"Right here!" Heather cried as she stopped her bike near a huge cottonwood tree. "We're almost to the corner, so it has to be one of these buildings."

Richie coasted to a stop between her and the storefronts. He frowned as he glanced between them. "Don't look like no business offices to me."

They had stopped at a point roughly between two stores, a convenience store on the left and a liquor store on the right. "The business likely folded awhile ago," Heather said. "My mother never ran a business as far back as I can remember. That shouldn't matter, should it? The place doesn't have to look the way it did back then, right?"

Richie shrugged. "How the fuck should I know? Most of the time it just happens." He looked towards the buildings. "So which one is it?"

"Whichever has the number 10204."

They dismounted and leaned their bikes against the tree. They strolled towards the convenience store far enough to see its number: 10202. "It must be the other one. Shit, I was hoping it wouldn't be the liquor store."

"Why?"

Heather rolled her eyes. "Because we're not even close to twenty-one, you dumbass."

Richie frowned. "Then we'll just fake it. Not like we're gonna buy anything." He glanced at the building and stopped. "And it's not this one either," he said, pointing.

"What? But it has to ... oh, fuck!" Heather cried as she saw the number: 10206.

"Maybe it's across he street," Richie said.

"It's an even numbered address, it has to be on this side! What the hell? I'm positive I copied the address right."

Richie frowned. "Why the fuck would they skip a number?"

Heather ran a hand through her hair. "Shit, it can't be that," she murmured.

"What?"

"Remember what Victor could do? He could make it so you didn't see things that were right in front of your face. Maybe that's what's going on."

"We ran that asshole outta town over a month ago," Richie declared. "It can't be him."

"But I don't know what else it could be, unless ..." She trailed off as her gaze fell on the cottonwood. "Wait, I just remembered something! Stay here."

Heather ran across the street and looked towards the other side. She remembered the tree in the photo; the entrance had stood just to the right of the tree. The gap between the two stores was just to the left.

"I've got it!" Heather cried as she ran back to Richie. "They tore the place down. I remember the picture, it was like the only building on an empty lot. They must've torn down the building and not reused the number." She pointed at the left end of the liquor store. "If your power only cares about the actual location and not what's here now, then you should pick up something right there."

"Yeah, fine, but how do we get in?"

Heather glanced at the door, where a sign proclaimed in bold letters "No one under 21 allowed unless accompanied by an adult." She turned to Richie and handed him the pendant. "I'll think of something when we get inside. Oh, and before I forget." She took hold of Richie's hand. "Don't let go. I want to see this for myself."

Heather took a deep breath and led them inside. She paused just inside the door and glanced around the store. She looked towards the far left corner, where the shelves were filled with multiple varieties of gin. In the next section, a middle-aged woman contemplated the tequila. Between them and the gin stood several racks of wine. An older gentleman with his back towards them stood contemplating a bottle of merlot.

Heather tugged Richie's hand and started towards the narrow corridor between the end of the wine racks and the front of the store.

"Uh, excuse me? The missy with the red hair?"

Heather froze and turned around. "Um, yes?"

Behind the counter, a bearded man gave them a stern look. "Some ID, please?" the man said, his voice already dubious that Heather could produce one.

Heather swallowed and glanced towards the woman near the tequila. "We're with her. Just came in to tell her something and we'll be gone."

The bearded man narrowed his eyes but said nothing as she trotted around the aisle of wine. The man with the merlot started to turn his jowled face towards her, but Heather's eyes slid off him before she could recognize the face.

"So what the hell do we do now?" Richie whispered.

Heather towed him past the last aisle of wine. "We pretend to talk to the woman and then try to find a spot where your power--"

Reality shifted.

"--can do its ... oh ... my ... God ..."

Where a wall of gin had been a moment ago now stood a potted plant, sitting in the corner of a sunlight-drenched, cozy office. The afternoon sun filtered through the open slats of blinds and fell behind the office's single occupant, who sat behind a small, cluttered desk.

Heather let out a small gasp as her eyes fell upon the woman.

"Holy fuck, Heather, I'd swear that was you sitting there!" Richie cried.

The flaming redhead seated at the desk looked exactly as Heather pictured herself were she old enough to enter the liquor store without subterfuge. When the woman leaned back in her chair, sunlight glinted off the gold of her pendant.

Heather's eyes trailed down to the nameplate at the edge of the desk: Penelope Donovan.

"It's my mother," Heather said in a shaky voice. "She must've dyed her hair when she was younger to make it redder and--"

"I can only tell you how things stand now with the investigation," said Penny into the phone in her hand.

Heather's eyes widened. "Richie, what's the date?!"

Richie frowned. "Date? How the hell should I know? This isn't a fucking time machine."

"--that more evidence may come to light later, but--" continued Penny.

"Then find something the room that will tell you!" Heather hissed through clenched teeth. "I need to listen to this."

Richie grumbled a curse under his breath and stomped off. Heather stared at her younger mother, hardly daring to believe this was the same person. She let out a pained sigh as she remembered what it was like to look at her mother and not see a terrible black miasma around her.

"--is not necessarily the final word," Penny said. "I would advise against publishing anything until I've collected more data."

Heather tried to focus. She was parsing only every other word at best. She was too fascinated by how young and dynamic her mother looked. Even though the tone of her voice was serious, everything about her screamed ambition and excitement.

"In fact, I'm really reluctant to make any sort of statement at all. I would rather--"

"Penny, wait!"

Heather gasped and stumbled back a step as she beheld the woman who stood in the doorway near the far corner of the room as Richie returned to her side. "I found a desk calendar," he said. "It's somewhere in November, 1985."

Heather barely heard him, as she was still staring at the woman in the doorway. Despite her much younger age, she still had the same characteristic cleavage, wide hips, and full thighs. Her hair was drawn into a ponytail, and thick black-framed glasses were perched on her nose.

"Just a second," Penny said into the phone before pressing it to her breast. She swiveled the chair around. "What is it, Jo?"

"Shit, that's your Aunt Jo?" Richie said with a smirk. "She looks like a freaking nerd."

"Shh!" Heather hissed.

Jo barreled into the room, pushing her glasses up her nose, a manila folder clutched to her bosom. "Penny, I finally wrote up the last observations I did near the abandoned church."

"The church?" Heather whispered as Jo handed Penny the folder. "The same one Victor ...?"

Penny put the phone to her ear long enough to say, "Can I put you on hold for a moment? Thanks." She tapped a button on the phone and hung up the receiver. She opened the folder and scrutinized the pages inside.

"What the hell, your Aunt Jo was in this business with your Mom?" Richie said.

"I ... I don't know," Heather said in a helpless voice. "I mean ... it looks like it, yes, but Aunt Jo never mentioned that to me when she--"

"Jo, are you sure about this?" Penny said. "Nothing at all?"

Jo smirked and placed a hand on the back of Penny's chair, her other on her tilted hips. The all-too familiar gesture made Heather grind her teeth. "Unless you count food wrappers and beer cans."

Penny blinked and looked up. "I beg your pardon?"

"Exactly what I said," Jo said with a smirk. "This whole mess has been just teenage Halloween shenanigans."

"But what about what happened to that missing girl? The terrible fire that--"

"It has to be an unrelated incident. Or if it is related, it was a case of too little sense and too much booze."

Penny leaned back in her chair and sighed. "I don't know whether to feel relieved or worried."

"What's to worry about?" Jo said.

"I still feel something is going on in Haven, but every time I try to grasp it, it slips away from me at the last moment."

"Then you need to better weed out the wheat from the chaff." Jo leaned over and tapped the report with her finger. "This is chaff."

Penny drew forward, reading the report again.

"What's going on here?" Richie asked.

"I saw an article online," Heather explained. "They're talking about what happened to Stephanie Fowler. I read that my mother's business said there was no basis to any reports of paranormal activity. I never dreamed your vision would lead me right to--"

"All right," Penny said. She grabbed the receiver and punched the button. "Very sorry about that, thank you for holding. I just got some new information. According to what we know, it appears this was a case of heightened teenage pranking."

"She's telling them ..." Heather tailed off and gasped. "Based on what Jo told her!"

Penny smiled faintly. "Yes, it is a bit of a disappointment in some ways, but I can only report the facts. We try to be as unbiased as possible ... no, we have no evidence of that, either. The tragic case of Stephanie Fowler appears to be a separate incident."

Heather felt sick. At that moment in time, somewhere in Haven the real Stephanie was alive and well and beginning her twenty year mental incarceration, and all because her mother's group had failed to find the link.

"Yes, I will let you know if anything changes ... Publish?" She looked up at Jo.

Jo nodded. "As far as I'm concerned, this is case closed."

"Yes, you can go ahead and publish that statement," Penny said in a reluctant voice. "You're quite welcome. Bye." She hung up and sighed. "Why do I feel like we're missing something, Jo?"

"What's to miss? You know I am always very thorough when I do these investigations."

"Yes, I know, I don't doubt that. It's your eye for detail that made me ask you to join this venture despite your skepticism."

Jo smiled. "Or because of it. I try to balance your idealism with my realism."

Richie wrinkled his nose. "Something stinks here," he muttered. "And I don't mean Jo's cheap perfume, either."

"In any case, I think you should move on," Jo continued. "You've been obsessing over this for too long. We've got a backlog of cases going back to June."

Penny hesitated, then nodded. "I guess you're right." She closed the folder and handed it back to Jo. "File this for me if you would, please? And let's start on that backlog."

Jo took the folder, smiled, and headed out of the room. Penny leaned back in her chair, pensive, as if her mind were still on the very thing Jo had dismissed.

Heather blinked when she suddenly found herself staring at a shelf of Gordon's gin.

A hand landed heavily on her shoulder. "Okay, this has gone far enough."

Heather turned and saw the bearded man glowering at them. Richie wrenched himself from the man's grip. "Hands off, asshole," Richie muttered.

The bearded man raised a finger. "Watch it, punk. Don't get yourself into more trouble than you already are."

"Richie, please!" Heather said. She turned to the bearded man. "We weren't trying to cause any trouble. We'll just leave right now."

The man blocked her way. "I'd like no more than to keep you two here until I can get a cop, but I can't. But you can be sure I'll be reporting your description to them soon as I can get to that phone."

Heather glanced at Richie when it looked like he was about to say something, but he instead stared at something behind the bearded man.

"C-come on, they're not going to arrest us," Heather said in a quavering voice. She saw someone step up behind the bearded man, cradling a bottle of merlot in one arm.

"No, they'll likely let your parents handle it," said the bearded man.

"Look, we didn't do anything! We just--"

"Sam, I will vouch for them," said a deep voice.

Heather looked past him and her eyes widened. "You know these kids, Seymour?" said Sam.

"Yes," rumbled Seeger as he glanced between Richie and Heather. "They're students at my school." His eyes narrowed on Richie. "And you would best wipe that smile from your face, Mr. Gardner."

"I don't want to make trouble for them, Seymour, but--"

"Then allow me. Their behavior reflects badly on the school. I will handle this."

Heather's heart raced. Seeger was supposed to be on their side. She could not tell if this were a ruse or not. The last thing she needed was her mother finding out what she was doing.

Sam sighed. "All right. Here, let's ring that up for you."

"Thank you." Seeger turned to Heather and Richie. "You two. Outside. Wait for me there."

"Yes, sir," Heather said in a meek voice as she grabbed Richie's hand.

"This is fucking bogus," Richie muttered as Heather dragged him through the store.

"Richie, shut up," Heather hissed.

Richie did so for only as long as it took to emerge from the store. Richie yanked his hand from her grip. "This is fucking not fair. No way old Saggy Seeger is gonna punish us for something that didn't happen inside the goddamn school."

"Will you just think for a minute?!" Heather cried. "Seeger had to do that, otherwise the guy wouldn't've been satisfied, and he'd sic the fucking cops on us."

"Fine, let him try! Maybe my mother is in with the Dark bitch, but she knows the system, and she knows a couple of lawyers that would--"

"Sometimes, Mr. Gardner, I suspect your boasts are bigger than reality," said Seeger as he emerged, cradling the brown-paper wrapped wine bottle on his arm.

"Never knew you for a drinkin' man, Mr. Seeger," Richie said with a smirk.

"With all that I have to deal with at the school, it is little wonder I do not drink more than I do," Seeger said in a tired voice. "Now, I will ask you one question only and will decide what to do on the basis of your answer. I am expecting you to be honest, as there is no way I will be able to prove or disprove your answer. Did your presence in the store have anything to do with the Harbingers?"

"Yes," Heather and Richie answered at once. Heather added, "And it had nothing at all to do with buying alcohol. I don't even have any money for it."

Richie snorted when Seeger glanced at him. "Don't look at me. I don't have enough money for a soda let alone a beer."

Seeger let out a slow sigh. "I am inclined to believe you. I find it a very odd coincidence that I would happen to be here to cover for you. I do not like coincidences."

"We're sorry we caused you any trouble, Mr. Seeger," said Heather. "Um ... do you need to actually punish us for this?"

"No," Seeger said. "But if you do need to enter an establishment such as this again, please arrange it with me first so I can accompany you. Now, I need to get home to prepare for a dinner party. I will see you in school tomorrow." He started to turn and paused. "And hopefully not in any sort of disciplinary capacity."

Heather watched him go. When he was out of earshot, Richie said, "So what the hell was all that we just saw?"

"I'm not sure," said Heather. "I guess I had hoped this would answer a lot of questions, but it only created about a dozen more."

"If you ask me, that bitch Jo was feeding your mother a line."

"But that's just it, I don't know!" Heather cried. "Shit. I wish we had something of Aunt Jo's. Then maybe we could head over to the abandoned church and see what she really did over there."

"What the fuck? You want to go to that place again? No freaking way."

"Victor is not there anymore, Richie. But it doesn't matter, it probably wouldn't tell us anything unless my mother had been there at some point." Heather shook her head. "I don't know what to do. All I got out of this was that my mother really did run a paranormal investigations business."

Richie looked down at the pendant still in his hand. "Well, anyway, here's the thing back."

Heather reached for it, then pulled her hand back. "No, keep it."

Richie stared. "Huh?"

"You have to keep going with this for me."

"What?! How the fuck do I do that? I don't know jack shit about this."

"I can't do it because I'm going to be Mistress' obedient wet pussy slave," Heather said.

Richie's eyes widened. "What the--?"

"S-see, it's already starting." Heather said in a shaky voice. "Only the adrenaline rush was sustaining me. You don't have to do this alone. Talk to Diane, she'll be willing to help if she thinks it will help me somehow. Please, Richie, I'm begging you--"

"All right, all right!" Richie cried, pocketing the pendant. "Shit, you gonna be all right? Ned wanted me to tell you there's gonna be a Harbinger meeting at Mrs. Radson's at three."

Heather ran a hand through her hair. "I-I don't know. If I could get more energy, I could hold it off longer."

"What, you mean like sexual energy?"

"Or line energy like Diane did earlier this morning, but I don't think I'll have time to arrange anything with her." Heather shivered. She tried to imagine herself with her lover, but instead saw her Mistress instead. Her pussy grew warm in anticipation of tasting her Mistress' sex once more. "God ... if this keeps up, I'll be a wet mess for the rest of the day," she said in a husky voice.

"Shit, is that why you were so hot to fuck me the other day?"

"Sort of, yeah."

"Wish you had freakin' said something." He mounted his bike. "Come on."

Heather fought to throw off the lusty haze settling over her mind. "Huh?"

"Get on your freakin' bike and follow me so we can go fuck."

Heather let out a husky sigh. Where every thought of sex led back to Mistress, she wondered if she were too far gone, that the energy would be usurped and used against her. Yet if a meeting had been called, it might mean Ned had found something. It was worth a try for just that. "Where are we going?" she asked as she mounted her bike.

"You said you were willing to do something kinky," Richie said with a smirk. "So we're gonna do it someplace kinky."

Henry fiddled with the icicle lights for perhaps the tenth time looking for a problem which did not exist when he finally heard the metallic chatter of a bicycle being walked up the driveway. He looked down as Jason was about to walk into the open garage. "Don't go into the house just yet."

Jason looked up and stopped. "Having a problem with the lights?"

"Just put your bike in the garage and come back out."

"Why?"

"Because your father told you to."

Jason sighed and disappeared into the garage as Henry descended the ladder. He saw Jason lean it against the wall beside Audrey's car and emerge as he stepped onto the concrete. "Did I do something wrong?" Jason asked.

Henry heard it in his son's voice. It had carried a faint hostile edge over the past few months, but now it had transcended into haughtiness. Henry draped an arm around his son's shoulder, steering him down the driveway. "I wanted to talk to you without your mother listening in. Frankly, I'm not sure I can say anything openly around her anymore."

"She hasn't been bothering me too much lately, if that's what you're worried about."

"I know she hasn't, and the only reason is because I've been around."

"Thanks," Jason said, though Henry heard little sincerity behind his gratitude. "What did you want to talk about?"

"You haven't said a word about the Inn in the past two days," said Henry.

"Maybe because I didn't have much to say about it."

Henry stopped at the end of the driveway and faced his son. "They haven't done anything else to you, then?"

"They're not actually doing anything to me, to be honest. I think a lot of what I'm experiencing is in my own head."

Henry looked askance at him. "The last time we talked, you were all doom and gloom that you were going to start mind-controlling people."

Jason hesitated before he answered in a careful tone, "It didn't quite turn out that way. It's not as bad as it had seemed at first."

Henry raised an eyebrow and wondered what his son had just not told him. "And they're not doing anything to you at all?"

"I guess they are guiding me, in a way. But it's sort of working against them. They're making me see all the ways that the use of mind control could be justified. It's really like any other tool. What matters is not the tool itself but how it's wielded. Do you see?"

Henry scratched his head and remembered a conversion with Ted Havers reminding him of some of the ultimate goals of the Haven Project: wars without bloodshed; perfect intelligence on threat forces; nuclear arms rendered obsolete; a tool to be wielded by the righteous for the betterment of all.

"And you're not at all concerned about this?" Henry asked.

"They haven't done the one thing I was really worried about, which was to turn me against my friends. They haven't given me some task to go arbitrarily enslave them."

"Arbitrarily?"

Jason remained silent for a long moment before he replied in a more subdued voice, "They gave me some things to think about."

Henry wanted to continue the conversion to it's obvious conclusion, that it would only be a matter of time before Jason saw his friends as threats which had to be neutralized. It was a classic brainwashing method employed by various intelligence agencies, though with only mundane procedures at their command, results could take weeks or months to achieve. The Inn was doing it in so many days.

That was the direction a conventional father would take. As part of a project whose intent was to provide the tools to do exactly as Jason had stated -- though only to properly identified threats to national security, of course -- that path was closed to him. It would be like the professional thief telling his son how bad it was to steal.

"I still don't see myself going after my friends," Jason said in a voice too casual for Henry's threshold of belief. "Sure, they've done wrong to me in the past, but we're on the same side now. There's only one who ..." He trailed off, looking uncertain.

"Yes?"

Jason shook his head. "Never mind. It was more a hypothetical situation."

Henry was aware of those as well. While he was being recruited for the Project, a great many "hypothetical situations" had been presented as cogent arguments intended to convince him of the merits of their endeavor.

Henry frowned. He hated what this was doing to him. He still believed in the Project. Someone had to control this power before it fell into the hands of those who could not be trusted. It still made a simple, logical sense despite how many of the other arguments were failing to hold up.

Henry wished his son had not involved himself, despite having saved them from a breach when he helped put a stop to Melissa. "What about Audrey?"

"Mom? What about her?"

"You were worried about what you might do to her. Is that still the case?"

Jason slowly shook his head. "Not so much anymore." He paused and added in a lower voice, "I still don't want to be forced into anything ... intimate with her."

Henry thought he could still believe that. "I'll keep trying to prevent that, but I can't do it forever. I'm already getting reamed for how many times I'm delegating emergencies to other doctors. I don't think I'll be able to do that with the next one."

"I think everything is under control, Dad," Jason said. "I have exams to study for anyway."

Henry wanted to yell at Ted Havers. One night of sex with his wife, and he was sure he could eject the Entity's influence. That was all he needed. The risk would be minimal. He had already done it under controlled conditions with two other women under the Entity's influence.

"Is there anything else?" Jason asked. "I promised a friend I would call him once I got home."

Henry shook his head, unable to find the right words for what he was feeling. Even if he had, they would likely be ones he could not speak. He watched his son head into the house.

"God, Richie, I thought you had said kinky, not insane!" Heather cried in a husky voice as she shed her blouse. She looked up and squinted when a line of sunlight from between two weathered and shrunken timbers crossed her face.

"Hey, don't complain, at least it's warm in here," Richie said as he pulled off his jeans, leaving him standing in only his briefs. He chafed his arms. "Sorta, anyway."

Heather dropped her gaze towards the wide opening where the door had fallen away. She looked towards the next track, almost invisible among the dead weeds and snowdrifts. "Shit, anyone can see us in here," Heather said as she removed her bra. She lifted her breasts and rubbed the hard nipples, letting out a slow, needy sigh.

Richie smirked. "That why you're giving everyone a show?"

"I can't help it, I'm too fucking horny," Heather snapped. She let go of her breasts and looked around. "I don't believe this, a freaking boxcar."

"Betcha never did it someplace like this," Richie said with a smirk as he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his briefs.

Heather had no reply. She was too busy trying to keep her head in the here and now. This was indeed the best place to do it. It was as far removed from her Mistress, both physically and emotionally, as she could imagine.

It was not quite as cold as she had thought it would be. The sun beat down on the wood, which radiated its heat into the confined space. Were there a wind, however, it would have whipped through the gaps in the weathered and broken walls and turned it into an ice locker instead.

She stood, panting softly in anticipation, and removed her jeans. She looked up as she stepped out of them, and her gaze promptly focused on his hard cock. She let out a shaky sigh as it competed with the desire for her Mistress' delicious pussy.

Richie tossed his briefs aside and retrieved the bath towel he had swiped from his house. He spread it out and lay upon it, grasping his cock and pointing it upward. "I want you on top this time."

Heather dropped her panties down her legs and shuddered when her pussy felt hot enough to keep the rest of her warm. She kicked them away and squeezed her legs together, wrapping her arms around herself as a tide of lust threatened to drown out her senses.

She glanced outside, half-expecting to see her Mistress coming for her, already chiding her for being such a naughty girl. She closed her eyes and still heard that ethereal voice, growing louder.

"Hey, Earth to Heather!" Richie's voice cut through the pall. "You still there? My cock ain't gonna get fucked by itself, you know."

Heather struggled as if a net had ensnared her and grew tighter the more she tried to plod forward. She dropped to her knees and crawled over to him, not knowing if what lay ahead was Mistress' pussy or Richie's cock. Only when she could look down upon it and see the pulsing rod of hard flesh could she regain enough of her focus on reality.

Richie's cock became the center of her world. Her Mistress retreated into the shadows, still churning and restless, but no longer in command of her thoughts. Her eyes slid closed as she lowered her head and took him past her lips. She shivered in delight, uttering a tiny moan and savoring the taste as he slid deeper into her mouth.

Never had she been so grateful for Richie's ability to influence her sexual desires.

"Mmm ..." Heather hummed as her head bobbed, her fingers playing with his balls until he squirmed in delight. She let him pop from her mouth and ran her tongue down the underside of his shaft. She wrapped her fingers around his cock and slowly stroked it as she balanced one of his balls on the flat of her tongue, then sucked it gently into her mouth.

"Oh fuck," Richie groaned, tossing his head back. "Oh man, that's freakin' intense ..."

Heather felt lightheaded and almost giggled. She used to do this for Brad a long time ago, and it drove him crazy as well. She sucked a little harder until she heard a warning gasp and knew the limit of his tolerance. She switched to the other, lips enveloping it and tugging it away from his body, her fingers slowly stroking his cock.

She could not remember the last time she had this much fun with a guy. Jason was nice -- and his cock was a little bigger than Richie's -- but he was Melinda's boyfriend. She realized they were compelled to vary their partners, but she could see herself hanging around Richie for a bit.

Or was that Richie's influence talking? She didn't care, so long as it delayed her inevitable spiral back into sexual slavery.

She let his ball pop from her mouth, eliciting an excited grunt, and sucked his cock back inside. She pumped her head fast and furious for a few moments, fingers stroking hard along the lower half of his shaft, until he was writhing with mounting ecstasy.

Heather could no longer ignore her own need. The insides of her thighs were damp, her pussy dripping to the floor of the abandoned boxcar. She slid forward, drawing one breast slowly across his cock. Richie shuddered and let out a husky sigh. As she was about to draw herself up, he grabbed her breasts, squeezing them and flicking his thumbs against the nipples.

"Fuck, Richie, I-I'm already so horny it hurts," Heather moaned.

"Don't care," Richie said in a strained voice. "I just freakin' love these tits of yours."

Heather panted hard as each little flick made her pussy ache even more. By the time she straddled him, her nipples throbbed with her pounding heart.

Heather positioned her folds over the swollen head of his cock. She slowly sank, closing her eyes and uttering a long, sultry sigh as his cock filled her. She moaned when he was buried inside her, her mound grinding against him.

Richie grasped her hips and pulled her up. She obliged, and again when he yanked her back down. She grunted with the impact and the stroke of hard flesh against her clit. She leaned forward as she humped to the rhythm he wanted of her, uttering little yelps of desire when he slapped her ass cheeks.

He still does it like he's in a porn movie, Heather thought in amusement. She rocked her hips against his cock faster at his silent bidding. Not that I'm complaining or anything.

She lay her hands to either side of him and slid forward until her dangling breasts brushed his chest, swinging in time to her pounding hips. He flexed upward suddenly, meeting her downward stroke to a loud slap of flesh. She grunted as they slammed into each other in perfect concert, faster and faster until she lowered herself to stop her breasts from swinging so wildly.

Richie uttered a strained sigh as his hands gripped her ass, pushing her harder with each thrust. Heather closed her eyes and gasped as she rose towards the edge, her breathing growing more ragged and desperate with each passing second.

In this fleeting moment before consummation, it became like her time with Diane again. Nothing else mattered except this moment, and no other thoughts or feelings cluttered her mind.

Heather strained, arching her back. Her fingers curled into the towel, nails scraping and catching the wood underneath. Was he holding her back? As much as she wanted to savor this moment, she would go insane if he did not let her cum.

As soon as the thought had entered her head, the floodgates opened, and she gushed in climax between their coupled bodies. She cried out, her hips still pumping, fluid splashing over her thighs and his belly. She slowed her thrusts, if for no other reason than to feel his cock pulsing inside her. Her pleasure spiked a second time, and she squirted again around his still hard cock.

Something moved in the haze of her sexual bliss. A thought swirled and slipped in and out of her consciousness as if vying for her attention and failing. She fought through the mind-numbing pleasure to grasp it, but it slipped away like water through her fingers.

But for a fleeting moment, she pondered how much she would love being Richie's sex slave.

Heather parted from Richie when both their orgasms had finally played out. She remained on all fours, panting at the floor, fluid trickling down her thighs. "Oh. My. God."

"So did that work?" Richie said in a breathless voice.

Heather nodded. "Fuck, yeah."

"You, uh, feel anything else?"

Heather paused to catch her breath, then looked for a reasonably clean place on the floor to sit down, as the towel was soaked. She lifted her gaze to Richie and shook her head. "But I know what you tried."

"Shit, it didn't work?"

Heather smirked. "So you really did want me as your sex slave all along."

"Look, I was only trying to get you away from that bitch of a principal! I wouldn't have kept you as--!"

Heather grasped his hand. "Chill, Richie," she said in a soft voice. "I'm only joking. I know why you did it. Thank you."

"You're thanking me? It didn't fucking work."

"I know, but you can't imagine how much it meant to me that you tried."

Richie's eyes glistened, and he stared as if he wanted to say something. Finally he snorted and stood. "Just doing what I'm supposed to as a Harbinger, okay?" He started picking up his clothes. "We better get out of here. Sun's gone behind a cloud and now it's fucking freezing in here."

Richie stopped at home first to return the bath towel, though he was ready to bolt if he saw his mother's car sitting in the garage when it opened. To his relief, it was empty.

He walked his bike inside to its usual spot and wondered if he needed to find some other place to keep it. His mother had been more angry with him that he had ever seen her, and it would not be beyond her to sabotage or take away his bike.

Not that it would stop him from coming and going whenever he pleased, but he felt it was an important symbol like the baseball.

He would have to worry about it later. Heather wanted to see Diane before the meeting, and Richie was going to give her a ride. He didn't have time to dally, and he certainly didn't have any time for Cathy.

"But, Richie!" Cathy cried as she trotted behind him in her lacy black underwear, fishnet stockings, and garters. "We haven't done it at all today, and my pussy aches so much!"

"I told you I have things to do today!" Richie roared back as he raced up the stairs.

"Your mother told me to tell you that you're grounded if you don't fuck me."

Richie snorted. "Yeah, sure. Just let her try." He burst into his room and rolled up the towel. He opened the hamper and took a few steps back, did a windup like a baseball pitcher, and tossed the towel into the hamper. Richie pumped his arm once and slammed the lid shut.

Cathy stood in his way at the door. Her eyes glistened. "R-Richie," she said in a low voice. "I ... I-I don't know what's happened to me ... it's like ... like a dream I can't wake up from."

Richie frowned, his eyes darting over her Aura. The tendrils of Dark power were lethargic, shrinking back on themselves. The inky black was fading.

Cathy shuddered. "More like a nightmare," she said in a low, tremulous voice.

Richie clenched his teeth. He stared at the remnants of her Aura and hissed, "Stop it."

"Maybe ... maybe i-if you fuck me hard enough, I'll just forget again." Her lips twitched into a forced smile. "Maybe I'll grow to like it after awhile."

His heart pounding, Richie pushed Cathy aside to a surprised gasp. He raced down the stairs towards the garage, but stopped when he looked up and saw Cathy at the railing. Her Aura swirled in full, thick blackness, curling around her like a cocoon. Tendrils as thick as snakes twined between her legs and over her mound. She shivered and let out a husky sigh.

Yeah, I knew it, Richie declared in equal parts relief and triumph. You don't give up anyone. Nice fucking try, you bitch.

Richie started towards the garage door again.

"Richie, wait!" Cathy cried out.

"I told you I have things to--"

"You got a phone call!"

Richie paused and frowned up at her. "From who?"

"Your friend Jason. He said you should call him back."

Richie cursed under his breath and dashed towards the kitchen, but paused and placed his hand over the cell phone in the pocket of his jeans. "Fine, I'll call him on the ... on a pay phone or something."

"Richie, when will you be back? Please, I can't take much more--"

Her closed the door from the house to the garage and cut off her words. He rolled his bike to the sidewalk before taking out the cell phone and dialing his friend's house.

"Hello?" came the harried sound of Jason's father.

"Can you put Jason on? This is his friend Richie."

"Hang on a second."

Richie glanced up and down the street and wondered if he should have picked somewhere else in case his mother was due home. After what seemed an eternity, he heard Jason's voice on the phone. "This is an unusual number to call me from, Richie," said Jason.

"Cell phone Cassie gave me," Richie said, and wondered if he should have told him even that. "What's up?"

"I said I'd call you so I called you. I was surprised when you weren't there to follow me home."

Richie shrugged. "When you're right, you're right. No point in following you when you can go wherever the fuck you want whenever you want."

"Glad to see you learned something."

"Oh, yeah? And what the hell did you learn from those goons at the Inn today? How to mind control the world or something?"

"I keep telling you it's nothing like that," Jason said.

"So you're not going around making slaves out of hot chicks?" Richie asked, only half in jest.

Unfortunately, the answer he got was not in jest at all. "I wouldn't necessarily call them 'hot' by your standards, but they certainly are attractive."

Richie froze. "Wait ... what?"

Jason sighed. "I hadn't really wanted to go into this, but I guess eventually I would tell you. Yes, as part of what they are teaching me, I have enslaved two young women, but I did not do it for myself."

Richie's head was spinning. He felt like they had exchanged bodies. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"It's more than I care to explain over the phone," said Jason in a voice of maddening calm. "But suffice it to say I was justified each time. For example, one was harming others with little care as to their feelings. I couldn't very well let her do that when I could easily stop her."

"Only because of what they're doing to you!" Richie cried.

"Don't you get it? It doesn't matter. Power is power, no matter where it comes from. It's just another tool."

"Look, can't you see how insane this is?! You reamed me all the time for wanting to make girls into sex slaves!"

"There's a gulf of difference between what you did and what I did," Jason said in a disdainful voice. "You did it for personal gratification. I did it for a greater good."

"Yeah, sure, like you don't fuck them, either, right? You just have them bring you tea and cakes all fucking day."

"Nothing says I can't enjoy the circumstances."

"And how long before you--"

"I know where this is going," Jason said in a bored voice. "I will repeat for the last time: they are not sending me after the Harbingers. If I take any action whatsoever, it will be by my own choice for my own reasons. Do I finally make myself clear?"

Richie had no idea what to say. He felt as if he were talking to a doppleganger who happened to have Jason's voice and mannerisms but little else.

Jason sighed. "Your stunned silence is very reassuring. I'll see you in school tomorrow."

Richie jolted himself out of his shock. "Wait, Jason, hold up! Jason? Shit!"

Richie gripped the cell phone and growled, realizing the one bad thing about this particular technology: it left one with no hook upon which to slam the phone in anger.

What were they planning?

These words swirled through its consciousness as it lay ensconced in its untouchable realm beneath the Inn. Here its energies took the form it showed to very few, its perfect skin molded to sculpted feminine curves, so white it glowed with a soft angelic luminescence. It lay cloaked in utter black so dark it could have well been a hole in reality, trailing off into many tendrils which writhed and slithered as if each had its own intelligence.

What were they planning?

The words would not give it rest. They repeated over and over in its mind, demanding an answer and receiving none. Its most loyal pet, Stacy, had reported that not only had Richie done nothing but sit and wait for Jason to emerge, he had abandoned the task early. Surely, from the way Richie made such a fuss that morning and forced it to push its pet Sandra too hard, he was ensuring he would be free to take on his task.

What were they planning?

So intent had it been to finally see success, it had granted leniency to the members of Victor's infernal cult whom it had enslaved on Halloween night. It had allowed Stacy to use one to mold the already meek Kim into the perfect target for Jason's growing powers and thus hasten his fall. Surely the Harbingers would hear of this soon if they had not already.

What were they planning?

Nothing had been heard. Nothing had been seen. No moves had been made against it. It had sensed the Harbingers prowling near the Inn. It had sensed Cassie Projecting herself towards it. Yet none of the slaved eyes through which it could see the real world had revealed any pattern to their actions, let alone any intent to commit hostility against it or rescue Jason from its grip. That they would be powerless to do so mattered not; it was uncharacteristic of them to sit by and do nothing.

What were they planning?

Or could the answer be, in fact, nothing? Did they believe themselves so hopelessly outclassed that there was nothing they could do? Had they written off Jason as a loss and moved on, if only to rally in their bunkers in a vain attempt to stave off the inevitable? Could some be planning to move away, or run away, in the futile hope that Haven would no longer be their problem?

No.

That was what it would have thought, when it was bereft of the proper balance between power and intelligence. Now that the Book had provided it with a much needed infusion of critical thinking, it could stop emoting and start planning. Look what it had already accomplished! It had the former leader of the Harbingers close to doing its bidding. Soon he will again take up the mantle of command, but they would become instruments of its power rather than thorns in its side.

The Harbingers were not stupid. It would never make the mistake of believing so ever again. They must know this was the intended result, that Jason would be turned against them. Surely they are making arrangements to deal with that threat. Surely they would not throw Jason to the wolves.

What were they planning?

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