Chapter 11

Her time is miserably long;
She haunts her window, watching clouds that stray
O'er the old city-wall, and far away.
"Were I a little bird!" so runs her song,
Day long, and half night long.

Reprinted from Faust. Trans. Bayard Taylor. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1898.

The ride out was traumatic for Severus. He had become accustomed to automobiles, but nothing before had prepared him for the ride he was on. Bo had his senses extended to his maximum ahead so he pushed the Cuda past ninety on the caliche road with the setting sun to their backs. He slowed only for the turns he knew were coming miles before they reached them, which at speed gave them only a few seconds warning. Severus never drove over sixty himself even on the interstate; he still preferred horseback or running as he did during his mortal time. The speed and the roar of the V-8 had him unsettled, but the grim expression on the faces of his companions really set his nerves on edge. Even as an immortal, he would not want these two set against him.

Bo stopped the car about a mile from a dilapidated frame house surrounded by small animal pens and an old barn that appeared to list against the wind. He went to the trunk and dug around the contents withdrawing a canteen and a couple of small bags and a bullwhip. He tossed a bag to each man and the trio walked towards the house. As they got closer, they heard crying and sobbing along with a loud baritone cursing. Severus scanned the house and indicated to Phil that they should move around back. Bo felt the pain and fear emanating from both women and the anger coming from the man. He entered his target's mind and found that he had a pistol in the waistband of his jeans and had been drinking but was not intoxicated. The man's anger fueled by his belief that his girlfriend was cheating on him; even though he had no proof he felt emasculated by his life and she was an easy target on which to vent his frustrations.

Bo opened his mind to Severus, When I take out the shithead, you two get the girls out of the house.

Severus whispered to Phil what Bo's plan and their part in it. Bo waited until the target was in a room by himself and he slipped in the front door with the bullwhip in his hand. He silently moved through the room to a connecting door to his right and peered around the doorframe. There stood a rather short man, maybe five-four, shirtless and shoeless with an almost empty whiskey bottle in his hand. The bullwhip cracked and the whiskey bottle exploded in the man's hand.

"Hey asshole, I have a message for you." Bo entered the mind of his target and created an illusion in his mind. The man saw an impossibly tall red-skinned demon in front of him. The demon's horns reached to the ten-foot ceiling and had long fangs dripping fire and nasty looking claws at the end of his fingers, but what really caught his attention was between the demon's legs. A three-foot long erection as big around as a man's thigh and with every throb a glob of fire dripped from the tip. The bullwhip cracked again around the man's neck and Bo pulled him roughly towards him causing him to fall on his face. Bo reached down, grabbed him around the neck, and lifted him up until his feet cleared the floor while his other hand removed the pistol and tossed it into a chair.

Bo held him eye level and looked deep into his eyes. "Yer mine now so let's go outside, and play." His captive felt stinging hot breath that smelled of burning sulfur and the grip that held him was solid as stone.

"Who... who are you?"

"I am yer reward." Bo turned with the small man still in his grip and walked out of the house. Once off the porch, Bo threw him down and laughed. "Ya like to beat on women and girls to feel like a man. I am yer reward for creating fear and terror in women."

The man looked up in terror. Bo appeared to stand nine feet tall standing on cloven hoofs, his body bright red carved with muscle. His footprints appeared as scorched earth and the bullwhip glowed silver. The massive cock bobbing with arousal and grapefruit sized testicles hung low underneath. Huge globs of precum dripped from the tip as molten lava and scorched the earth where the globs fell.

"What are ya going to do to me?"

"Anything I want here and in the hereafter. First, let me see ya dance." The bullwhip cracked at the feet of the prone figure. "Get on yer feet ya worthless piece of shit. Dance for yer master." The bullwhip cracked in the air showering sparks down upon his captive as he scrambled to his feet.

"Not like that. I want to see yer pretty, little ass. Drop them drawers or I'll take em off with my whip." Once again the bullwhip cracked the air with a show of sparks." The terrified man fumbled with the snap but his trembling hands couldn't manipulate the closure. Three time the whip cracked and Bo amplified the pain in the man's mind. He looked down and his jeans were in tatters. The next crack of the whip cut through the waistband and the rags fell to his feet.