once again I would like to thank you all for taking the time to read my story. I’m trying my best to make it enjoyable for everyone so please take the time to rate it when you are done and of course comments and constructive criticism are both welcome and encouraged. this series will also be heavily influenced by suggestions from the readers so if you have something you want to see in future posts then don’t hesitate to mention it. thanks again and have a great day.

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It is my firm belief that there is no form of torture in this world that can even compare to the feeling of an empty stomach. I had been running almost non-stop for the last three days, only halting my progress to take shelter during the day, in an attempt to put as much distance between myself and my pursuer as possible before Courtney’s scent could recover from the recent onset of anemia, and in these last three days I hadn’t had the time for a single decent meal.

Of course for all my grumbling we had at least been making good time. After Courtney and I left that shitty, pay-by-the-hour motel in Sacramento we started running east, making it to Cheyenne the next night where we broke south and headed for Colorado. Once we got to Denver we started going east again, and had just crossed the state line into Kansas no more than an hour ago. Well, I say we were running but in truth I was the one doing the actual work. After all, Courtney was just a human and couldn’t possibly hope to match my pace, so I had no choice but to scoop her up in my arms and carry her the whole way. Now before you scoff at the notion of me carrying someone while sprinting across three states, please remember that I am a vampire, and as such I am technically dead and have no heart-beat. You may find it interesting to note that one of the benefits of being dead is that I can no longer get tired from physical exertion.

I gritted my teeth in frustration as I noticed that I was barely outpacing the cars that were driving on the interstate a few hundred yards off to my left, and one asshole in a black Camaro was even about to pass me. Physical exertion may not be enough to tire me, but apparently starving sure as hell can.

I decided that after a good day’s sleep I would eat at least one person before we set out again the next night, and, content that a good meal was just around the corner, put my head down and just focused on keeping my legs moving for the next several hours. Courtney and I finally reached the outskirts of Topeka, Kansas at around five-thirty in the morning and came to a halt in front of the first motel we saw.

I set Courtney down in the parking lot as we got a good look at the place. The parking lot we stood in was in a state of total disrepair. The asphalt was cracked everywhere we looked and the place was virtually riddled with pot-holes, and the lines they used to delineate parking spaces, if there had ever been any, had long since faded into oblivion. Despite the abysmal look of the parking lot, however, the building itself seemed to be in fairly good shape, aside from some discoloration on the walls from long-term exposure to the elements. The overall impression that I got from the place was that, while it was no Ritz, it was far less shabby the most of the places we had stayed, and I cringed inwardly as I realized that this motel was nice enough that they would probably ask for some form of identification.

Courtney noticed my troubled expression and placed a hand against my cheek, asking “What’s wrong?”

“Oh nothing,” I replied, breathing a heavy sigh, “Let’s just hope that the desk attendant is female.”

Another perk of being ranked with the undead is that vampires secrete a pheromone that makes members of the opposite sex want, on a subconscious level, to do anything and everything they can to make us happy. So if the desk attendant was a woman then chances were good that even if she did ask for an I.D. I could “charm” my way out of providing it.

As we silently made our way into the lobby I couldn’t help but feel that someone up above (Or more likely down below, if you take such things seriously.) must be smiling on me because sure as shit there was a charming middle aged woman sitting behind the desk. I tried to ooze innocent charm from my every pore as I gave the lady a sob story about how I was taking my kid sister to a hospital here in Topeka to see a specialist about her anemia. It wasn’t entirely made up. Judging by how much Courtney’s scent had rebounded in the three days since I had almost killed her I was indeed going to have to take her in for another anemia treatment before we left. The attendant bought it hook, line, and sinker, graciously overlooking the fact that neither of us had any I.D. and could only pay in cash. After a few more empty pleasantries along with a whispered phone number and time she got off work the woman checked us in and gave us the keys to our room, and we headed straight there eager to take a shower and relax.

Upon entering the room both Courtney and I quickly stripped down and jumped into the shower, letting the hot water splash over us as we rubbed soap all over each other’s bodies. Feeling her tight ass pressed against my crotch was sending pleasant little vibrations all through me and I felt my fangs elongating and my cock stiffening in response. Courtney must have felt it too because she pressed her ass against my swollen cock even harder and began rocking her hips, causing my member to slide up and down the crack of her butt cheeks. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to take a bite out of her but I knew that would be a bad idea. She was still on the rebound from the last time I drank from her and if I lost control now I might actually kill her. Of course her blood wasn’t the only thing I could use her for, so I wrapped one arm around her and pulled her to me so that her back was leaning against my chest. I brought my other hand down around her waist and she forgot all about teasing me and instead wrapped her arms around my neck as I began alternately rubbing and flicking the swollen bud of her clit. Her pretty little moans were making me even harder so I redoubled my efforts and it didn’t take long before I was rewarded with the feeling of her shuddering through her first orgasm. When she sagged back against me, going weak-kneed in the aftermath of her climax, I decided it was my turn and bent her over so that her hands were planted against the wall and her little heart shaped ass was sticking out invitingly, and I swear to you now that no sight has ever turned me on more than that one. Figuring that the water and soap would provide ample lubrication I decided to go for broke and shove my cock balls deep in her colon all in one go. She let out a high pitched yelp and struggled to get away but I held firmly onto her hips and after a few seconds she grew accustomed to the sensation of my penis invading her asshole and calmed down. I went into a steady rhythm of plunging deep inside her and surprisingly after a minute she began thrusting back against me as well and her moans got louder until she was practically screaming. The feeling of her virgin ass gripping my cock was so amazing that I knew I wouldn’t last long and sure enough it hadn’t even been five minutes before I was blasting her colon with my sperm. With my sexual cravings thoroughly sated I quickly finished rinsing myself off and stepped out of the shower to get ready for bed. Courtney stayed in a few minutes longer to wash away all the semen that was dripping from her sphincter, and by the time she finally emerged from the bathroom and crawled into bed with me I had already strung a blanket across the window to block what little sunlight would manage to leak through the blinds and was fast asleep.

Now even though I was asleep I was still perfectly aware of my surroundings (I’m a vampire, remember? We play by different rules.) and sometime during the day I noted that Courtney climbed out of bed, trying her best not to wake me up, and slipped out of the room. She idolized me enough that I knew she wouldn’t try to run from me regardless of what I did to her or made her do, but when she didn’t return for several hours I will admit that a vague sense of worry did creep over me. I had just started making plans to find and kill her when the sun went down when she finally slipped back into the room and crawled back into bed as stealthily as she could. Which is to say that a horde of stampeding elephants would have made less noise, but since she was back in my arms I decided that her interrogation could wait until dusk and stayed blissfully asleep.

Dusk, unfortunately, came all too quickly, and as the sun dipped below the horizon I was forced to grudgingly open my eyes. I sat up in bed and was immediately assaulted with the sensation of my stomach apparently trying to digest the surrounding organs in order to get some form of nourishment. My movements also roused the raven haired temptress lying next to me and she smiled up at me with eyes still clouded by sleep, and in the face of that smile I decided that it didn’t matter where she had gone during her day trip as long as she came back. I figured she would eventually tell me herself anyway so there was probably no point in pressing the issue. And as it turned out I didn’t have to wait long at all

“Hey Dare, can we talk?” she asked with her brow furrowed.

“Sure,” I replied nonchalantly, “Is this about your little daytime field trip?”

Courtney grimaced playfully and said, with chagrin evident in her voice, “You noticed? Damn I can’t get anything past you can I?”

I had to snicker at that, “Don’t feel too bad. In case you’ve forgotten I have a slight advantage in these sorts of things, and besides, you’re not exactly a master spy anyways.”

She just pulled a face at me in reply and stated, “Whatever. I could totally be a master spy if I wanted.”

I just grinned in the face of her sulking and said, “Sure, keep telling yourself that. So…”

“So what?”

“So, where did you go?” I asked in exasperation, “And bear in mind that the answer could result in your prompt execution.”

Courtney just laughed at my obviously empty threat and said, “You won’t kill me. I’m your precious delicacy after all.” I hated to admit it, but she had a point. “Anyways, I went to a church that we passed on the way here.” She continued.

Of all the possible answers I had been expecting, that hadn’t been one of them, and it must have shown on my face because she burst out laughing again.

“Why the hell would you go to a church?” I asked, honestly puzzled.

“Well I was thinking about all the things you’ve done for me and I wanted to do something for you too…” she said, trailing off

“And?…” I asked, prompting her to continue.

“I was thinking about what might happen if Oxford catches up to us, and then I started wondering if there was something I could use to distract and injure him enough to give you a shot at killing him, so I went to the church and got this.” She said, and then she rummaged around in the purse I had bought for her a while back (And I swear that thing must be bigger on the inside because she is constantly pulling random shit out of it.) and pulled out a mason jar filled with what looked for all the world like ordinary tap water.

“And what is that?” I asked skeptically, although I was fairly sure I knew already

“Holy water!” she exclaimed, beaming with pride.

I don’t know if all the stress of the past month had finally caught up with me or what, but I just snapped. I fell over backwards on the bed, laughing harder than I ever had before, and began rolling around on the mattress. I was doing that for a good five minutes before I had calmed down enough to sit back up and look at Courtney, who was on the verge of tears.

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE SUCH AN ASSHOLE!” she screamed before beginning to cry hysterically.

I got up and walked over to her, wrapping her in a hug, and whispered, “You’re right. I shouldn’t have laughed and I’m sorry. But, seriously? Holy water?”

“Hey, it might work.” She replied defensively, wiping away her tears.

I thought it would be best to humor her to avoid another outburst, so I held out my arm and simply said, “Well then let’s try it.”

Courtney gave me a disbelieving look and asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Go ahead and try it.” I told her, trying as hard as I could not to burst out laughing again.

“Okay…” she said hesitantly. She then proceeded to carefully unscrew the cap of the mason jar and, cringing the whole time, spilled a few drops onto my arm. When the water hit me she immediately shut her eyes tight and flinched away as if she was expecting me to burst into flames on the spot. But after a few seconds of nothing happening she carefully opened her eyes and looked at me to see me smiling broadly.

“Nothing happened.” She stated, with a puzzled expression that was unbelievably cute.

“Exactly.” I replied, satisfied that I had made my point.

“So is the whole holy water thing complete bullshit then?”

I knew she wouldn’t be content until I had explained everything in detail so I resigned myself to it and began talking.

“Well not exactly. There are some circumstances where holy water is effective, and I’ve even heard of it killing weaker vampires outright, but there are several requirements to make that happen.”

“Like what?” she asked eagerly, her thirst for knowledge showing on her face

I let out a heavy sigh and continued, “Well first you need to get it from a church that’s been around for a while because buildings with a lot of history, especially places of worship, build up a lot of power. Next you need to have it blessed by a devout priest, and lastly you need to be a devout Christian yourself before holy water will have any effect at all.”

“Why do I have to be a devout Christian?” she interrupted again.

“Look,” I growled, before taking a deep breath and continuing in a calmer voice, “the key ingredient here is faith. The best way to repel or injure a vampire is with a symbol of faith, and the more history that symbol has the more powerful its effect will be. When you get right down to it holy water is just another symbol of faith for Christianity, like a cross or Saint Christopher’s medal, and if you don’t have faith in Christianity then a symbol of faith from that religion won’t do jack. That’s why your holy water didn’t do anything my dear. You don’t have any faith.”

She sat quietly for a minute, digesting everything I had just told her, and finally said, “You’re wrong about one thing, Darrick.”

“Oh?” I asked, raising an eyebrow, “And what might that be?”

Courtney looked down and, refusing to meet my gaze, whispered, “When you said I don’t have any faith you were wrong. The truth is…the truth is I have faith in…you.”

She blushed fiercely after her confession, and I was surprised by the warm feeling I got in my chest, even though it was nothing that I hadn’t already known. To cover my embarrassment over her sudden confession I, rather lamely, said, “I don’t think having faith in a vampire counts.”

Courtney finally looked me in the eyes again and said, “Why not? If you were to give me something of yours that had a lot of history, then theoretically I could use it as a symbol of my faith in you to repel Oxford.”

I instinctively started to reject her idea but came up short. Hell, as far as I understood the rules there was no reason for it not to work, and I even already had something that she could use. It was a relic of my human life. A pendant that had been the last gift my parents had ever given me before I had succumbed to the black death, only to be saved by a wandering vampire and turned into what I am today. And since I hadn’t taken it off even once in just over seven hundred years it definitely had history. It had history in spades.

“Alright,” I said abruptly, startling Courtney, “Let’s try it. The next time I eat someone I’ll turn ‘em and we can put your theory to the test.”

I then slipped the pendant’s chain over my head and tossed it to her unceremoniously, and when she caught it she stared at me, wide-eyed. I couldn’t really blame her for that because the last time she had tried to touch I had literally almost bitten her head off. When tears once again started glistening in her eyes, though, I realized that I may have just made a huge blunder. In naïve little Courtney’s eyes that tiny ivory pendant was probably as good as a wedding ring.

I could tell that Courtney was about to go into hysterics again, so I needed to change the subject fast. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, I cut her off, saying, “Well first things first, we need to get dressed and I need to find some food because I am fuckin’ starving!”

Courtney, disappointed that she didn’t get to gush about the present I had just given her, piped up, saying, “Why don’t you call up that desk attendant that checked us in? I saw the way she was flirting with you. She ought to be an easy mark.” If she was trying to hide the jealousy in her tone, she was failing miserably.

“That’s a great idea,” I said, deliberately ignoring her rude tone, “Let’s get dressed and go to the lobby. I saw some payphones there last night so if she isn’t working I can use one of them to call her.”

That effectively ended the conversation so we got dressed and headed to the lobby where we learned from the receptionist on duty that she did indeed have that night off. I also learned that her name, which she had told me last night and I had promptly forgotten, was Kate. We walked over to the bank of payphones and fed some change into the machine as I dialed her number. (Which I had remembered perfectly, for some reason.) When she answered the phone I told her that my “sister” and I would like to buy her dinner as thanks for being so understanding with us the night before, and, though sounding somewhat disappointed at the news that Courtney would be joining us, she gladly accepted. Since I wasn’t familiar with the area I had her designate the place and time for us to meet up, and after that we said our goodbyes and I hung up the phone.

I turned to Courtney who was standing next to me and, smiling, said, “So sis, you ready for a night on the town?”

“Of course. We don’t want to keep her waiting now do we?” she replied, and then she flashed me a smile that was nothing short of predatory. I bared my teeth in an answering smile, and then, walking arm in arm we headed out into the night to meet our date.

My young lover and I hailed a taxi which took us to the restaurant she had named, and when I got a good look at the place I realized I had been played. I might have had her eating out of the palm of my hand the night before, but over the phone she couldn’t be affected by my pheromones, and she had conned me into buying her dinner at the most expensive steakhouse in the city. It was some fancy four-star place that had blue neon covering every available surface, or so it seemed. The restaurant was also open late because, apparently, it also served as a high class bar and night club. Which meant that in addition to the vomit inducing smell of human food I also got to look forward to bass heavy music turned up to a ridiculous volume. If Kate enjoyed frequenting gaudy places like this then it was no wonder I hadn’t seen a wedding ring despite her good looks.

When I finally spotted my dinner…date…for the evening she was standing by the entrance dressed to the nines in high heels and a slinky black dress, and with the amount of jewelry she was wearing (Which was entirely too much) everything about her appearance screamed gold-digger.

Unperturbed, I sauntered over to her, Courtney hanging onto my arm every step of the way.

“Did you wait long?” I asked by way of greeting.

“No, no, not at all!” she replied and the smell of her breath and the boisterous quality of her voice told me that she had enjoyed a significant number of pre-dinner drinks. That didn’t bother me one bit. It would only make getting what I wanted that much easier, and it also helped that the alcohol just made her that much more susceptible to the pheromones I secrete. Without further conversation we made our way inside the restaurant, and the moment we walked through the door sure enough, the smell of human food jumped up and sucker-punched me right in the face, and after that it was a downhill battle trying not to vomit all over the floor. I managed to cope by not breathing at all except when I was about to speak, and even then I made sure to inhale through my mouth so that the smell couldn’t assault my nostrils.

As we talked to the hostess, she informed us that they were booked solid for the night and we should try again some other time, preferably after having made a reservation, but with a few hundred dollar bills (supplied by me) placed into the palm of her hand, we managed to convince her that a table had just opened up next to the dance floor. When we had finally made it to our table through the crowd and sat down, a waiter appeared before us out of nowhere, as if by some form of magic, and took our drink orders. Kate, unsurprisingly, ordered another of one of those garishly colored alcoholic drinks with an incomprehensible name, while Courtney ordered a sweet tea and I opted for ice-water. That being the only substance besides blood that I could digest. When the waiter came back with our drinks and took our orders he naturally looked to me first since I was the only male in the group, and since I obviously couldn’t order nothing I went with the smallest steak they had available as rare as they could possibly make it. Basically requesting that they simply heat it up a bit and slap it on a plate. Sadly both Courtney and Kate went with the restaurant’s signature dish, which cost over one-hundred-fifty dollars a-piece. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not hurting in the money department, and I’m not above shelling out for a night on the town, but paying close to four-hundred dollars for food that I can’t even get any nutrition from just seems a bit ridiculous. We sat at the table and made small talk until our food arrived (although with the music playing as loud as it was we had to shout to be heard) and when it finally came both of the girls dug into their respective meals with relish. For my part I had to compliment the chef. He had prepared the steak exactly as I had requested, with the meat just barely browned on the outside and bright red all the way through when I cut into it, and positively dripping with blood and melted fat. It was truly a shame that such fine work was wasted on me. I simply chewed each bite thoroughly and tried to pretend that it didn’t taste like wet saw-dust.

Over all I have to say that the three of us had a pleasant evening and when we finally made it back to the parking lot it only took a few whispered words on my part to convince Kate to come back to the motel with us for some after dinner fun. Courtney and I then climbed into the back of her car and held on for dear life as she drunkenly tried to drive us back. Quite frankly I’m surprised that she didn’t get pulled over by any of the police I spotted along the way, but eventually we made it back with our lives and limbs intact and together Courtney and I managed to get a stumbling Kate into our room, and once we were inside we swiftly put up the “do not disturb” sign then shut and locked the door.

I turned away from the door just in time to see Kate kick off her high heels and slump down onto the room’s single bed for all the world like she had been dancing the night away instead of eating on someone else’s dime and drinking way too much, so naturally I (being the refined gentleman that I am) immediately walked over to her and picked her up off the mattress, crushing her lips to mine in a passionate kiss. She was surprised at first but it only took a few seconds before her hormones overrode her common sense and she melted into my embrace. That is until she caught sight of Courtney beginning to disrobe from the corner of her eye. She immediately broke the kiss and stepped away from me. And when I smiled wickedly and proceeded to give Courtney the same treatment Kate started uttering incoherent protests. She was obviously quite confused, and rightly so. After all, she was still under the mistaken impression that Courtney was my younger sister, and kissing with tongue is not something one does with one’s younger sister. I figured that trying to explain things would take too long so I opted for the quick and easy route, and stuck a finger in my mouth, coating it with the potently orgasmic neurotoxin my fangs secrete, and proceeded to wipe my venom coated finger across Kate’s lower lip. I was rewarded with seeing her eyes roll back in her head as she shuddered with intense pleasure, and all thoughts of leaving were replaced with a primal need to keep feeling that way.

Kate’s knees buckled with the intensity of the orgasm, and as she fell back on the bed, twitching with little aftershocks, Courtney and I quickly shed our remaining garments and then crawled into the bed with her. That left Kate as the only one with any clothes on, so ,rather than go through the lengthy process of removing them one by one, I simply grabbed hold of the collar of her dress and ripped it in half, quickly doing the same with her bra and panties since she wouldn’t be needing them after tonight anyways. With the last remaining barrier to her body out of the way I brought my face down to her glistening wet snatch and began lapping up her juices. Kate started bucking and moaning almost instantly, and I realized that she must be one of those people who became hyper-sensitive after an orgasm. Not one to be left out of the festivities, Courtney crawled down to the foot of the bed and positioned herself underneath me, taking my entire cock into her mouth in one go. Sadly this wasn’t all that difficult for her since, as I’ve stated before, I’m not exactly world-class when it comes to the size of my cock. After a few minutes like this, during which time Kate had another intense orgasm, I decided to switch things up and changed our positions. Once we gotten all of our limbs situated I was behind Courtney, ramming my cock into her majestic young pussy, while she took my place eating out Kate.

What followed that night was, without a doubt, one of the most intense threesomes I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing in my seven hundred years of existence, and to this day it remains something that I don’t think I will ever be able to beat, no matter how long I live. We fucked and sucked each other in every position you could possibly imagine, and we even gave our best effort at inventing some new ones. When our tryst finally began winding down after hours of carnal playtime I was once again ramming my engorged member into Courtney’s tight little cunt, and Kate was sitting on her face while we met in the middle and let our tongues dance in each other’s mouths. When I felt that I was getting close to cumming I stopped kissing Kate and began nuzzling at her throat instead. She gladly let me do this and even tilted her head to one side to give me easier access while she moaned and contorted with ecstasy. Once I was in the ideal position I bit down, letting my fangs sink into her carotid artery and sending her careening into a venom induced orgasm, and feeling Kate lock up above her drove Courtney over the edge into her own tumultuous climax, and, even though it was muffled by muff she was currently eating, I once again had the pleasure of hearing her emit that high pitched trilling sound that never failed to drive me wild. The sensations of Kate’s warm blood sating my thirst combined with the spasms that were causing Courtney’s orgasming love tunnel to clench around my dick finally succeeded in driving me to a raging climax of my own and I proceeded to fill Courtney’s womb with my dead seed. But while Courtney and I began to relax as we came down from our respective orgasms, Kate remained locked up, stiff as a board, as she tumbled through her artificially induced climax that kept going and going as I drained her life away one gulp at a time. It didn’t take long before Kate’s extremities began to go cold, as there was no longer enough blood left to supply circulation to her limbs. A few swallows after that I felt her core temperature start to drop, along with a drastic decrease in her heart rate. When that happened I knew I had achieved a fatal amount of blood loss, but rather than draining her completely I withdrew my fangs and released my hold on her, letting her drop to the mattress since she was now too weak to support her own weight.

Courtney climbed out from underneath her and, noting that she was still just barely alive, turned to me and asked excitedly, “Are we gonna test my theory now?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at her child like enthusiasm and replied, “We sure are.”

Without further ado I bit into my wrist to start the blood flowing and held Kate’s mouth open while I trickled my blood into the back of her throat. I watched her throat muscles work as she gamely swallowed everything I gave her, (As in life, so in death I suppose) and after a few seconds the laceration in my wrist healed itself and the flow of blood stopped. With my work done I left Kate where she was and got up off the bed to get dressed, and Courtney followed suit.

After we were fully clothed we stood there, silently watching as Kate gasped her way through her last moments of life, and then Courtney turned to me and asked, “How long will this take?”

I mulled it over for a bit and replied, “Well first she has to die, and the she has to go through the transformation process, so about ten minutes give or take?”

As I spoke Kate began spasming uncontrollably and her bowels released their contents, letting us know that she had finally given up the ghost. It didn’t take long after that before she began thrashing about with renewed vigor, signaling the start of her transformation from middle aged human to newborn vampire.

While this was going on I turned to Courtney and said, “Get the pendant ready because when she wakes up she’s going to be out of her mind with hunger and you are the closest and by far the most appetizing food source in the area.”

Courtney blushed at my left handed compliment and hurriedly took the pendant off of her neck, holding it out at arm’s length in front of her. After that we simply waited as Kate’s convulsions gradually diminished and finally stopped all together. She lay perfectly still for a moment before bolting upright and leaping straight for Courtney’s throat all in one movement that was so blindingly fast that I knew I wouldn’t be able to intervene in time. As I watched events unfold in what appeared to be slow motion I cursed my lack of preparation. I had completely forgotten how quick those little fuckers could be.

As she came within arm’s reach of Courtney, though, a miracle happened. As the newborn Kate went in for the kill she happened to graze the pendant held in Courtney’s outstretched fingers, and her theory was proven true when a blinding flash of light erupted from the little chunk of ivory, and when my vision cleared the only thing left of Kate was a pile of ashes and a few shredded scraps of clothing.

“Well I’ll be damned.” I muttered quietly. I hadn’t really expected it to work in the first place, but not only had it worked; it had worked far better than I could have ever hoped for. With this pendant in hand we didn’t just have a fighting chance if the old man caught up to us. We had a clear and overwhelming advantage. If Courtney could get close enough to touch him with it even once, it would incapacitate him enough for me to stroll in and slaughter him at my leisure.

My head was spinning with the possibilities when another abrupt realization brought me crashing back down to earth. The sheer power of that pendant couldn’t be explained by its age and sentimental value alone. That meant that Courtney’s worship of me ran far deeper than even I had guessed, and knowing that was enough to make even me question whether it or not it was okay to keep treating her as a disposable toy. I forcefully pushed aside the uncomfortable thoughts and decided to worry about it later as I ushered Courtney out of the motel and into the cold night air. Whether it was misplaced or not, faith was still a force to be reckoned with and I planned to take full advantage of it while I could.

As we walked across the parking lot Courtney finally succeeded in catching my attention, saying, “Hey, weren’t you planning to erase my scent again before we left?”

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” I replied, and I felt my face stretch in a grin that was pure unadulterated malice, “If Ox wants to come after us that badly then let him. We’ll have a surprise waiting when he gets here.”

TO BE CONTINUED

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