Chapter 18: Debt Collection
The desert sun was a merciless orange disc, already baking the terrazzo floor of the suite when Stacy woke. She was alone in the king-sized bed, the sheets tangled around her legs. The other side, where Jan had eventually curled up hours ago, was cool to the touch. Godfrey was a warm, golden lump at the foot of the bed, snoring softly.
Stacy stretched, her muscles loose and satisfied from the previous day’s… activities. Then her eye caught the envelope on the nightstand. The thick, cream-colored stationery from the resort’s concierge. It had been sealed. Now it lay open, empty.
She sat up, the sheet pooling in her lap. She picked it up. The envelope was definitely lighter. She tipped it over. Nothing.
A slow, familiar annoyance began to simmer in her chest. She padded barefoot out of the bedroom, through the living area with its floor-to-ceiling windows showcasing the stark, beautiful mountain range. Jan was on the balcony, perched on the edge of an outdoor sofa, legs crossed, a cup of coffee steaming in her hands. She was wearing one of Stacy’s thin silk robes, loosely tied. Her red hair was a wild halo in the morning light.
Stacy slid the glass door open. The dry heat hit her like a wall.
“Morning, sunshine,” Jan chirped, not turning around. “There’s coffee inside. They brought pastries. Really good ones.”
“Where’s the money, Jan?” Stacy’s voice was flat.
Jan finally turned, her freckled face a picture of innocence. “What money?”
Stacy held up the empty envelope. “The five hundred dollars in cash I left for housekeeping. It’s gone. The envelope was on my nightstand. Now it’s empty.”
Jan took a sip of coffee, her green eyes wide. “Huh. Weird.”
“Jan.”
“Okay, fine.” Jan set the mug down and stood, the robe gaping open to reveal a sliver of pale chest. “I borrowed it.”
“You borrowed it.” Stacy leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over her sports bra and sleep shorts. “For what?”
“Yukio and Amy’s room service last night.” Jan shrugged, as if discussing the weather. “They were ordering champagne and truffle fries at two in the morning. The guy showed up, and I didn’t want him to get a full view of… well, everything. So I intercepted. Paid him off. Used your cash.” She grinned, that impish, unrepentant grin. “It was a tip, Stace. You’re always telling me to be more generous with service staff.”
Stacy’s eyes narrowed. The annoyance crystallized into a sharp, cold point. “You used my housekeeping tip money to pay for your threesome’s room service last night?”
Jan’s grin didn’t fade. If anything, it widened. She took a step closer. The scent of jasmine from her skin mixed with the desert air. “It was more of a duo-service, technically. The food went untouched. But the principle stands.”
“The principle.” Stacy let out a short, humorless laugh. “The principle is you don’t take my money without asking.”
“I’m asking now.” Jan closed the distance between them. She was shorter than Stacy, but her presence always seemed to fill a room. Her fingers played with the tie of Stacy’s robe. “Can I borrow five hundred dollars?”
“No.”
“Too late.” Jan’s hand slid inside the robe, her palm warm against Stacy’s stomach. “But I’ll work it off.”
Before Stacy could respond, Jan dropped into a crouch. Her fingers hooked into the waistband of Stacy’s sleep shorts and underwear. In one fluid, practiced motion, she yanked them down to Stacy’s ankles.
The morning air was cool on Stacy’s bare skin. She gasped, more from surprise than the temperature.
Jan didn’t give her time to react. She pressed her face against Stacy’s inner thigh, her breath hot. “Starting… now.”
Her mouth found the sensitive skin where thigh met groin. Not a kiss, but a slow, open-mouthed lick, followed by the gentle scrape of teeth. Stacy’s protest died in her throat, replaced by a sharp intake of breath. Her hands, which had been ready to push Jan away, found themselves tangled in Jan’s unruly red hair.
Jan hummed against her skin, the vibration shooting straight to Stacy’s core. She worked her way inward, a torturously slow journey of lips and tongue. She licked a stripe up the length of Stacy’s sex, a slow, flat press of her tongue that had Stacy’s hips jerking forward.
“Hold still, Coach,” Jan murmured, her voice a low vibration against Stacy’s clit. “This is a transaction. I have to be thorough.”
Stacy’s head fell back against the doorframe. The rational part of her mind—the part that balanced checkbooks, that followed kosher guidelines, that planned workout regimens—flickered and dimmed. This was Jan. This was the chaos she signed up for, the price of admission for a life that was never, ever boring.
Jan’s tongue delved deeper, spearing into her. Stacy was already wet, arousal slicking Jan’s chin. Jan ate her with a focused intensity that was all business, a devotion to the task at hand. She alternated between broad, flattening strokes and tight, flickering circles around Stacy’s clit. She sucked the swollen bud into her mouth, applying a firm, relentless pressure that made Stacy’s knees buckle.
“Fuck, Jan,” Stacy hissed, her fingers tightening in Jan’s hair.
Jan pulled back, her lips glistening. She looked up, her eyes dark with intent. “On the bed. Now.”
It wasn’t a request. Stacy stepped out of her shorts, kicked them aside, and walked backward into the cool dimness of the suite. She fell onto the bed, the crisp sheets rustling. Jan followed, shedding the silk robe as she came. She crawled over Stacy on all fours, a predator with fire in her hair and a wicked promise in her smile.
She didn’t go back to Stacy’s core. Instead, she kissed her way up Stacy’s stomach, over the defined ridges of her abs, taking a detour to swirl her tongue around a nipple through the thin fabric of Stacy’s sports bra. Stacy arched into it, a needy sound escaping her.
Jan unclipped the front clasp of the bra with a deft flick. She peeled the damp fabric away and took Stacy’s breast into her mouth, sucking hard, her teeth grazing the peak. At the same time, her hand slid between Stacy’s legs, two fingers sliding inside her without preamble.
Stacy cried out, her back bowing off the mattress. Jan’s fingers were slick, curling inside her, finding a rhythm that was perfectly, infuriatingly calibrated. She fucked her with her hand while her mouth worked on her breast, a dual assault that short-circuited Stacy’s higher brain functions.
“You’re so fucking tight this morning,” Jan breathed against her skin, her fingers pumping faster. “All that magic last night… did it coil you up? Leave you needy?”
Stacy could only gasp, her hips meeting Jan’s thrusts. The coil was there, tightening with every movement of Jan’s wrist, every scrape of her teeth.
Jan pulled her fingers out, slick and shining. She brought them to Stacy’s lips. “Taste yourself. Taste what you’re worth.”
Stacy obeyed, sucking Jan’s fingers clean, the musky, salty flavor filling her mouth. The submissiveness of the act, the raw intimacy of it, sent another jolt of heat through her.
Jan retrieved her pouch from the nightstand. Stacy watched, her chest heaving, as Jan pulled out the enchanted strap-on. It was a simple harness, worn leather, and the dildo itself was a realistic, veined silicone that shimmered faintly with a soft, inner light. Jan stepped into it, buckling it tight around her hips. The magic in it hummed, and as it settled against her, it became… part of her. She gave a little experimental thrust into the air, her hands on her hips.
“How do I look?” Jan asked, her voice dripping with false modesty.
“Like a menace,” Stacy managed, her voice hoarse.
“Good.” Jan climbed back onto the bed, kneeling between Stacy’s spread legs. She gripped the base of the dildo, guiding it through Stacy’s slick folds, rubbing the broad head against her clit. “Five hundred dollars’ worth of menace.”
Then she pushed inside.
The stretch was intense, breathtaking. The magical construct felt alarmingly real—warm, pulsing, alive. Jan sank into her slowly, inch by excruciating inch, until she was buried to the hilt, their bodies pressed together.
Jan held there, her forehead touching Stacy’s. Their breath mingled. “Now,” Jan whispered. “You’re going to come for me. And then I’m going to fuck you until you forget your own name. And then we’ll call it even.”
She began to move.
Her thrusts were deep, punishing, each one driving the breath from Stacy’s lungs. Jan held Stacy’s hips down, pinning her to the mattress, controlling the pace completely. It was relentless, a piston-like rhythm that had the bed frame thumping softly against the wall. Stacy grabbed at Jan’s shoulders, her blunt nails digging into the freckled skin.
“Harder,” Stacy groaned, tossing her head back. “God, Jan, harder.”
Jan complied. She shifted her angle, lifting Stacy’s hips, driving into her with even more force. The slap of skin on skin filled the room. Jan’s breasts brushed against Stacy’s with every thrust, their sweat-slick bodies sliding together.
Stacy felt the orgasm building, a tidal wave gathering force in her belly. Jan saw it on her face. She leaned down, capturing Stacy’s mouth in a bruising, messy kiss. At the same time, her hand snaked between them, her thumb finding Stacy’s clit and rubbing tight, rapid circles.
It was too much. The kiss, the deep, brutal fucking, the clever thumb on her clit—it all coalesced into a single, shattering point of release. Stacy came with a ragged, broken scream into Jan’s mouth, her entire body convulsing, her inner muscles clamping around Jan’s cock in a series of violent, rhythmic pulses.
Jan rode her through it, her thrusts becoming shallow, grinding rolls that milked every last shudder from Stacy’s body. Only when Stacy collapsed, boneless and gasping, did Jan’s rhythm change.
She pulled almost all the way out, then slammed back in. She set a new, frantic pace, chasing her own finish. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps. Her eyes were screwed shut, her face a mask of intense concentration.
“Stacy,” she choked out, her hips stuttering. “I’m gonna…”
Stacy, spent and hypersensitive, wrapped her legs around Jan’s waist, locking her in. “Do it,” she urged, her voice a wrecked whisper. “Come inside me. Make it worth the five hundred.”
With a final, thrust, Jan buried herself deep and stilled. A sharp cry tore from her lips, not loud but guttural, full of release. Stacy felt the magical construct pulse within her, a mimicry of true climax, a warm, throbbing sensation that went on and on. Jan trembled above her, her body bowed, until the last tremor passed.
She collapsed onto Stacy, a dead weight of sweat and satisfaction. The magical cock softened and retracted into the harness with a faint shimmer.
For a long while, the only sound was their panting and the distant cry of a hawk outside.
“Even?” Jan mumbled into Stacy’s neck.
Stacy ran a hand through Jan’s damp hair. “With interest.”
Jan lifted her head, her grin lazy and sated. “Told you I’d work it off.” She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling. “Besides, you were tense. I could feel it. All that protective big sister energy with Mike and Casey’s kid, all the logistics of this trip… you needed to get fucked stupid.”
Stacy didn’t argue. She just stared at the ceiling, feeling the pleasant, deep ache between her legs. “I’m going to need a real breakfast. And you’re buying.”
“Deal.”
A soft knock sounded at the suite door. They both froze. Godfrey lifted his head from the foot of the bed, gave a half-hearted woof, and put his head back down.
“Room service?” Stacy asked, eyebrow raised.
“I didn’t order anything.” Jan slithered off the bed, grabbing the silk robe and tying it loosely. She padded to the door and peered through the peephole. Her posture changed, a subtle tensing of her shoulders. She opened the door a crack.
Fatima stood there, already dressed in sleek, dark jeans and a cream-colored blouse. Her hair was immaculate. She looked like she’d had eight hours of sleep and a spiritual epiphany. She did not look pleased.
“We need to talk,” Fatima said, her voice low. Her eyes flicked past Jan, taking in the scene: the rumpled bed, Stacy lying naked and gloriously wrecked, the harness on the floor. Her expression didn’t change. “The resort’s energy signature is… fluctuating. There’s a spike coming from the main geothermal spring. It’s not natural. And it’s not ours.”
Jan’s playful demeanor evaporated. “How bad?”
“It feels… hungry,” Fatima said, her dark eyes serious. “Mara’s already downstairs with Zack. She sensed it too, said it felt like a legal brief from hell. We need to check it out before the morning crowd heads to the spa.”
Jan nodded, all business now. “Give us ten minutes.”
Fatima’s gaze swept over Jan once more. “Make it five. And put some pants on.” She turned and walked away, her heels clicking on the terrazzo.
Jan closed the door and leaned against it. The aftermath of sex still clung to her, but her mind was already elsewhere, clicking into a different gear. “Duty calls.”
Stacy was already up, pulling on fresh workout clothes with the efficient speed of someone used to changing in locker rooms. “I’ll get my shoes.”
“Leave the gun,” Jan said, moving to the closet. “This is a spa. But… bring your mean look.”
Stacy allowed herself a small smile. “That’s free.”
Ten minutes later, they met the others by the elevators. Mara looked crisp in a linen suit, her lawyer-face on. Zack hovered beside her, looking concerned. Fatima was a pillar of calm efficiency. Hank stood a little apart, his hands in his pockets, watching Fatima with quiet, unwavering focus.
Jan had thrown on a flowing skirt and a tank top, her hair hastily finger-combed. Stacy stood beside her, coiled and ready.
The elevator doors opened silently. As they descended towards the spa level, the hum of wrongness Fatima had described began to seep into the car. It was a low, sub-auditory vibration, a feeling of being watched by something ancient and deep.
Mara broke the tense silence. “So,” she said, her voice dry. “Anyone else feel like they’re walking into the mouth of something?”
No one answered. The doors slid open onto a hallway scented with eucalyptus and serenity. The feeling of hungry, geothermal eyes upon them grew stronger.
Godfrey, who had insisted on coming, trotted out first. He sniffed the air, gave a low growl, and looked back at Jan.
“Yeah,” Jan murmured, her hand going to the smooth river stone in her pocket. It was warm, almost hot to the touch. “Me too.” Jan’s voice was low, a thread of uncertainty she rarely showed. They moved as a group through the spa’s serene halls, the feeling of being stalked thickening with every step. The lush greenery in wall planters seemed to lean away from the source of the wrongness.
Annie was waiting for them in the main lobby, her sundress a bright spot of yellow against the minimalist decor. Sophie the calico kitten poked her head out of the leather purse slung over Annie’s shoulder, green eyes wide. Annie’s usually sunny face was pinched with concern.
“The land is complaining,” Annie said without preamble, her Iowa accent firm. “It’s a sharp pain, not a deep one. I thought we dealt with this when we banished that ancient desert entity into the cavern with Herne and the Wild Hunt.” She scratched Sophie’s head absently. “That should have been fighting for all eternity.”
Fatima nodded, her arms crossed. “The major ley line incision is sealed. Brigid and Aisling confirmed it before they left for Ireland.” She glanced at Jan, a silent communication passing between them about their absent sisters. “This is something else. A parasite, perhaps. Or a scavenger drawn to the leftover energy.”
“So, less dangerous?” Hank asked, his hand finding the small of Fatima’s back.
“Probably,” Fatima conceded. “But a splinter can fester. It still needs dealing with.”
They followed the oppressive feeling past the empty meditation rooms, the air growing warmer and wetter. The door to the restricted geothermal spring area was propped open with a small, ornate statue. Beyond it, the cavernous room was hazed with mineral steam.
Bethany stood by the rocky edge of the steaming pool, her pink hair a shock against the natural stone. She’d traded her usual vintage look for practical hiking clothes, but the device in her hand was pure Golden Wand: a bronze contraption of gears and lenses that whirred softly, scanning the bubbling water. Lady Eleanor hovered beside her, translucent and curious, her Victorian gown seeming to drink the strange light.
“The readings are… biological,” Bethany said, not looking up from the device. Her voice was all business, Agent Pendragon in the field. “But not any biology I recognize. It’s coiled in the vent at the bottom. It’s not friendly.” She finally glanced at their group, her lips thinning. “I’d feel better if Vivian and Katie were still here. Or if Aaron had stayed. Something with plant and trade magic would be useful right now.”
Jan stepped forward, peering into the milky, effervescent water. “We can handle it.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Mara. “We have a lawyer.”
Mara, who had been mentally composing a strongly worded complaint to the resort management, sighed deeply. “Why am I here?” she muttered to Zack. “I could be upstairs helping Rebecca, Charley, Yukio, Amy, Molly, and Ginny pack. We have a plane to catch, Jan. Flights have schedules.”
Jan waved a dismissive hand. “Stacy chartered a private jet for the core group, remember? The plane doesn’t leave without us. We’re the core.”
The realization that their logistical safety net was also the reason she couldn’t escape this nonsense dawned on Mara. She pinched the bridge of her nose. Stacy, standing beside Jan with her arms crossed, wore a similar expression of long-suffering irritation.
“Goddammit, Jan,” they both grumbled in unison, their voices a blend of resignation and familial weariness.
Without another word, Stacy led the way, stepping off the polished stone path and onto the natural rock surrounding the spring. The heat was intense, a wet blanket that soaked through clothes instantly. The light from fixtures recessed into the cave walls cast long, dancing shadows that seemed to move independently of the steam.
Godfrey stayed at the edge of the polished floor, whining softly. He placed a single paw on the rough rock, withdrew it, and sat down with a definitive huff.
“Yeah, buddy,” Hank said. “I get it.”
The pool was maybe twenty feet across, its water a cloudy, opalescent blue. Bubbles rose in clusters from a dark, rocky vent in the center. Bethany’s device emitted a faster, higher-pitched whir. The surface of the water directly above the vent shivered, not from heat, but as if something thick and sinuous had just shifted underneath.
A shape broke the surface.
It wasn’t a limb. It was a tendril, translucent and the thickness of a man’s arm, glistening with a viscous, clear slime. It had no discernible end, tapering into the depths. It quested through the air, moving with a slow, alien curiosity, droplets of geothermal water falling from it like sweat.
Then it moved faster than anything that size should, a whip-crack of motion.
It wrapped around Zack’s ankle.
He yelped, more in surprise than pain, and stumbled. The tendril tightened, its slick surface adhering to his skin, and began to pull with terrifying, steady force toward the water’s edge.
“Hey!” Hank lunged, grabbing Zack under the arms, his boots slipping on the wet rock. The pull was immense. Fatima was already moving, her hands coming up, fingers weaving a complex pattern in the steam-filled air. Arabic syllables, sharp and guttural, spilled from her lips.
A blast of concussive force, visible only as a ripple in the steam, struck the tendril where it met the water. It shuddered but didn’t let go. Another tendril erupted beside it, lashing out toward her.
Stacy was there. She didn’t try to grab the slippery thing. She pivoted on the ball of her foot and drove a side kick into its midsection, her leg a piston of muscle and torque. There was a wet, solid thump. The tendril recoiled, flailing.
Jan didn’t bother with spells. She dropped to her knees at the water’s edge, right where the tendril emerged, and plunged both hands into the scorching liquid. She didn’t flinch. She closed her eyes.
Her magic wasn’t about force. It was about desire, about fundamental wants. She sent a pulse down into the dark, not an attack, but an invitation, a question wrapped in a compulsion.
What do you want?
The image that shot back up the connection was primal, simple, and horrifying. Warmth. Pressure. The crush of fertile earth. The sweet, screaming release of organic matter breaking down. It wanted to pull them down, not to eat them, but to compost them. To reduce their vibrant, complex lives into simple, warm nutrients in the dark.
“It’s a fucking earthworm,” Jan gasped, yanking her hands back, her skin bright red. “A geothermal leech. It doesn’t want to fight. It wants to digest.”
The tendril holding Zack pulsed, and a wave of debilitating lassitude washed over him. His struggle weakened. His eyes fluttered. Hank roared, straining to hold him.
Lady Eleanor swooped down, her spectral form passing through the tendril. It didn’t affect the physical substance, but the entity’s simple mind recoiled at the sudden chill of death. The grip loosened for a fraction of a second.
It was enough. Mara, who had been frozen in shock, snapped into action. She grabbed a jagged, loose rock from the ground. She didn’t aim for the tendril. She ran to the pool’s edge and brought the rock down with all her strength on the point where the tendril met the rocky rim, a point of structural weakness.
The rock cracked. The tendril, caught between stone, spasmed and released.
Hank hauled Zack back, stumbling away from the edge. The two severed tendrils writhed on the rock like dying eels, dissolving into a foul-smelling, gelatinous ooze.
The water in the center of the pool began to churn violently. The thing was angry, or in pain. A mass of tangled, translucent tendrils broached the surface, surrounding a central, puckered maw that pulsed wetly.
“Okay,” Jan breathed, standing up, her hands still stinging. “Enough of this.”
She looked at Fatima, then at Annie. “It wants warmth and decay. Let’s give it a different kind of heat.”
Fatima nodded, understanding. She began a new chant, this one lower, rhythmic. The air around her hands shimmered with a different kind of energy—not concussive, but enticing, amplifying.
Annie knelt, plunging her own hands into the soil of a nearby planter that had been brought into the cavern. She whispered to the roots, to the mycelium networks in the imported soil. She asked for growth, for a specific, rampant growth.
Jan focused on the creature, on its simple, hungry mind. She poured Green Moon magic into the connection, not to repel, but to inflame. She twisted its desire for warm decomposition into a ravenous, impossible craving for a different kind of consumption. She gave it the psychic scent of sun-baked rock, of deep, mineral-rich orgasm, of the insane fertility of a rainforest after a fire.
The creature in the pool went rigid. Its tendrils, which had been lashing in threat, now quivered, rubbing against each other with a slippery, frantic friction. The central maw dilated, emitting a low, subsonic hum of frantic need. It was consumed by a biological imperative it had never known, a sudden, devastating horniness for the earth itself.
Annie’s magic hit it. From every crack in the rock around the pool, from the planter soil, thick, fast-growing vines erupted. They were green and supple, tipped with vivid, phosphorescent flowers that glowed in the steam. They didn’t attack. They sought. They plunged into the churning water, wrapping around the frenzied tendrils, diving into the pulsating maw.
The creature didn’t fight them. It embraced them. It pulled the vines deep, its hum climbing in pitch to a sound of grotesque, ecstatic release. The vines swelled inside it, bursting with rapid, magical growth, filling every cavity. The translucent body of the thing distended, glowing from within with the eerie light of the flowers.
There was a final, wet, bursting sound. The creature’s form lost cohesion, dissolving not into ooze, but into a shower of warm, nutrient-rich water and a sudden bloom of bioluminescent fungi that spread across the pool’s surface like a celebratory blanket. The hungry pressure in the air vanished, replaced by the clean, neutral scent of damp stone and strange flowers.
Silence descended, broken only by the peaceful bubbling of the geothermal vent and Zack’s ragged breathing.
Bethany lowered her device, its whirring dialing down to a quiet click. “Well,” she said, brushing a strand of pink hair from her face. “That was a new one.”
Lady Eleanor clapped her translucent hands. “Oh, brava! A climactic finish! So much more exciting than polo.”
Jan looked at her bright red hands, then at the serene, glowing pool. Maybe it was time to go home.