Chapter 6: Found?
The stale scent of last night’s beer and bleach clung to the empty bar. Shiv O’Connor stood in the center of the room, her presence alone having been enough to convince the owner that a temporary closure was in his best interest. The rest of the group fanned out behind her, a strange assembly of power and worry.
“This is the place,” Shiv said, her voice cutting through the silence. She pointed a sharp finger at a scuff mark on the floor near the jukebox. “That’s where her bracelet was found. The links were severed, not unclasped.”
Brigid nodded, her face pale but set with determination. “The residue here is… chaotic. It’s like a magical signature was ripped in half.” She turned to Sarah and Will. “I have an idea. It’s going to be… intense. I need you both. All of you.”
Without another word, she began to undress, her movements practical and swift. Sarah and Will, their hands already intertwined, followed suit, shedding their clothes until they stood bare in the dim light. A faint, nervous energy crackled between them.
“Lie down,” Brigid instructed, her voice dropping to a whisper. They settled onto the cold, sticky floor, Will on his back, Sarah pressed against his side, and Brigid completing the triangle, her body aligning with theirs. She placed a hand on Will’s chest, over his pounding heart, and another on Sarah’s hip, her fingers splayed against the soft skin.
Shiv began to chant, the ancient Gaelic words rolling from her tongue like stones. The air in the bar grew heavy, pressing down on them. The few remaining bottles behind the bar rattled softly on their shelves.
Brigid closed her eyes, reaching for the core of it all, the raw, untamed power that the Archimedes Society called the Source. She didn’t shape it or form it into a spell; she simply let it flood into her, a torrent of pure potential. It burned through her veins, and she cried out, her back arching off the floor. The power had to go somewhere. It leaped from her into the two people she was soul-bound to, the circuit completing with a violent, silent snap.
Pale blue light erupted from their skin, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. It arced between them, connecting nipple to nipple, from the head of Will’s cock to Brigid’s thigh, from Sarah’s lips to Brigid’s belly. Will groaned, his head thrashing side to side as the magic, inseparable from a surge of raw, physical sensation, seized him. It was pleasure, but it was pain, it was everything at once. His cock hardened to the point of agony, a rigid, throbbing column against his stomach.
“Oh god, Brigid,” Sarah gasped, her own body bowing as the power hit her like a wave. Her hand flew to her breast, pinching her own nipple hard, her hips grinding against nothing, seeking friction. “It’s so much… I can feel you… inside me…”
The magical feedback loop intensified. Brigid, her vision whiting out, could feel everything they felt. She felt the desperate, aching emptiness coiling in Sarah’s cunt, a mirror of her own. She felt the frantic, primal need in Will’s throbbing erection. The boundaries between their bodies dissolved in the blue-white fire.
“Will,” Brigid gasped, her voice ragged. “Now. I need you… inside me. It’s the anchor.”
He needed no further urging. Rolling over, his body glistening with sweat and spectral energy, he positioned himself between Brigid’s spread legs. He drove into her in one single, brutal thrust, sheathing his entire length in her wet, clutching heat. Brigid screamed, her nails digging into his back as the physical connection magnified the magical one a thousandfold. The pale light flared, blindingly bright.
He fucked her with a frantic, desperate rhythm, each slam of his hips sending shockwaves of power through the triad. Sarah writhed beside them, her fingers plunging into her own cunt, matching Will’s pace, her moans joining theirs in a ragged chorus. The air itself seemed to be fucking them, the raw magic a third, invisible partner in their union.
Shiv’s chanting grew louder, her own red hair lifting from her shoulders, crackling with contained energy as she guided the torrent ripping through her daughter.
Johnny stood rigid by the door, his jaw clenched, eyes fixed firmly on a crack in the ceiling. The sight of his sister’s nude body, the sounds of her raw pleasure, the sheer visceral intensity of the ritual—it was a violation of every quiet, orderly principle he lived by. He focused on the question, the one piece of logic in this storm of flesh and magic. “Why didn’t they take Fatima?” he muttered, his voice tight. “It doesn’t make sense. She was there. Jan’s powerful, but Fatima is… Fatima.”
As if summoned by his query, Aaron Sweeney, who had been running his hands through the disturbed energies near the jukebox, flinched. He sucked in a sharp breath. “It’s not about who’s more powerful,” he said, his voice distant, tuned to a different frequency. “It’s about containment. I’m getting… a sense of a deal. A transaction. They took Jan because they believed she was the easier asset to hold. The simpler problem. They think Fatima is… too volatile. A liability.”
Annie, who had been quietly stroking Sophie the kitten in her purse, looked up. Her calm, farm-girl face was serene, but her eyes were hard. “So they picked the one they thought wouldn’t break them.” She shook her head slowly, a small, grim smile touching her lips. “These people have never met Jan’s mother. I almost feel bad for them.”
She paused, letting the sounds of the frantic coupling and the crackle of primal magic fill the room.
“Almost.”
Will’s hips pistoned into Brigid, his balls slapping against her skin with a wet, rhythmic smack. Her cries were not just of pleasure but of strain, her body a live wire channeling too much current. "Fuck, Will, I'm close... but I can't... I need to feel it from the outside," she gasped, her eyes flying open, the blue light in them stuttering. "Switch to Sarah. Now."
He pulled out of her with a slick, shuddering pop, his cock glistening and rigid. He turned to Sarah, who was already spreading her legs, her back arching in desperate invitation. He drove into her in one deep, claiming thrust, burying himself to the hilt in her tight, welcoming heat. Sarah’s head slammed back against the floor, a guttural "Yes!" tearing from her throat as her internal muscles clenched around him.
Freed from the most direct physical stimulus, Brigid let her head fall back, her senses expanding outward through the circuit of their triad. She rode the feedback of Will fucking Sarah, using their raw, shared ecstasy as a catalyst. Her magic shot through the walls of the bar, through the city, searching for a familiar, fiery signature. "It's... a place of iron and silence," she whispered, her voice echoing with power. "They hold beings of power there. Joy is a violation. A crime." Her brow furrowed, concentrating. "It's in another space... but not another time."
Shiv’s chanting ceased. She nodded once, a sharp, definitive gesture. "A pocket dimension. A prison." Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, her knuckles white. "Some fool has locked my daughter in a cage and thinks that's the end of it." The air around her shimmered with a heat that had nothing to do with the ritual. Godfrey, lying alert by the door, let out a low, resonant woof of absolute agreement.
Across the city, in the sterile quiet of her office, Mara looked up from the scattered files. Zack stood nervously before her desk, shuffling printouts. "It's all here, Mara. Dozens of reports over the last five years. People vanishing from locked rooms, from crowded streets. The official reports call it 'elopement' or 'dementia,' but the circumstances are... bizarre."
Mara watched him, seeing the tension in his shoulders, the way he couldn't quite meet her eyes for more than a second. She closed the file in front of her. "Zack," she said, her voice softer than she used in court. "You know I'm not that scary, right? I just believe in the law. In making things right."
He finally looked up, a flicker of surprise in his kind eyes. "I know that. It's just... the intensity is intimidating. In a good way."
A slow smile touched Mara’s lips. The strange, buzzing energy that had lingered in her since the Hank and Fatime came to her office—the magic Shiv and Fatima's cookies had temporarily in her system—hummed just beneath her skin, momentarily quieting the doubting, logical voice in her head. "My friend Jan," Mara said, leaning back in her chair, "taught me that sometimes, you have to let go." Her gaze dropped meaningfully to the noticeable bulge straining against the front of Zack's trousers. "And since I have a temporary... openness... to unconventional ideas, I think I should thank you for all your very, very hard work."
Mara stood, the motion fluid and deliberate, her eyes never leaving his. She unbuttoned her blouse, letting it fall to the floor, then stepped out of her trousers. Soon she stood before him in only her black lace bra and panties, the office lights glinting off her determined gaze. "Take your clothes off, Zack. Now."
He fumbled with his belt, his fingers clumsy with a mix of shock and burning anticipation. His clothes joined hers in a heap on the floor, his erection springing free, thick and already leaking. "On the desk," she commanded, clearing a space with a sweep of her arm that sent files fluttering to the carpet.
He obeyed, lying back on the cool, polished wood. She climbed over him, her knees pinning his hips, her scent of coffee and ambition filling his senses. She leaned down, her mouth close to his ear. "You don't move unless I tell you to. Understand?" He nodded, a strangled sound catching in his throat. She reached behind, unclipped her bra, and tossed it aside, her small, firm breasts now level with his face. "Touch them. Use your mouth."
He cupped her breasts, his thumbs circling her nipples before he took one into his mouth, sucking hard as she guided his head. A low groan rumbled in her chest. "Good. Now just lie there and take it." She hooked her thumbs into the sides of her panties, ripped them, and cast the torn lace aside. She positioned herself over him, her hand guiding his cock to her wet entrance. She sank down onto him in one slow, excruciatingly deliberate motion, her inner muscles clenching around his length as she sheathed him completely inside her.
"Fuck," he gasped, his hands gripping the edge of the desk, his knuckles white.
"Quiet," she breathed, beginning to move, a slow, deep roll of her hips that made him see stars. She set a relentless rhythm, riding him with a powerful, piston-like motion that was all business. The only sounds were their ragged breathing, the wet slap of their bodies meeting, and the faint creak of the desk. "You feel that?" she grunted, driving down onto him, taking him deeper. "That's for the overtime. And this," she said, shifting her angle, grinding her clit against his pubic bone, "is for finding the connection between the vanishings."
His composure shattered. "Mara, I'm gonna—"
"Not yet," she ordered, slowing her pace, squeezing him internally until he whimpered. "You come when I say you can come." She resumed her punishing rhythm, her own breath coming in sharp gasps now, a fine sheen of sweat coating her skin. She was close, her focus narrowing to the building pressure coiling low in her belly. "Now, Zack. Now you come for me."
The permission broke him. With a guttural cry, his body arched off the desk, his cock pulsing deep inside her as he emptied himself. The intense, helpless throbbing of his climax tipped her over the edge. She rode out his orgasm with a few final, sharp thrusts, her own pleasure cresting in a silent, shuddering wave that made her dig her nails into his shoulders.
She collapsed forward for a moment, her forehead resting against his, both of them breathing heavily. Then, with practiced efficiency, she lifted herself off him and stood on slightly unsteady legs. She found her clothes and began dressing without a hint of self-consciousness. "Get up. Get dressed."
He scrambled to obey, his body still humming. As he pulled on his trousers, she finished buttoning her blouse and looked at him, a sly, possessive smile playing on her lips. "There may be more of that in the future," she said, her voice back to its usual professional crispness. She gestured to the files scattered across the floor. "But in the meantime, we need to get back to work. Start cross-referencing those names with property records. There may be a common location for all these disappearances, and someone's paying the bills."