Penny had yet to change out of her Sunday clothes, but as the sounds of hard sex drifted from her daughter's room, she was more reluctant to continue up the stairs. While her pussy tingled and buzzed at the prospect of seeing her daughter fucked into submission, her heart pounded in trepidation of equal measure.

At the top of the stairs, she gazed with shimmering eyes towards her daughters' bedroom and uttered a sigh both sultry and frustrated at the door left ajar. A slapping noise rolled into the hallway, timed with metallic squeaks and soft grunts. Penny swallowed, her hips wanting to sway in concert as her pussy ached for release.

I'm sure Melinda would just adore licking your pussy when Jo gets through with her.

Penny shivered and uttered a low moan. She stepped away from the stairs and leaned against the wall until the wave of lust ebbed. She tried to put thoughts of her own pleasure aside for a little while longer. Surely her Mistress would not begrudge her that.

You assume many things these days, it seems, came the Darkness' amused voice. But I suppose it is harmless to indulge your silliness on occasion.

Penny accepted the warm flush of pleasure which accompanied her gratitude. Her pussy would just have to remain nice and wet for now. Her hand flirted with the buttons on her blouse, her breasts too confined in the dress.

As she crept along the wall towards the door, she was haunted by the memory of the very last time she and David had had sex. It had been the morning before Penny had gone to the abandoned church to confront an imminent threat to her turning sixteen daughter Heather. After that day, she dared not have sex with him again.

A silly restriction, really. Eventually he will become part of me same as everyone else.

Penny shuddered as her daughters sprang into her head. Despite the endless hours of pleasure, orgasms more powerful and satisfying than she could ever receive by earthly means, and a constant low buzz of sexual bliss, she would not give up the protection of her daughters.

The Darkness remained silent. Penny did not dare think she had somehow hid a thought from it. It knew her mind too well. Its tendrils curled around every part of her psyche. Her "independent" thoughts merely dodged between the tiny gaps, like a bird flitting from branch to branch as the tree swayed in the wind.

Penny heard the pace slow as she reached the door, accompanied by a shrill whimper from Melinda. "No, you don't get to cum yet," grunted a winded Jo. "Sluts don't deserve to cum until they prove how slutty they are. Now, let's take it from the top ..."

Penny shuddered at the final turn of phrase and pushed Victor from her mind before the Darkness took her to task for it. Her heart thundered as she leaned until she could peek inside.

Framed in the space between door and frame was the back of Jo's naked body. Her hips jerked in a quick, pounding rhythm, her generous ass cheeks jiggling. Black straps ran around her waist and upper thighs.

Before her, Melinda lay on hands and knees on her bed. Only the blouse and panties had been shed. The skirt was folded back, and Penny's eyes widened as she saw the entire length of a huge black dildo rammed into her daughter's helpless pussy. Melinda's ass rippled with each impact, the skin pink from repeated slaps against Jo's body. Her breasts remained confined in the bra, which Melinda pawed at with alternating hands at irregular intervals.

Jo chuckled and buried the dildo, leaning forward and mashing her body against Melinda's backside. Melinda whimpered in distress and need as the dildo pressed against her swollen clit but offered no release. Jo grabbed the bra straps and yanked. Melinda shuddered, her fingers curling into the sheets.

Penny let out a slow, husky sigh as she could almost feel her daughter's nipples tingling and throbbing against the unyielding cups. She closed her eyes and turned away when it became too much to bear, even as her pussy ached to keep watching when the pounding dildo-fuck resumed.

You cannot keep her here forever.

Penny clutched her blouse as if afraid her breasts would emerge of their own accord from the rise of pleasure in her sex. She shivered as she thought of Jo taking Melinda.

I would let you give her to your sister, if that is what you really want, as much as I despise the cult despite the absence of its infernal leader.

Penny stepped past her daughter's room and into the master bedroom, closing the door behind her. She leaned against it and let out a husky sigh as she undid the buttons of her blouse.

But eventually she will have to leave your house.

Penny swallowed and yanked her bra up with a faint gasp, spilling her breasts from the cups. With a soft moan, her trembling body slid downward, and she uttered a low grunt as her backside impacted the floor.

Heather is all but gone. I am even willing to allow her arrangement with that stupid, self-centered woman to become permanent.

Penny pulled down her skirt and kicked it off. She spread her knees apart, her white panties stained dark and glistening. She closed her eyes and shivered in need for as long as she could tolerate. Her hand slipped under her panties, fingers finding wet, sensitive flesh. Just a light touch, and her hips jerked as a bolt of pleasure shot through her.

Pleasure rode a raging tide into her mind as her fingers sank into her sex. Thoughts of her daughters as forever naked, eager, and wet sex slaves saturated her mind. She saw herself enjoying their obedience and skill, rising to heights of ecstasy at their touch.

Penny whimpered and shook her head. The Darkness forever teased her with such perversions despite their arrangement, as if it wanted to remind her of what could have been. It conditioned her to grow more wet and needful each time the wicked imagery played in vivid concert before her mind's eye.

It was for the better. The Darkness would not be denied its amusement. This made it easier to accept, at least for now. It would not take them, but it wanted them to dance to another's tune for awhile, though not forever.

So she hoped.

She tilted her head back as her fingers thrust hard into her pussy. The words escaped her lips despite all attempts by the snaking and slithering tendrils of Dark power to capture them. "Not before Christmas."

Yes, I knew that was coming.

Penny shuddered. She lifted a hand to her breast and kneaded the pliant flesh. She slid her hips forward, panting as she finger-fucked herself as hard as she heard Jo pounding into Melinda. Faint thoughts of the family together for the holidays drifted between scenes of carnality.

And no, that's not the reason. Don't think you can fool me. Just as I knew why you had asked Laura to hold off one week before taking Heather as her slave.

Penny caught herself before she could shake her head. She let the pleasure take hold, let the Darkness' wishes for her daughters arouse her. She became Mistress' good girl, as she always wanted to be.

You allowed Heather to help the Harbingers bring Victor down. I suppose it worked out well for me, once I saw him as the disloyal and ungrateful bastard that he was.

The thought would not be suppressed. The relief which rippled through her over Victor's defeat was almost as powerful as her lust. She tried to follow it with thoughts of loyalty and happiness that it had ended well for her Mistress.

You cannot hide it. You are hoping that maintaining your daughters' freedom will somehow allow them to help save Jason. I may allow it, if for no other reason than you amuse me.

Penny gasped as her pleasure soared. Her fingers stroked her clit with vigorous abandon, wet noises rising above the din of hard panting and the rattle of the door as she shivered.

And your machinations with your daughters have served me well. They remained preoccupied enough to be of little use to the other Harbingers as my plans came to fruition.

Penny cried out as her pussy gushed into her panties. It squirted around her fingers and splashed over her belly, while rivulets of moisture escaped the edges of her panties and trickled to the floor. Ecstasy roared through her body and erupted into her mind.

And see, I do not punish you. I recognize your foolishness as a weakness which will be overcome in time. You have served me well, and will continue to serve me.

Penny moaned, fingers still pumping. She was rewarded with a swift rise of pleasure and a second shot of hot moisture squirting around her fingers. She let out a contented sigh as her fingers finally slowed and stopped. They pressed against her clit until the throbbing faded, leaving behind the ache and afterglow of a pleased pussy.

"Thank you, Mistress," Penny breathed as she imagined having her daughters with her for the holiday. "You are more kind than I deserve."

February 27th, 1977 - And so we come full circle. It has been exactly 3 years since I penned that journal entry, so full of pride and bravado, where I vowed to find a way to block the influence of the Darkness.

That remains my goal. No one wishes to see it destroyed more than I. But it is time to come back down to Earth. I have had my head in the clouds so long I barely remember what it feels like to have solid ground under me. I look back on the last three years of my journal and feel I am reading a fantasy novel, and a poorly-written one at that.

I feel quite embarrassed. In my defense, I felt like I was making real progress. I believed that everything I was experiencing was real, the result of my wild speculations into the way the human mind works. Yet the more time I spent with my therapist, bless her heart, the more we both realized I was fooling myself.

Oh, the theory is sound. The Darkness indeed maintains control by the manipulation of our faults and our dark desires. Where I failed was thinking I could magick-up something which could bypass that. One of my previous journal entries put it best, but perhaps not in the way I had intended: I am tampering with forces I do not understand.

I also recall mentioning that I felt like I was cheating. I did indeed try to cheat, but the human mind is too complex for that. Just as there is no pill that will cure anything which ails you -- and likely never will be -- I cannot conjure something which can give protection against the Darkness any more than I could bottle sunshine for a rainy day.

No, if I am to find a way to defeat it, it will come about by good, honest work. That's really what being a Witch is all about. We don't wave magic wands or twiddle our fingers and make magic happen. We use magic naturally produced around us and nudge it in the right direction. Yes, it takes so much longer, but it has been proven to work time and time again.

If I do not make it, I am sure someone else will pick up the mantel. If that someone is reading these pages now, please find it in your heart to forgive me for leading you on a wild goose chase.

Jason stared at the page as if believing he could penetrate what had to be the lie and reveal the hidden truth beneath. He waited to see the obvious falsehoods burn away at the sheer intensity of his incredulous gaze and uncover reality. He held the page up to the light, turned the page over, turned it upside down. His eyes frantically swept the text for anything which might give him a clue that this was not some cruel joke.

He snatched the previous page and re-read its last entry. In shaky script, Elizabeth had described the start of her vigil near the site of the old tavern, where she would confront the Darkness. She had expressed both sheer heights of hope and deep depths of fear. Like the penultimate chapter of an exciting novel (which perhaps should have been his first clue), it had set him up for the finale, for the make-or-break moment.

Instead, he got this.

His eyes darted between the two entries. A week separated them. The last few words of the previous journal entry had been cut off, as she had struggled to fit them on one page. Yet the next one, the travesty he still held in his trembling hands, started right at the top.

He searched with increasing desperation through the remaining journal to find the missing pages he was sure must exist; all the remaining pages were dated afterward.

He glanced at a few of the future entries. They were totally mundane, as if the years leading up to this dead end had never happened. They were just like her first entries, before she involved herself in the sordid underbelly of Haven: day-to-day events and descriptions of feats of common witchcraft which were no better than smoke and mirrors, all written in the same impeccable flowing script which disgraced this latest entry.

He read that entry again. And again. And again. Each time his fingers curled tighter, until a tear slashed through the last paragraph. He finally forced himself to let go, the damaged page fluttering to the mattress, his hands shaking.

Jason could not remember the last time he actually cried. He thought he should be doing that now. Instead, he was numb, like nothing mattered. If his parents had entered at that moment, he would have done nothing to hide the journal. There was nothing to hide, just ramblings from an eccentric woman who fancied herself a Witch.

He thought to call Mrs. Radson, but dismissed that idea out of hand. With undirected fury and despair boiling in his head, he knew he would likely tell her what kind of superstitious bullshit witchcraft really was. He wondered what solutions he may have devised had he put the journal aside and used science instead. He had almost convinced himself that the supernatural was just another form of science, and he had only to learn its rules and structure.

He raised his head when he heard the garage door rumble.

Jason gathered the pages of the journal, if for no other reason than to get them out of his sight. He glanced at the dozens of yellow post-its at the edges and the annotations scribbled upon them. He had highlighted every entry which had held some form of enlightenment.

Now they felt so much like the doodles of a crazy old woman that he came close to ripping them out. He ran a hand through his hair, a sigh becoming a weak sob. He sniffled once and grabbed the pages, wrapped the string tight enough to crinkle and tear a few, and stuffed them under his bed.

The door to the garage rumbled shut as a car drove away and raced down the street. Seconds later, the intrusion alarm sounded.

Jason's heart leapt into his throat. He silently begged that his mother had gone to the store, and his father was about to pay him a visit. A chill touch to his mind and a tingling against his skin revealed the false hope for what it was long before the door opened and his smiling, Aura-shrouded mother stood in the doorway.

Jason stared at her, wanting to both scream and apologize. His eyes flicked over the roiling edges of her Aura, trying not to let them be drawn to any one part of her body. He forced his gaze not to linger when it swept her bosom and saw the raised points of her nipples on her blouse.

"Jason, I need to talk to you about something important," Audrey said in a soft voice. She closed the door behind her.

"I-I'm kind of busy right now, Mom," Jason said in a weak voice which faded further when she stepped forward. He noticed only now that she had changed into a short skirt, her legs bare, ending in high-heeled shoes.

"You've worked so hard all weekend, you deserve a little break." She swept forward, nudging her hips into an exaggerated swing which drew Jason's attention despite his best efforts.

"I'm come down in a little while, like maybe when Dad is back."

His words were like so much wind. Audrey weathered it and sat on the edge of his bed, leaning forward until her breasts pressed tight against her blouse. "I just checked the community website. There's a job at the Inn that sounds perfect for you."

Jason swallowed. His heart thumped until his chest ached. "Mom ... I-I saw it, too, but--"

"You can stop by on your way home from school tomorrow," Audrey said in a husky voice. "They may even have you start the same day. I'll expect you won't be home until dinnertime."

"Mom, please," Jason said, his voice cracking. "Please, think about this."

"I am thinking about it. It's getting me rather excited ... for you, I mean."

Jason's hands briefly clenched into fists as his cock tingled and his skin flushed. "I can't do it. I--"

"You promised, Jason," Audrey said in a voice equal parts lust and hurt. "Don't go back on your word to your mother."

Jason trembled. He shook his head in one final act of defiance.

His mother paused. One hand fluttered to her bosom, hesitated, then popped the top button open. "I'd be very pleased if you took this job." She extended her free hand and touched his knee. "Very pleased."

Jason shuddered and jerked his knee away, but to the outside instead of the inside. Before he could correct his mistake, her hand alighted long the inside of his thigh. His cock swelled, his hands clenching in his vain attempt to will it to stop.

"Perhaps I can coax you into doing this for me," Audrey said with a sultry smile. Her hand slid slowly upwards. "Would you like me to do that?"

Jason's jaw clenched. He stared at her hand as it approached the pulsing bulge in his jeans. He watched the tendrils of black play along her arm like thin snakes. The hand at her bosom fingered another button free, revealing a glimpse of bra-less cleavage.

His hand shot out and grabbed his mother's wrist.

Oh, yes, Jason, you are quite right, came the voice of the Darkness so clear that he shivered from its chill touch. She would be quite traumatized if she had sex with you.

His mother gave him a quizzical look and withdrew her hand. "Is something the matter, honey?"

And I would make sure she remembered everything she did. Assuming I ever let her go.

Jason stared at her hand, her bosom, her hips, then back to her smoldering eyes. His cock strained for freedom from the confines of his clothes. His mind flirted with thoughts of his mother's lips wrapped around his cock, or his cock buried in her pussy.

"I'll do it," Jason said in a small voice. "I'll take the job."

Audrey paused, her eyes flicking to his crotch. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'll take it. You don't need to do anything else."

"I wouldn't mind. I just want the best for you. Especially since having this job will cut into your sex life."

"I'll deal."

Audrey looked disappointed, but she slowly nodded. She hesitated before drawing back from his bed. She uttered a lusty sigh, her nipples rigid and prominent. Her hand flirted with another of the buttons of her blouse before dropping to her side.

She still wants you, Jason. She'll still be thinking about your cock. And you'll find no stupid potion to stop it.

Jason's eyes widened, and it seemed as if his heart had frozen. His erection flagged from the icy chill which shot down his spine.

Did you really think I would let you keep reading that phony old bat's journal if I thought it held anything of a threat to me?

"What the hell did you do to her?!" Jason suddenly shouted in a voice of raw rage.

Audrey flinched and stumbled back a step. "Jason, what are you talking about? Who are you talking about?"

I did nothing to Elizabeth. She is as you see: a silly old woman with silly old notions.

"I don't--" Jason began, intending to say "I don't believe you," but he refused to play this game to its amusement. "Nothing, Mom, I'm sorry. I-I was thinking about something else."

Audrey slowly smiled. "You're getting distracted, honey, a sure sign that you've been working too hard. Do you want to lie down for a bit? I'll stay with you."

"No, I'm fine," he said as his cock leapt to a full erection again.

"Or would you like to come downstairs for a bit and sit with me on the sofa?"

"No. I want to stay here. Please."

Oh, you'll break down eventually, Jason. Really, fucking your own mother is all the rage now in Haven.

Audrey slowly nodded. "All right, Jason." She turned and headed away but paused at the door, looking back at him with a soft smile. "If you ever do feel this job is cutting into your sex life, please tell me. I can help."

Jason swallowed and nodded. Audrey paused again before heading out, closing the door behind her. He let out a frustrated sigh and beat the mattress once with his fists.

The voice of the Darkness was gone, slipping out of his head like a thief. He realized why it had waited so long to confront him over the job. It had wanted him to get this far in the journal and see for himself how safe and secure it was.

Normally he could think of a dozen different ways as to how they could fight back. This time all he saw was the end of one whom everyone once called Jason Conner. He could not see past it, for one could not see into oblivion.

He took a deep breath and let it go as a quavering sigh as his cock finally flagged. He wiped his eyes as he jumped off the bed. Lamentations and self pity would have to wait. He had to retain the strength of leadership the other Harbingers had falsely attributed to him for a little while longer.

He fell into the chair before his computer. He had a lot to do before he signed off for the last time.

"Hank, this sure as hell better be a goddamn emergency to justify calling me on a Sunday," growled Ted Havers over the cell phone. "And if this has anything to do with what I think it does, you better be in a secure location."

Henry sighed and glanced out his car windows. He had parked in the last row in front of the Haven Mall. Several empty rows separated him from the nearest vehicle, and the pedestrian path was at least fifty feet away. "It's about as secure as any place can be in Haven, Ted."

"Don't get that attitude with me, it won't get you anywhere. I'm playing Haven by the book from now on."

"Then you better get ready to throw it at me."

Dead silence for several seconds. "Hank, if you ever touch your wife -- or any woman for that matter -- in the least non-platonic manner before you are given leave--"

"Stop assuming I'm a wet-behind-the-ears recruit for one fucking minute," Henry declared. "I know better than that. There are other ways to resist it."

"And none of them are authorized, either."

"But they carry none of the risks associated with direct sexual contact."

"You're not listening to me. They are not authorized. The risk factor doesn't even enter into it. You cannot perform any manifestation of this power outside controlled laboratory conditions."

"Unless you authorize it."

"Which is something I am not prepared to do. So get the idea out of your head right now." Ted paused. "Unless you already ..."

He let the words hang, likely hoping for a quick denial. Instead, Henry paused for a significant moment and said, "You know what they say. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission."

Ted uttered a long sigh. "Shit."

"I used nothing more than focused will, more as a barrier than anything else. I had to put my foot down in an argument and did not want to risk Audrey trying to influence--"

"You used it for something as petty as a squabble with your wife?!"

"It was not petty, it had to do with my son. She is using the entity's power to exert undo influence over him."

"Then this is a perfect opportunity for observation," Ted said in a cool voice.

Henry stared out the windshield. "I don't believe you said that."

"At the beginning, you would. We tested you on scenarios where your family became involved against their will. You showed you could handle it."

"I didn't expect my son to bring it down on himself!" Henry cried.

"Then I would think it was his own fault."

Henry gripped the phone tighter, his free hand clenching into a fist. He forced himself to take a deep breath. "Ted, he can see something on me."

"Come again?"

"He sees when someone is imbued with this power. Likely his friends can as well."

Ted paused. "You never mentioned this. Has he told you himself?"

"Not in so many words, but he's admitted it indirectly. It explains why he suddenly started acting hostile towards me a few months back. It was like a light switch flipped on. At once he knew there was something monstrous about his father."

"There is nothing 'monstrous' about this power," Ted snapped. "It's like any other power or technology, it depends on how--"

"Look, Ted, stop being purposely obtuse. I'm telling this from his perspective. In his view, his father is 'tainted' by the monster they're fighting. He's guessing I have the power to do something about his mother. And now Audrey is railroading him into taking a job at that Inn."

Henry had no idea how to interpret the silence which followed and plowed on. "I knew there were risks to my family when I took on this project, but I believed them to be no more than those faced by any other Haven resident. Even the prospect of 'stealing' power from the entity was not a concern because it had to find out I had the power before it could work against me."

"And you never considered that this may be the way it would attack you if you were discovered?"

"No, because having this power blocks the pathways it needs to determine a means of influence or control. I'm a blank piece of paper to it."

"There's no guarantee that will continue, not if it has had a new infusion of energy as recent reports indicate."

"Nothing has happened to me yet, and I have felt no influence from it, even with Audrey in as deep as I suspect."

Ted said nothing in immediate response. Henry heard a pen tapped against a desk.

Henry took a deep breath and let it go with his next statement. "So I am making a formal request for authorization to use no more than Level One techniques against my wife, so I can push the entity's influence away from my son."

"Request denied."

Henry sat very still. Only the ticking of the cooling engine broke the silence.

"You should consider yourself lucky I am not reporting you for the violations you have already committed. Do it again, and I will report it."

"Ted, please, just consider ..." Henry trailed off when the words would not roll past his lips. They sounded as hypocritical to his own ears as they would to Ted. Everything Henry requested flew in the face of every rigid protocol and procedure put in place to ensure that emotion did not override logic, something of critical importance in dealing with a being able to manipulate the former and suppress the latter.

"There is nothing to consider," Ted said. "We are dealing with something dangerous which we know little about. We cannot make any assumptions or exceptions. You are to cease using any techniques whatsoever unless purely in your own defense."

Now it was Henry's turn to remain in stony silence.

Ted continued in a more contrite voice, "Hank, I'm sorry. If you did not play such a critical role in this project, I would consider relieving you and relocating you and your family. Perhaps I can do that once the Haven Project is off the ground."

Henry stared at a group of teenagers lounging on the other side of the parking lot. He let out a slow sigh as they talked and laughed as if they had not a care in the world, living in ignorance of the power which permeated the town and threatened their very sense of self.

"No," Henry replied in a curt tone as he turned away from the teens. "I'm in this for a reason."

"I really hope you do see this through, Hank. I want you to see that your personal sacrifice was worth it."

Henry glanced at the teens again and imagined Jason with them, sharing the carefree moment as a normal teenager in a normal town. "So do I, Ted, more than you could ever imagine."

"Which leads me to an issue I need to raise with you," said Ted. "It is important we remember that our goal is to control this entity and not neutralize or eliminate it. These Harbingers, from what I understand, are out to destroy it. Under no circumstances must they succeed."

"They're only kids, Ted."

"Kids who successfully sealed off a potential containment breach which had left the rest of us flatfooted. We did not even know it had happened until you told us."

"Whatever advances they have made, they are nowhere near the point of combating it directly."

"Then we need to see to it that the situation remains that way. I will talk to you again during the week."

Ted hung up before Henry could say another word.

He glanced out the window, but the teens had moved on. He frowned when he realized how much the project was relying on a bunch of teenagers to keep a barely-understood power in check. If Jason were adversely affected by it, the others would barely be able to keep their heads above water.

He wished he could get Ted to see that.

Richie sat on the sofa in the living room, arms folded tight across his chest. He stared at the football game on the TV without really paying attention. Football served only as a vehicle for working off pent-up anger and frustration by watching several dozen large men pound each other. Such was his tendency with any sport outside of baseball. He watched football for the aggressiveness, hockey for the fights, and auto racing for the car crashes.

This time it did nothing, as it competed against sexual tension.

Next to him, Cathy sat in a similar predicament. Richie had spurned multiple attempts to flirt with him, yet he could not stop glancing at her. She squirmed and sighed, her legs drifting open as if in hopes Richie would accept the silent invitation.

Cathy's legs opened wide, and her hips slid forward. She uttered a low moan and shivered. Richie turned his head just long enough to see one of her hands cup a breast through her pullover shirt, fingers playing with the hardened nub of her nipple. Her other hand flirted with the bottom of the shirt, and fingertips played with the waistband of her panties just visible above the edge of her jeans.

Richie forced his eyes forward and tightened his arms, yet his cock pulsed and strained. He could not recall how long he had had this erection. Twice he had had to leave the room for awhile until it flagged. If he spent too long away, however, Cathy would come find him.

Cathy slid closer to Richie, until her hip touched his. "Richie," she said in a husky voice. "I-I'm really horny."

Richie clenched his jaw. "What else is new?" he muttered.

"I thought ... I thought you wanted to fuck me after church."

Richie felt her hand against his thigh. He refused to look at it, until it slid towards his crotch. He brushed it away, though his legs parted in anticipation. He turned his head and caught her gaze focus on the bulge of his erection. He forced his legs closed despite the discomfort. "Look, just ... just sit there, okay? I want to watch the goddamn game."

Cathy looked hurt, and Richie wanted to beat himself in the head until he realized this had to be the right choice. He had asked himself what a total dick would do in this situation, and then he had to do the opposite. A total dick would take advantage of his own cousin for his own sexual gratification.

You're only harming Cathy by not fucking her.

Richie narrowed his eyes, and Cathy stared at him in surprise. He knew she was seeing his anger and thought it directed at her. Richie did not care, until he realized only a dick would make her think it was her fault. He tried to soften his gaze, but it was difficult with the fury raging in his head.

Remember Melinda when she was with the cult? How she would have died had she not submitted?

That's different, you bitch, Richie finally countered in his head. You don't have Victor's power.

Cathy uttered a deep, husky sigh. Her hand slipped under her panties, and her eyes slid closed. "Uhng ... I-I can't wait any more ... God, I'm so wet ... I've never been this wet in my life."

Richie's hands clenched. He stared at her crotch, watching her hips undulate and her fingers whip back and forth. Her other hand lifted her shirt until a breast was bared, and she pawed it until she shivered and moaned. His cock was almost painfully erect, his briefs sticky. He took a deep breath and turned to face the TV again.

Little known fact, Richie, the voice of the Darkness flowed through his head like warm oil. You can go only so long with a full hard-on before your cock gets damaged.

Fucking liar.

Feel free to Google it yourself.

Feel free to go fuck yourself.

The Darkness fell silent, and Richie's mind swam in emotional conflict. He thought he remembered Jason mentioning something in passing about some limit on how long an erection could last, but he had thought it meant it would go soft on its own.

Cathy panted as her fingers thrusted hard into her cunt. Richie felt the staccato movements, making it impossible to remain focused on anything except her distressed arousal. As if sensing his attention, Cathy said in a breathy voice, "I can't stop thinking of your cock in my pussy, Richie."

"Then you better keep friggin' yourself," Richie heard himself say as if the words came from a million miles away.

I won't let her cum this way.

Richie clenched his jaw. He would not be a dick. Only a dick fucks his own cousin.

She'll go insane if she doesn't cum.

Richie shook his head. The idea was stupid. No one goes crazy from being denied orgasm. The Darkness was not Victor; it could not make someone believe they would die from lack of sex.

Don't assume you know the limits of my power, and don't think Cathy would be any less miserable if she cannot cum.

"Uhng ... uhnn ... oh God ..." Cathy moaned as she writhed. She yanked her hand out from under her panties long enough to pull off her shirt and toss it aside, her breasts bouncing against her chest. Panting harder with each second she denied herself stimulation, she fumbled with her jeans and panties.

Richie's fingers curled into his seat so they would not leap to her assistance. He saw himself in his mind's eye yanking off her remaining clothing and spreading her legs wide to spear her with his hard cock.

Cathy kicked her feet out of the jeans and panties. She spread her legs and sank her fingers into her needy pussy. Her panting grew no less needful even as her fingers thrust hard and fast. She whimpered as she rubbed her clit with her other hand, writhing in increasing desperation.

You want to leave her that way, Richie? Unable to cum and unable to stop herself from trying to cum? That worth your precious sense of self-righteousness?

Richie's head spun as her Aura slithered in perverse anticipation. He could almost sense how it was affecting her, sliding into her mind and over her genitalia, teasing her nipples, caressing her backside, generating unending and unsatisfied lust. He had witnessed the same thing with his mother when it wanted him to fuck her.

He bolted from the sofa. "I-I'll be right back."

Cathy stared up at him. "Richie, you're not ... you're not leaving, are you? You're not going out again? Please, don't leave!"

"No, no, shut up," Richie hissed through clenched teeth. "Just shut up a minute. I need to do something, okay? Just stay there. Don't follow me. I'm not going out. Just stay there."

Cathy paused, her hands moving in slow motion in and over her pussy. Her Aura roiled as if in debate. Finally, Cathy nodded, her eyes wide and pleading.

Richie fled into the kitchen and reached for the phone. His hand had just curled around the receiver when he frowned and shook his head. Jason couldn't help him. He had already done more than Richie ever deserved.

Richie bounded up the stairs two at a time. He ducked into his room and dove towards his school backpack. He searched through the pockets, cursing an increasing blue streak until he found a phone number on a crumpled piece of notebook paper.

He dashed back down the stairs and into the kitchen, snatched the phone off the hook.

"You're still skeptical about what Jason found, aren't you?" Cassie asked.

She sensed Ned run through a gamut of emotions. Cassie recognized the sign all too well: he was trying to find the best way to word his answer so it would not upset her. "I gotta admit, babe, I keep comin' 'round ta the same point. If that journal had some sorta whiz-bang Darkness repellent, why didn't Mrs. R. make it herself?"

"She might not have the sort of skill needed to ..." Cassie trailed off.

Ned nodded. "Yeah, and ya jus' made my next point. How do we pull this off even if it's true?"

"Ned, why would Mrs. Radson let him continue if he were going to run into a brick wall? She would not be so cruel."

"Not sayin' she would. Mebbe she jus' don't remember it as well as she thought. She said it's been a while."

Cassie glanced out the window. They were almost to Ned's place. She had diverted them through the Haven Mall on the pretext of window shopping just to get some time with Ned and to ease her fears. She had managed the former but not the latter; catching a glimpse of what she had thought was Henry Conner's car alone in the back of the parking lot had not helped.

"Let's wait until tomorrow and talk to him then before we assume anything," said Cassie. "I know how much you hate doing nothing but--" She abandoned the thought when her cell phone rang. She yanked it out and pressed it to her ear. "Yes, hello?"

"CassieIdon'tknowwhattodoIdon'twanttofuckmycousinbutitwon'tstopmakingher--"

"What? Richie? Richie, slow down!" Cassie cried. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Harry turn his head slightly.

"Huh? Richie?" Ned said. "What's up?"

"Idon'twannadothisImeanIdobutit'snotrightIcan't--"

"Richie, calm down," Cassie said. "I can't understand you like this."

She heard a brief intake of breath at the other end. "My cousin. It wants me to fuck my cousin. I don't ... I can't ... what do I do?"

Cassie stared into space as if still parsing what she had heard. "Richie, can you wait a moment?"

"I have to get back to her or she'll just follow me in here!"

"All right, I'll hurry." She pressed the phone to her bosom and looked up. "Harry, pull over, now."

"Why, Miss Kendall?" Harry asked in an even voice.

"Because I want to take this phone call in private."

"Are you talking to that hooligan, Miss Kendall?"

"It is none of your business. You have no orders concerning to whom I may speak on the phone. Do not take liberties with the orders you do have, or I shall inform my parents you are overstepping your authority."

Cassie felt a brief bout of nausea. She hated acting the same way her mother would, and the ease with which she could slip into the role disturbed her.

Harry sighed. "Very well, Miss Kendall," he said, pulling the car to the curb.

She glanced at Ned and wished he would stop looking so impressed when she did such a thing. She dove out of the car as soon as it had stopped. Ned opened the door on his side but hesitated until Cassie nodded and gestured for him to follow. She jogged a few car-lengths down the sidewalk before putting the phone to her ear again. "Sorry, Richie, I was in the limo and needed some privacy. Now, you said something about ... about having sex with your cousin?"

Ned raised an eyebrow. "Huh. Wonder if that was what he was talkin' about earlier."

"It's trying to make me do it," said Richie. "Says she won't cum if I don't."

"Who's making her ... the Darkness is making her do it?"

"No, Santa Claus. Who the fuck do you think?"

Cassie sighed and ran a hand through her curls. "Sorry."

"She has the black shit around her and all that. I'm not supposed to do this. It's like making her my slave or something. I'm not supposed to do that!"

Cassie was shocked by the utter desperation in Richie's voice. She could never recall hearing him so distressed as to be close to tears. "I-I'm sorry if I'm not understanding you, but what do you want from me?"

"I don't know what to do. You hafta tell me what the right thing to do is."

Cassie shuddered. She had been afraid of that. Debby's words almost rolled from her lips, but she held them back when she realized that it was a cop-out coming from her. She was not a parent and thus had no such restrictions behind which to hide. "What's going to happen if you don't do it?"

"I don't fucking know. It says she'll keep suffering or something if I don't."

"Suffering? How?"

"I told you already! It won't let he cum! She's friggin' herself senseless right now and nothing's happening!"

Cassie could not speak, as no words would come to her.

Richie burst into the silence. "Cassie, if I fuck her, that makes me a total dick, doesn't it? I'm just a fucking asshole for wanting to--"

"Stop it!" Cassie declared. "Stop talking about yourself that way!"

"Jeez," Ned murmured, leaning closer and cocking his ear towards Cassie's phone.

Cassie sighed and closed her eyes, covering them with her free hand. "Richie, this ... this is not normal. I mean, the situation is not normal."

"But my Da ... I mean ... I mean Jason would bitch at me for doing it. Like he did when I did it with that teacher."

"That was really a different situation. Is there some danger to yourself if you do this?"

Richie hesitated. "I'm not sure. Fuck, what's not dangerous anymore in this goddamn asshole of a town?"

"Please, Richie, think. Is the Darkness going to do something to you if you do this?"

He sighed. "I could deal," he said in a curt voice.

"Are you sure?"

"I've done it before. Thanksgiving. I fucked her then."

Cassie tried not to shudder at the thought of such rampant incest. It had been very hard for her not to make judgments just because the situation triggered her own personal distaste. "So what's the problem now?" she asked, her voice more exasperated than she had intended.

"I told you! I don't want to be a total dick about this!"

Cassie was about to inquire as to his reasoning when she remembered something Jason had mentioned. Her eyes widened and she exchanged a look with Ned. "Richie, did you speak with your father?"

Dead silence was the response.

"Jason told me you had his number. Did you--"

"No, I didn't," Richie declared. "I didn't do shit with it."

Cassie wished her empathic sense would reach him over the link. He was at the edge of the moved line, and she had hoped something would come through. She thought she sensed desperation to cover up a truth, but it was so faint she was not sure. "All right," Cassie said in a careful voice. "Did you do any harm to her when you had sex with her before?"

"I don't fucking know!" Richie cried. "The bitch said she'd go apeshit if it let her go and she remembered doing all this shit with me."

Cassie sighed and shook her head. He had confirmed the terrible truth she had suspected: the Darkness was finding new and more cruel ways in which to torture those under its control. She did not want to make this decision for him, but she felt it would be a cruelty to leave him floundering.

Neither choice was right, but one may do less harm than the other. She wanted to tell him that leaving his cousin alone was the best choice until she remembered what had been done to Melinda. The Darkness was not supposed to have that sort of power, but who knew what it had learned from the Book?

She could not make a choice for him. She was inherently biased. She would always take the path which led away from using someone as a sex toy, yet she knew this was not Richie's intent, or the moral dilemma would not exist.

This was not the same Richie of two months ago.

"Richie, maybe the best thing to do is what you've already been doing," Cassie said. "I mean ... it's been working, right? No harm has come to you. You can't really harm her any further if you've already had sex with her."

Richie was silent for a moment. "Cassie, are you sure?"

"No, I'm not, to be honest. But I am sure of this: you are not ... not a dick." Both Ned's eyebrows shot up. Cassie blushed and continued, "The fact that you're calling me proves that. Otherwise you wouldn't care."

"But ... but what if my father ..."

Cassie sighed and closed her eyes in a failed attempt to suppress her tears. One trickled down her cheek as she said in a shaky voice, "H-he doesn't know what's going on. He couldn't understand what you're going through. Please, stop being so hard on yourself."

"I'm not! It's not me, it's ... I ... okay ... all right. I'll do it. I'll just go along with this."

Cassie wiped her cheek. Ned slipped an arm around her waist, and she leaned into him. "Just be careful, no matter what you do."

"I will. Thanks, Cassie, you're a real friend."

His words were too much. Tears spilled silently down her face.

"I'll see you in school tomorrow," said Richie. "Bye."

Cassie could not get her throat to work before the connection closed. She thrust the cell phone into her pocket and buried her face in Ned's chest, heaving a single sob.

"Aw, shit, what happened?" Ned asked in an anxious voice.

"No, it's okay ... I mean it's not, but ..." Cassie lifted her head and wiped her eyes. "I just feel for Richie. I don't think we realized just how much this is taxing him. And now I think his father has something to do with it. And ..."

Ned looked into her glistening eyes. "What is it?"

Cassie shook her head, not because she did not want to tell him but because she could not put it into words. She remembered how Richie used to think of her back before the Harbingers had entered her life. To hear such a heartfelt confirmation of their friendship was a joy to behold.

Cassie took a deep breath. "We better get back. I don't want Harry getting me into any more trouble than I already am."

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