Chapter 2: Sucking the Bomb Out of Her
The private jet hummed with the comfortable silence of a long flight settling in. Stretched out on plush white leather seats, the women had fallen into a pattern. Stacy and Mara were engrossed in a financial magazine, discussing investments with a low fervor. Casey was sketching in a notebook, one earbud in, a soft smile playing on her lips—probably thinking of Mike and Rick. Annie dozed, Sophie the kitten a purring lump on her chest. Rebecca, Amy, and Yukio were huddled around a tablet, watching a fantasy movie, their whispers occasionally bursting into giggles.
Fatima meditated, her breathing slow and even, a bastion of calm. Bethany polished her Golden Wand-issued sunglasses with a microfiber cloth, her pink hair a shock of color against the jet’s neutral tones. Ginny and Molly shared a pair of headphones, Molly’s head on Ginny’s shoulder.
Jan watched them all, a contented warmth in her chest. Godfrey snored softly at her feet.
Then she noticed Vivian.
The half-succubus was sitting rigidly by a window, her knuckles white where they gripped the armrests. Her usually pale skin had a faint, sickly sheen. Her breath came in short, sharp gusts, fogging the cool windowpane. Jan felt it then, a subtle pull in the air, a thinning of the energy around Vivian. The Hunger was waking up.
“Fati,” Jan murmured, leaning toward her friend.
Fatima’s eyes opened instantly. She followed Jan’s gaze to Vivian and gave a nearly imperceptible nod. She understood. Vivian had been doing well, using the Green Moon techniques to feed safely from her long-distance boyfriend Dale in measured, careful doses. But Dale was on a ship somewhere in the Pacific, and the energy from a single source, no matter how loving, had a shelf life. The press of so many vibrant life forces in the enclosed cabin—the laughter, the whispered conversations, the simple, living warmth of her friends—was like a starving person locked in a bakery. The aroma was overwhelming.
Vivian stood up abruptly, the motion jerky. “Bathroom,” she muttered, not meeting anyone’s eyes. She moved down the narrow aisle, her leather jacket creaking.
A few minutes later, Katie “Boom Boom” Manelli unfolded herself from her seat. “Gotta piss,” she announced to no one in particular, her combat boots thudding on the carpet as she headed toward the back.
The silence that followed was punctuated only by the jet’s engines. Then, a low, metallic thud echoed from the direction of the lavatory.
Conversations paused. Mara’s eyebrow arched. Casey stopped sketching.
Then came a sound—a sharp, breathy gasp, unmistakably Katie’s, followed by a wet, open-moutored kiss. Then a moan, deep and throbbing, that could only be Vivian.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Mara said under her breath, flipping a page of her magazine with unnecessary force.
Another thud, this one louder, against what sounded like the sink. A muffled curse from Katie: “Fuck, Vivian—!”
The sounds that followed were impossible to ignore. The rhythmic, slick slap of skin on skin, the guttural, desperate grunts, the high, choked whimpers. The private jet’s bathroom was not soundproof.
Inside the tiny, opulent space, Vivian had Katie pinned against the teak-and-chrome sink. The Hunger had stripped away her timid demeanor completely. Her eyes were pools of shadow, her pupils blown wide. One hand was tangled in Katie’s black lace top, the other shoved down the front of Katie’s tight leather pants.
“You smell like firework smoke and rebellion,” Vivian breathed against Katie’s throat, her voice a velvet rasp. Her tongue traced the line of Katie’s jugular. “I need it.”
Katie, usually so brash, was arching into the touch, her own darker nature responding to the raw demonic energy. “Yeah? You gonna take it?” she challenged, her voice already wrecked.
Vivian didn’t answer with words. She ripped Katie’s top open, buttons pinging off the mirrored walls. She took a lace-covered breast into her mouth, biting down through the fabric. Katie cried out, her head hitting the mirror. Vivian’s hand, now slick with Katie’s arousal, pushed past the waistband of her panties. Two fingers slid inside her without preamble, curling deep.
“Shit!” Katie gasped, her hips bucking forward. “Fuck, you’re wet.”
“For you,” Vivian growled, her mouth moving to Katie’s other breast. She worked her fingers in and out, a brutal, precise rhythm that had Katie’s thighs trembling. “All this energy… all this wanting… I can taste it on you.” She added a third finger, stretching Katie wide. The sink dug painfully into Katie’s back, but the pain was just another color in the explosive pleasure.
Vivian’s other hand fumbled with her own jeans, yanking them and her underwear down just enough. She guided Katie’s hand to her own core. “Feel what you do,” she commanded.
Katie’s fingers found her swollen, dripping flesh. She pushed two fingers inside Vivian, and the succubus threw her head back with a strangled groan. The feedback loop was instantaneous: Katie’s arousal fed Vivian, and Vivian’s consuming need amplified Katie’s own desire tenfold.
“Now,” Vivian panted, withdrawing her fingers from Katie. She spun her around, bending her over the sink. “Don’t be gentle.”
Katie braced her hands on the cool porcelain. Vivian positioned herself behind her, one hand gripping Katie’s hip hard enough to bruise. She didn’t tease. She drove her cock—a manifestation of her energy, thick and hot and utterly real in this moment—into Katie in one savage thrust.
The scream that tore from Katie’s throat was pure, unadulterated ecstasy. Vivian set a punishing pace, each snap of her hips slamming Katie into the sink. The metal fixtures rattled. Katie reached back, grabbing handfuls of Vivian’s red hair, pulling her down for a biting, messy kiss.
“Fuck me,” Katie rasped against her mouth. “Fuck me like you’re gonna break me.”
Vivian obliged. Her movements became faster, harder, a frenzied staccato. Katie was sobbing with each impact, her orgasm building like a pressure charge. Vivian could feel it, the gathering kinetic energy of Katie’s pleasure, a storm about to detonate. She fed on it, drawing the sharp, bright sparks into herself, sating the gnawing void inside her.
Outside, the cabin was a study in forced nonchalance.
Mara had put her magazine down entirely, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Are they going to bring the whole plane down?”
Stacy smirked. “I’d pay to see that.”
“They will not,” Fatima said calmly, though her jaw was tight. She was monitoring the energy flow, ensuring Vivian wasn’t taking too much.
Rebecca’s face was beet red. Amy’s eyes were wide as saucers, a fascinated smile on her lips. Yukio just shook her head, muttering, “Get it, I guess.”
Casey had put her sketchbook away and was now openly listening, a smirk playing on her face. “That’s the sink, definitely. Good acoustics.”
Bethany adjusted her sunglasses, a faint golden glow emanating from the lenses as she scanned the bathroom door. “Structural integrity is holding. For now.”
Ginny leaned over to Molly. “Ten bucks says Katie comes first.”
“No bet,” Molly whispered back, her own cheeks flushed.
Jan just leaned back in her seat, a small, knowing smile on her face. She could feel the release of tension, the safe channeling of Vivian’s Hunger. It was messy, it was loud, but it was controlled. This was the Green Moon way.
Inside the bathroom, Katie’s climax hit. It wasn’t a gentle wave; it was a detonation. Her body convulsed, a raw, screaming release that shook her to her core. Vivian drank it in, the energy flooding her veins like sunlight. As Katie’s muscles fluttered around her, Vivian’s own release followed, a deep, shuddering roar as she buried herself to the hilt, her shadow-wreathed form trembling with the force of it.
They slumped together against the sink, breathing in ragged, shared gasps. The Hunger was gone, replaced by a sated, heavy warmth. Katie turned her head, a lazy, post-coital grin on her face. “Boom,” she whispered.
The subsequent quiet was profound.
Then, from the overhead luggage compartment above Jan’s seat, a soft, polite cough echoed through the cabin.
Every head swiveled.
The latches of Jan’s large, tapestry carpetbag popped open of their own accord. A spectral, pearlescent form floated out—a woman in a high-necked, lace-trimged Victorian gown, her hair in a meticulous chignon. She looked around the cabin with bright, merry eyes.
“My apologies for the subterfuge, ladies,” said Lady Eleanor Hawthorne, the ghost, giving a slight curtsy in mid-air. “But one does so hate to miss a party. And my word, that was invigorating to listen to! It reminds me of a lovely weekend I spent in Brighton with a pair of rather enthusiastic acrobats…”
Mara stared, her professional composure utterly shattered. “What. The. Fuck.”
Jan burst out laughing. “Eleanor! You stowed away?”
“In a manner of speaking, dear Jan. Your carpetbag has such a lovely, chaotic energy. It’s quite cozy.” The ghost floated down, settling into an empty seat as if it were solid. She beamed at the group. “Do carry on, don’t mind me. Although, if I may, the young lady with the… energetic proclivities…” She nodded toward the bathroom door. “She has remarkable lung capacity. The acrobats I mentioned had a similar talent. Let me tell you, it all began with a misplaced pommel horse…”
Silence descended again, this one stunned. The sounds from the bathroom had stopped entirely. After a moment, the lavatory door clicked open. A disheveled Katie emerged, re-buttoning her ripped top, followed by a visibly sated and much calmer Vivian, who was smoothing down her hair, a faint blush on her pale cheeks. They both froze at the sight of the transparent Victorian woman currently regaling a mortified Rebecca and a delighted Annie with a story about a seaside donkey cart and a defrocked vicar.
Vivian’s shadowed eyes went wide. “Oh. Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes!” Lady Eleanor clapped her translucent hands together with glee. “The more the merrier! Now, where was I? Ah yes, the vicar’s trousers…”
Mara stood up, a hand pressed to her forehead. “A ghost. There is a Victorian ghost telling lewd stories on a private jet. Jan.”
“She’s harmless!” Jan protested, still grinning. “And she’s right, it was a great story. The jam was key.”
“The key was lost, I’m afraid,” Eleanor sighed. “Along with his dignity.”
Vivian slunk into the nearest empty seat, looking like she wanted to dissolve into the leather. Fatima shot her a sympathetic, if slightly exasperated, look. The succubus’s energy was now calm, sated, the dangerous edge gone.
The plane began its descent. The shift in pressure popped ears and shifted the mood. Out the windows, the harsh, beautiful expanse of the Sonoran Desert sprawled below, mountains jutting like broken teeth from the dust. The setting sun painted the sky in violent strokes of orange and purple.
On the ground, where the city of Palm Springs glittered like a spilled jewel box against the darkening desert, Aemelia the Elf Lady stood perfectly still in the shadow of a rocky outcrop. Her glacial beauty was untouched by the dry heat. She felt the plane’s approach like a fingernail dragged across the chalkboard of the world’s magical strata.
Her head tilted, a predator sensing a familiar scent on the wind. The psychic signatures were unmistakable: the chaotic, joyous spark of Jan O’Connor, and the refined, disciplined thrum of Fatima Abaza. A cold fury settled in her chest, so deep it felt like the heart of a glacier. She placed a pale, slender hand on her barely-swollen abdomen. Had they tracked her here? Had they come for the child growing within her, the child conceived with stolen time-lost essence?
Coincidence was a mortal conceit. She would operate on the assumption it was not. Her lips, the color of a winter rose, thinned into a line. If they sought a conflict in this barren place, she would ensure the desert drank their magic dry.
Back in Chicago, in the cluttered comfort of Mike and Casey’s suburban living room, chaos of a more mundane variety reigned. Polluck the cat watched from the top of the bookshelf with a scarred, indifferent face.
“Okay, so options,” Mike said, bouncing baby Rick on his hip. “We could do, uh, poker night?”
Hank Powers looked up from his phone. “You have a six-month-old. Poker night ends at seven PM when someone shits themselves. Usually you.”
“Hey,” Mike said, without heat.
Cameron Smythe, leaning against the fireplace mantel, cleared his throat. “I don’t really know any of you. But I’m competent with a grill.”
“Grilling’s good,” Hank nodded. “Sports on the TV. Simple.”
Liam MacDougal, sitting cross-legged on the floor, frowned. “I was rather hoping for a spoken word evening. There’s a tremendous slam at the Green Mill—”
“Poetry?” Jason Bryant, Amy’s boyfriend, asked gently. He was the youngest, looking slightly overwhelmed. “I, um, I have twelve dollars until my next paycheck.”
“Financial constraints are valid,” Zack Kreuger offered, ever the paralegal. “We could do a potluck. Mara left me very clear instructions on reheating some quinoa salad.”
A collective shudder went through the room.
Charley Winkle, Rebecca’s fiancé, raised a timid hand. “I could bring some board games? The educational kind? For…for the baby, you know, later…”
Dale Foster’s voice, tinny and distant through Mike’s laptop speaker, crackled. “I’m on a boat in the middle of the Pacific, guys. My contribution is moral support and maybe a really bad satellite connection.”
Mike sighed, looking at the hopeful, disparate faces of the men his wife and their best friend had collected. This was his task: to shepherd this group through a weekend without causing an international incident or dying of awkwardness. He looked down at Rick, who gurgled happily.
“Grilling,” Mike declared. “And maybe one non-terrifying board game. And if anyone mentions quinoa, you’re on diaper duty for the entire war council.”
In Ballymore, Ireland, the air was cool and damp, heavy with the scent of peat smoke and growing things. A silvery portal, shimmering like a vertical pool of mercury, irised open in the lane beside Maeve Monaghan’s cottage. Brigid O’Connor stepped through, her sensible shoes landing firmly on the cobblestones. The portal snapped shut behind her with a sound like a sigh.
Her cousin Aisling was waiting, along with Aisling’s boyfriend Ronan, and Nora, the former Consortium robot who now looked like any other attractive redheaded village woman in a simple woolen dress.
“Brigid,” Aisling said, her Dublin accent light. “Thanks for coming so quick.”
“Your message was urgent,” Brigid replied, adjusting her glasses. Her pre-med mind sought data, order. “What’s the situation?”
Aisling’s expression was uncharacteristically grave. “The Féth Fiada is… twitchy. There’s a surge. Not here. Grandma Maeve is anchoring things, but the epicenter is somewhere else.” She pulled out a rough, hand-drawn map that glowed with faint, verdant lines. “The ley lines are pulling energy to a convergence point. Here.” She pointed to a spot in the American Southwest.
Brigid peered at it. “Palm Springs, California.”
“Exactly,” Nora said, her synthetic voice now warmed by a soft Irish lilt. “The energy signature is aggressive. Primal. It’s not a natural accumulation.”
Ronan, his sandy hair falling into his winter-sky eyes, nodded. “Maeve says it feels like something being forged. Or born.”
A cold knot formed in Brigid’s stomach. “Jan,” she said flatly.
Aisling winced. “Your sister texted me a week ago about a ‘well-deserved girls’ trip’ to a spa there.”
“Of course she did.” Brigid pinched the bridge of her nose. “She’s a magnet for this sort of thing. If there’s a mystical surge in Palm Springs, Jan will be at the epicenter, probably ordering a mango smoothie and accidentally starting an orgy with the hotel staff.”
Nora’s lips quirked. “She does have a talent.”
“We have to go,” Aisling stated. “We have to contain whatever this is before it destabilizes the lines here. Maeve can’t hold it forever.”
Brigid looked at the map, then towards the cottage where her grandmother, one of the most powerful druids alive, was actively holding reality together. She thought of Jan, blissfully unaware, likely already enchanting a pool boy. A profound, sisterly exhaustion washed over her.
“We go,” Brigid agreed. “But we operate independently. Jan cannot know we’re there. If she gets involved, the variables become… infinite.”
“Under the radar,” Aisling agreed, a glint of her old con-artist cunning in her green eyes. “She’ll never see us coming.”
Back on the jet, the wheels touched down with a gentle bump. The women gathered their things, a tumult of bags and whispered plans and one chatty, incorporeal Victorian ghost. As they disembarked into the warm, dry desert night, Jan took a deep breath of the air, scented with creosote and expensive perfume.
Vivian, looking more settled but still embarrassed, hung back. Katie slung an arm around her shoulders. “Hey. No big deal. We Boom-Booms are good at cleaning up after explosions.” She winked.
Lady Eleanor floated beside Fatima. “I do hope the accommodations have a suitable minibar. In my day, a lady’s tonic was essential for travel fatigue.”
Fatima just sighed, hefting her bag. “The resort is all-inclusive, Lady Eleanor. I’m sure they’ll have something… period-appropriate.”
And none of them felt the distant, subtler ripple in the world’s fabric as another portal, thousands of miles away, opened and closed, depositing four determined travelers from a damp Irish lane into the same dry, dangerous desert night.