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I would have laughed if my head hadn’t been ready to explode. Too much!
Steve’s grip on my arm, now that he’d recovered it, tightened to annoying levels. I groped for a way out, away from here.
“Shall we step outside for a few minutes? It’s hot in here,” I mumbled, tilting my head back to give a better view down my cleavage. Outside, further from the influence, I hoped to be able to think again. I needed to get away from this before I started screaming from frustration.
The balcony was blessedly cool, the smoky drug haze reduced to a light mist. Whatever generated emotion in the room dropped off over distance, giving me a moment to recover from both the lust and the pain from the geas’ punishment. The constellations of fine clothing and jewels recombined and swayed in the light breeze below in the garden as people walked the paths, plotting and planning, unaware of what was happening close by.
Focusing on the garden helped make the lust subside and eased the constriction of the geas. A twinkle in the grass caught my eye. Dozens of tiny chains lay in the grass, snapped, and their prisoners fled. Someone had freed all the little spirits that had been being used as light sources; I wondered who? I’d like to shake their hand.
Steve sat on the edge of the balcony and pulled me between his legs. Using his hand in my updo to control my head, he kissed me hard. All that loneliness mixed with the lust flooded into me… in the old days, he would have been a prime candidate for a pity fuck. Even if I got rid of the geas, I was pretty sure, thanks to Walker, my days of pity fucks were over.
Well, for as long as he would have me.
Steve squeezed my breast with one hand, using the other to press me against his erection. I intercepted the hands, trying to slow him down as I explored the emotional web. Oddly, it was easier while he touched me, even with the distraction of his emotions leaking into me. He was connected to the working, and I could perceive it better in contact with him. All this desire and sex was feeding something.
All of it pouring into a void of hunger. I pressed forward a little and recoiled at how vast it was. How could sex energy be used to feed it? The wendigo ate flesh, not emotions.
Confusion rampaged through my mind as I shifted Steve’s hands back up and away from my body. I would have sworn spiritual hunger couldn’t be repurposed; but that was the reading my talent gave me. Maybe Melissa Cohen-Rossi could be saved- if she hadn’t eaten human flesh, if she’d figured out a different way to keep the Wendigo sated, perhaps she wouldn't need to die.
My head ached from concentration and fighting the working. It took all my focus, the exterior world had faded away, there was only the working and the fight to fend off Steve's advances.
His hands slipped down to my ass and pressed me against his groin. I wanted to cry or swear. I didn’t want to hurt him.
Light cracked, and pain jolted through me as the weapon struck me. My muscles tightened, spasming wildly, and I fell heavily to the ground, twitching. Blood filled my mouth from my bitten tongue, I fought to regain control of my body. I’d been hit by a taser from behind.
I dropped, and Steve held me, trying to cushion my head.
A figure emerged from the shadows in the garden, climbing over the edge of the balcony. A flash of red gleamed where an eye should be, as did the sheen of metal in other areas. The rest of the face was familiar. Administrator Greene.
The magic of a completely different working twisted around him. Unlike the one in the room, made to provoke intense desire, this one was more like the working on the angry teens who’d nearly killed the dryad.
It fanned rage and the urge to kill. As if Greene needed further urging. I’d jumped out of the frying pan, the sex working, to clear my head and tone down the geas’ pointed punishment, and ended up in the fire of someone trying to kill me. My luck was terrible as usual.
I couldn’t gather the focus to see if I recognized the creator’s magic while I was seizing. It would be nice to know if someone new was trying to kill me.
Steve lunged forward and Greene tasered him too. He fell next to me.
Two quick steps and Greene squatted next to me. The biggest social event of the year was a strange place to attack someone. The working was pushing him on, feeding the anger, and pushing him on this trajectory. Had he been set up as a scapegoat for an entirely different faction? If so, why?
“Let’s see how you like it, scum.” He drew a knife down my cheek. Still spasming from the shock, my movements threw his aim off. He scratched the side of my eye, and the cut deepened on my cheekbone.
Now, past the initial jolt, I could move, though my muscles were still twitching from the taser. I’d had far too much practice recovering from them in the Guild. The bracelet unwrapped into a knife and I drove it upward with all my strength. My hit connected on the metal of his replacement arm rather than flesh, but the force of the blow tumbled Greene back on his ass.
I screamed as I rose to my feet, pivoting to place myself between Steve and Greene’s knife. If Greene wasn’t suicidal, he’d be trying to run, and Steve would make far too useful a hostage, better than the other party-goers.
Greene charged and I missed the block. His slash across my throat and chest ripped the fabric of my dress, but it didn’t break my skin or cut the web-thin lace that overlaid the fabric. Wow, lace that worked as body armor! I wasn’t going to give the dress back.
A metal hand punched me back, and I kicked up. The spike attached to my so-called shoe punctured his thigh, but he took me to the ground with a sacrifice fall. I landed awkwardly, twisting the ankle of the trapped leg.
“Greene. You’re impaired. Cease, or you will be taken down.” Silver’s even, calm voice floated from the side as Greene’s punch rocked my head back into balcony stoneware. The metal of his hand mashed and cut my lips and mouth.
Thank you, Silver. How long had he been waiting before he said that? I added him once again to the list of people to make gloves from if I lived. Not that I ever would, but I liked the idea better than a simple shit list. Siler rotated on and off it more than most people.
I slashed at Greene’s throat as Walker’s voice resonated above us. “Cease.”
Greene jerked at the sound, rigid and still. I tried to abort the blow, but I was already committed. I closed my eyes as blood drenched me. He hadn’t had a special dress like mine. I hoped it could be cleaned easily. I’d grown very fond of it in the past moments.
“Did you see what the working on him was? It’s different from the big one in the room.” I wiped the blood coating my face. Hard to tell what was mine and what was Greene’s. I needed another shower.
