Chapter 22: The Rival Coven's Claim
The silence after Hiroshi’s collapse was absolute, broken only by the hum of a lone fluorescent light sputtering above the copier. The three figures in the doorway did not move. They were statues cut from the darkness, their tailored suits absorbing the scant light, their faces pale, sharp planes without expression.
Van did not step in front of Taichi. Instead, he shifted slightly, aligning himself at Taichi’s shoulder, a co-ruler surveying unexpected petitioners. His hand remained on Taichi’s neck, a claim and an anchor.
“Auditors,” Van said, the word dripping with quiet amusement.
The one who had pointed, the one in the center, took a step forward. His polished Oxfords made no sound on the carpet tiles. His companions flanked him, moving with a chilling, synchronized grace. The distance closed quickly. Taichi’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum against the cold certainty now seeping into the room. This wasn’t desire. This was something else.
The leader stopped a foot away. Up close, his features were too perfect, too still. His eyes were the color of flint. “The imbalance is registered,” he said, his voice flat, devoid of inflection. “Unauthorized soul transfers. You are accruing debt.”
Before Taichi could form a retort, the one on his left moved. It was a blur of efficient motion. A cold, impossibly strong hand clamped around Taichi’s right wrist, wrenching it behind his back with a force that made his shoulder joint shriek. At the same moment, the one on the right seized a fistful of Taichi’s hair and yanked his head back, exposing his throat.
The pain was sharp, brilliant. It cut through the post-feed haze instantly. Taichi grunted, struggling against the hold, but it was like fighting against marble.
The leader leaned in. His breath smelled of static and old parchment. “You’ve been stealing what belongs to us,” he hissed, the words slithering into Taichi’s ear. “We track the vacancies. We own the vacancies.”
He brought a hand up, not to strike, but to caress Taichi’s cheek with knuckles as cold as a grave. The touch made Taichi’s skin crawl. His new anatomy, however, pulsed in response, a traitorous warmth blooming deep inside, slick and shameful. He was terrified, but his body, reshaped by Van’s gift, reacted to the dominance, to the violation.
“Look at him,” the leader said, glancing past Taichi to Van. “Your little familiar is leaking anticipation. Does he know what we do with thieves?”
Van’s fingers tightened on Taichi’s neck, not in warning, but in reassurance. He was smiling, a predator’s smile. “He is learning. Proceed.”
The leader nodded to the man holding Taichi’s hair. “Open him.”
The grip on his hair tightened, pulling his head back further, forcing his mouth open. The third man, the one who had remained silent, stepped in front of Taichi. His expression was still blank as he reached for his fly. He unzipped his trousers with a deliberate, slow motion.
What emerged was not a cock.
It was a writhing, oily mass of darkness, a nest of slick black tendrils that coiled and uncoiled like serpents awakening. They pulsed with a faint, bruise-colored light from within. They had no definite shape, only a ceaseless, hungry motion.
Terror, pure and acidic, flooded Taichi’s throat. He tried to scream, but only a choked gasp came out. He tried to clamp his jaw shut, but the hand in his hair held him with inhuman strength.
The tendrils surged forward.
They pushed past his lips, cool and slick, filling his mouth. They didn’t thrust; they invaded. They slithered over his tongue, probing the corners of his cheeks, pushing against the back of his throat. They tasted of ozone and decay. One tendril, thicker than the others, forced its way deeper, down his throat. Taichi gagged, his body convulsing, tears springing to his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. The sensation was one of utter, profound violation, a penetration that went beyond physical space.
The leader watched, his flint eyes analyzing every twitch of Taichi’s face. “The conduit must be cleansed. All stolen energy must be returned through the gate.”
As the tendrils writhed in his mouth, another sensation began. A pulling, not from his stomach, but from his very core. From the place where he now held the stolen fragments of lives—Hiroshi’s timid longing, the frat boys’ brutish arrogance. He felt them being tugged, siphoned back up through him, drawn out by the probing, invasive tendrils.
He was being emptied.
Behind him, Van let out a low, appreciative groan. Taichi, through his watering, panic-blurred eyes, saw Van had opened his own trousers. He was stroking his thick, uncut cock, his gaze fixed on Taichi’s violated face with rapturous intensity. The demon’s eyes glowed like hot coals.
“That’s it, pet,” Van murmured, his voice thick with pleasure. “Feel them take it. Feel the justice of it.”
The tendril in his throat pushed deeper, and Taichi’s vision spotted. The pulling sensation intensified, becoming a painful vacuum. He felt hollowed out, scraped raw. But beneath the terror and the pain, a spark of something else flickered—a furious, defiant refusal. This was his. What he’d taken, what he’d become, it was his.
He could not speak, could not move his arms. But he could clench. He focused every shred of his will, every drop of the strange new power Van had cultivated in him, on the internal muscles of his throat, his mouth, his very being.
He squeezed.
The effect was immediate. The writhing tendrils froze. The leader’s eyes widened a fraction. The tendril down Taichi’s throat convulsed, as if trying to retreat, but Taichi held it, clamping down with a psychic and physical grip tighter than any vice.
A low, pained sound emanated from the third man’s chest, the first noise he’d made. It was the sound of grinding stones.
Taichi, still gagging, still held immobile, poured his fury into that grip. He wasn’t just holding on. He was pulling back. He reversed the flow. Instead of his stolen essence being drained, he began to pull from them. From the cold, ancient power that animated these suited husks.
The leader snarled, a sound utterly alien on his composed face. “Sever it!”
The man holding Taichi’s hair released him and grabbed for the writhing mass, trying to wrench it free. But it was stuck, locked in Taichi’s furious, swallowing hold.
Van’s laughter filled the room, rich and dark. “You came to repossess,” he said, his stroking hand moving faster. “But you didn’t check the deed. He is mine. And what is mine… consumes.”
With a final, brutal wrench of his will, Taichi sucked.
The bruise-light inside the tendrils flared, then dimmed. The third man let out a sharp, truncated cry as the black tendrils stiffened, turned brittle, and then disintegrated into wishes of ash that fell from Taichi’s mouth. The man stumbled back, clutching at his crotch where nothing but smoke and ruined cloth remained.
Taichi coughed, spitting out the taste of ash and void. His body thrummed with a new, icy-cold energy. It wasn’t warm like the others. It was sharp, calculating, and vast.
The office was dead quiet again. The two remaining suited men stared, their perfect composure shattered. The leader looked from Taichi’s defiant, ash-smeared face to Van’s triumphant, post-orgasmic expression. Van was tucking himself away, a look of deep satisfaction etched into his sharp features.
“The debt,” the leader said, his voice now holding the faintest tremor of uncertainty, “is not cleared. This… complicates the ledger.”
“The ledger is mine to balance,” Van said, his tone final. “Tell your masters the next audit will cost them more than tendrils. Now get out. You’re scaring the help.” He gestured dismissively at Hiroshi’s still form on the floor.
The two remaining auditors looked at each other. Without another word, they turned, collected their shattered third, and retreated into the hallway shadows, merging with them until they were gone.
The moment they left, the tension snapped. Taichi’s legs gave out. He collapsed against the copier, sliding down to sit on the floor amidst the scattered paper. He was trembling, his mouth aching, his body flooded with contradictory currents of terror, power, and a sick, traitorous arousal.
Van crouched before him, cupping his face. He wiped the ash from Taichi’s lips with his thumb. “My beautiful, vicious thing,” he whispered, his eyes alight with pride. “You didn’t just defend your meal. You ate the taxman.”
Taichi looked up, his breath still coming in ragged gasps. The cold energy inside him churned, whispers of ancient corridors and vast, silent ledgers flickering at the edge of his mind. “Who… what were they?”
“Accountants,” Van said, standing and pulling Taichi up with him. His voice was casual, but his grip was firm. “Every economy has them. Even ours.” He looked down at Hiroshi, then back at Taichi, a new, calculating glint in his eye. “They know about you now. Which means others will, too. The portfolio,” he said, echoing his earlier words with a darker weight, “just got a lot more interesting.”
He steered Taichi toward the door, leaving the empty husk of Hiroshi behind them on the cold linoleum. The office, with its flickering lights and humming servers, felt different now. Not just a hunting ground, but a contested territory.