her thrift-store coat tighter, the green moonstone pendant icy against her chest. Stacy’s posture was a coiled spring beside her, a silhouette of ready violence against the warehouse shadows.
“Remind me why we’re shopping while they’re walking into a trap?” Stacy’s voice was low, her breath fogging.
“Because we need the key to the trap’s lock before it springs shut,” Jan said, her eyes scanning the seemingly solid brick wall before them. She pressed her palm against a damp, graffitied section. The bricks shimmered like a heat mirage, then parted into a narrow, phosphorescent alley that smelled of ozone, exotic spices, and deep, wet earth. The Dark Market.
Behind them, the rest of their party assembled. Brigid looked pale, her usual pre-med composure frayed at the edges. She clutched a leather-bound notebook to her chest like a shield. “The structural equations for narrative magic are… non-Euclidean. Will and Sarah are safe, but I hit a singularity. The math just stops.” Her green eyes were frustrated, almost ashamed.
Shiv O’Connor, a compact force in a practical wool coat, patted her daughter’s arm. “Then we find someone whose sums work different, Brigid Moira.”
Hank shuffled, hands in his pockets, clearly out of his depth but trying to be solid. His eyes kept darting to his fiancée. Fatima, standing exactly three feet tall, was a study in formidable dignity. She had refused Hank’s offer to carry her with a look so scalding he’d physically recoiled, muttering, “Right. Sorry, Fati.” She now marched forward on her own, her normal-sized clothing magically altered to fit her diminutive frame, a tiny, furious scholar.
The Market was a sensory bombardment. Stalls lined the twisting alley, lit by globes of captured starlight and floating witchfire. A hag with skin like tree bark sold bottled memories next to a djinn offering curated destinies. The air thrummed with deals and the subtle shift of realities.
They found their contacts near Rainbor’s candy stall, a pocket of surprising normalcy amidst the arcane. The orc himself, a mountain of green muscle and gentle eyes, was polishing a giant lollipop. Katie “Boom Boom” Manelli, in her signature black lace, was locked in a deep, reassuring kiss with Lena Jennings, whose shy smile was a stark contrast to the surrounding weirdness. Hovering nearby, translucent and pleased, was the ghost Lady Eleanor, clad in a spectral gown that showed an alarming amount of phantom cleavage.
“The gang’s all here,” Jan said, forcing cheer.
Katie broke the kiss, her Goth-pale face serious. “Lena’s been scrying the narrative layers. It’s bad, Red. The edits aren’t random. They’re… thematic. He’s building a museum.”
“A museum of my friends,” Jan muttered, her jaw tight.
Brigid immediately began comparing notes with Lena, their heads bent over Brigid’s notebook and a sketchpad where Lena had drawn swirling, anxiety-inducing patterns. Rainbor offered everyone a piece of crystalline candy that tasted of calm. Lady Eleanor sighed wistfully. “Such dire straits! And yet, the proximity of so much vibrant life force is quite… stirring.”
Jan’s phone vibrated, cutting through the low din. Casey’s name flashed. She answered, turning slightly away. “Talk to me, Picasso.”
Casey’s voice was clipped, a wire of controlled tension. “Aunt Calista fitted us with trackers. We’re following the thread now. Mike, me, and Yukio. We’re the bait. Don’t try to follow until we’re inside the nest.”
Jan closed her eyes for a second, absorbing the sheer, terrifying guts of it. “Copy that. We’re in the Market digging for the failsafe. You get turned into a set of coasters, I’m coming to chip you out.”
“Just make sure the chip is sharp,” Casey said, and the line went dead.
Jan turned back to the group, their faces expectant in the eerie light. “Update. Mike, Casey, and Yukio are voluntarily walking into the lion’s den. They’re going to let him Edit them to find the source.”
A heavy silence fell. Then, from the far end of the market, near the vast, cavernous opening that led to the draconic enclaves, a low, ground-shaking rumble vibrated through the packed earth. It was a sound of massive scales shifting, of deep, furnace-like lungs filling.
Every head turned. Flamewing, the giant red she-dragon, lifted her horned head from where it had been resting on her crossed foreclaws. Her intelligent, lamp-like eyes, the color of molten gold, scanned the market as if searching for a specific scent. With a powerful, deliberate motion, she unfolded her colossal wings, the gust of air they created rustling stalls and sending loose papers flying. She gave one mighty flap, and then another, lifting her immense body into the air with surprising grace before shooting upwards through a vast chimney in the cavern ceiling, disappearing into the Chicago night sky.
Rainbor chuckled, a sound like rocks tumbling in a barrel. “Well now. She’s had a soft spot for that bold little one since Yukio was the first one brave enough to climb onto her back and demand a ride. Looks like she’s decided the stakeout is over.”
“Yukio,” Stacy said, understanding. “The dragon’s going to her.”
Katie cracked her knuckles, a tiny spark of green Kaboom energy flashing at her fingertips. “Okay, so we have a dragon in the mix. Good. What’s our play here, Rainbor? We need something that disrupts narrative cohesion. Something that… explodes stories.”
Rainbor rubbed his broad chin. “There is the Epic of Unbinding, a fragment kept by the Siren Archivist. It’s a song that unravels predestined plots. Costly. Or there’s raw Chaos Nectar. Injects pure randomness. Very unstable. Could backfire.”
As they debated, Jan’s phone rang again. Vivian’s name, with the custom emoji of a little motorcycle. Jan answered, and was met not with Vivian’s usual timid tone, but with ragged, hysterical sobs that hitched and broke.
“J-Jan! He’s—it’s Dale! I came out of the shower and he’s… he’s on the nightstand. A little tin soldier, a wind-up toy, with his face painted on and a key in his back! Something turned him!” Her voice spiraled into a wail. “I was only gone twenty minutes!”
Fatima, who had been listening intently, went very still. Her already-small face paled, her dark eyes widening with a fear Jan had never seen in her. “Ya Allah,” she breathed, the curse a punch of dread.
“Vivian, listen to me,” Jan said, her voice dropping into a firm, rhythmic cadence, the one she used for Green Moon calming techniques. “Breathe. Remember the grounding exercises. The hunger is a tool. You control it. You remember.”
“But he’s gone!” Vivian wept. “Dale is how I… how I feed safely! What if I get hungry, Jan? What if I can’t stop?”
Fatima stepped forward, tugging on Jan’s sleeve with urgent force. “Jan, this is critical. Dale’s bond is her regulator. Without him, the hunger will build. It will become a physical pain, then a madness. She could drain someone unconscious in a public place. She could kill.”
The implications slammed into Jan. A starved, half-succubus on a rampage in Chicago wasn’t just a personal tragedy; it was a catastrophic event that would expose everything, a disaster Nergal would probably find delightfully dramatic.
“Vivian,” Jan said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “I need you to calm down. Use the techniques. Right now. Then, I need you to get to the Dark Market. Bring the… bring the Dale toy. Come to Rainbor’s shop. We’ll fix this. Do you understand?”
There was a shuddering breath on the line, then a sniffle, then a fragile but determined, “Okay. Okay. I remember. I’m coming.”
The call ended. The group around Rainbor’s stall was utterly quiet, the previous plans frozen by this new, more immediate wildfire. Jan looked from Fatima’s grave concern to Stacy’s ready stance, to Brigid and Lena’s shared worry, to Katie’s explosive frustration.
Two fronts now. A museum of edits, and a time bomb of hunger.
The path was set, but it had forked into a nightmare.