Chapter 30

"Uhhn ... please stop..."

"Shhh. No need to worry, you're safe."

Melinda squirmed in her mother's lap as her pussy throbbed. "I d-don't want to be safe! I ... uhh! ... stop it ... s-stop ... uhhhn..."

"Quiet now, Melinda," Penny whispered. One hand softly stroked her daughter's wet folds. Another slowly fondled a breast. "You need to stay here with me."

"H-Heather..." Melinda gasped in the throes of her orgasm. "Mom ... Heather's i-in trouble ... you can't..."

"She'll be okay." There was a faint catch in her voice. She lightly pinched Melinda's nipple and slipped two fingers into Melinda's entrance. "She'll be home again soon."

Melinda panted and spread her trembling thighs despite herself. She could sense the Darkness working on her through her mother. She could even see tendrils of her mother's Aura now slithering around herself. As much as it filled her with horror, her body remained horny and wanting.

"She won't be Heather anymore!" Melinda wailed softly. "Please ... uhhhn ... p-please..."

"Shhh. Just enjoy it, Melinda," Penny said in a soothing voice.

Melinda whimpered. She fell limp against her mother, her resistance exhausted.

There was a faraway look in Penny's eyes. She could sense the Darkness' elation. She knew what it meant. It was finally going to happen.

I've tried to be good, Penny thought. I've done what was asked of me. Please remember that. Please.

But she received no reply. She felt only a sense of amusement as it applied its will to her, forcing away her remaining doubts and thoughts of protection of her family. Her lips curled into a contented smile.

Jason looked down at Cassie as he straddled her torso, his hands kneading the pliant flesh of her soft breasts. Behind the raw lust was a quiet desperation. It shimmered in his gaze, a tiny sign that he was still fighting the urges that had come over him.

His jeans and briefs already lay discarded carelessly to the side. His breathing was heavy, his cock hard and pulsing. The cold prickled his skin, but it did nothing to cool the heat of desire.

Cassie stared at Jason's cock, her face a mix of fear and hunger. Her lips parted, and she licked them in anticipation. She trembled as she felt her thighs parted by Ned's hands. Jason shuddered in another show of resistance before finally sliding forward

"I-I'm sorry..." Jason croaked. "I c-can't stop..."

His words dissolved into a moan as Cassie's fingers reached up and encircled his cock. "K-keep fighting ... please..." she whispered. She drew in her breath suddenly as something wet and sinuous teased her swollen clit. She let out a sultry sigh as Ned licked her folds. Her fingers tightened, and she pulled Jason towards her.

There was a flare of green light from behind Jason and a terrible, echoing scream.

"Oh no ... M-Melissa started ... she... "

Cassie's own words were cut off as Jason's cock slid into her mouth. She closed her eyes, a single tear trickling down her cheek as she sucked with enthusiasm, her fingers pumping the base of his cock at the same time. Jason fell into the same rhythm, rocking his hips and moaning softly.

Ned's face lay buried in Cassie's mound. It had taken everything he had not to simply pull down his briefs and impale her pussy. His cock strained hard with the need, and when Cassie moaned and spread her thighs further apart, it only encouraged the desire.

No, not like this, Ned struggled to think. I don't want her first time to be like this. Keep it out of her.

Melissa giggled as she looked at them. The interior of the box now swirled with green and blue light. Ann Went stood perfectly still, her eyes utterly vacant, her body an empty shell that still breathed. "Too bad you girls can't be having as much fun as them. You know, I wonder what it does feel like to be put into a little box like this."

She turned to Susan. Susan's eyes stared in horror, a terrified whimper escaping her trembling lips.

"Ann's already in here," Melissa said, her hand caressing the side of the box lovingly. "Didn't sound like she enjoyed being pulled into it, though. Maybe you can comfort your little lezzie lover. Tophr'ulthis orgos ron'renthrala!"

Susan let out a gasp. Her body went stiff as it was suffused with a blue-white glow. Her eyes widened as the light streamed into a glowing orb above her head. All sense of self faded from her gaze. Her lips parted and her muscles relaxed as her head became starkly empty.

All that was Susan Radson hovered in a swirling mass of glowing ether. It struggled to remain in place, tendrils of itself trying to reach out and reconnect with its body.

A tentacle of acid green shot out from the box like a snake's tongue and wrapped itself around Susan's life energy. Another unearthly scream rent the icy air as it was pulled towards the box. The scream faded only once the tentacle had pulled Susan's spirit fully inside, where it churned and seethed.

Cassie whimpered at the sound even as she wrapped an arm around Jason's waist and forced him deeper into her mouth. She panted hard through her nose as Ned's tongue lashed at her clit and plunged into her tunnel.

Melissa turned to Heather. Diane clutched at her lover, tears spilling silently down her cheeks. Heather embraced Diane tightly and whispered, "Stop it, please ... don't give Melissa the satisfaction."

Melissa laughed. "Heather, you just don't get it, do you? I'm not after petty revenge anymore. There is no satisfaction you can possibly give me. This power is what matters now. You're nothing to me."

Heather looked at her fellow Harbingers. Her eyes glistened. Was this all her fault? If she and Diane had not pulled that cruel trick on Melissa, she wouldn't have had the four people she needed for the spell.

Heather turned to Melissa. "I'm sorry."

Melissa frowned. "What?"

"I said I was sorry. For what Diane and I did to you."

"And you think that's supposed to change anything now?"

Heather shook her head solemnly.

Melissa sneered. "Yeah, you're sorry, all right. You're sorry only because you're at my mercy. If none of this had happened, you wouldn't be the least bit sorry about it. You'd still be gloating over it with your fucking little lezzie lover here! Oh, what a grand little joke we played on the misfit! What a nice laugh we had at the wallflower's expense!"

Melissa's voice had risen steadily until she was screaming, her eyes blazing with fury and hatred.

It was not lost on Heather. She couldn't help but crack a small smile.

"What the FUCK do you find so funny?!" Melissa bellowed.

"You're getting kind of upset for someone that says she's not interested in revenge."

Melissa clenched her teeth and trembled with rage. She shouted the incantation.

Heather drew in her breath as a gentle warmth suffused her entire body. Everything around her blurred, like a lens going softly out of focus. She had the sensation of being lifted, not quite up or in any particular direction that she could envision. It was more a sense of detachment, like slipping into a dream in the throes of sleep.

It was pleasant. She was a feather in the breeze. Everything around her melted into dark pastels, like an abstract oil painting. It was a strangely exhilarating feeling, almost euphoric. The pastels faded to a hazy gray, like a thick fog.

And then something came at her through the fog.

It was a black void, a nothingness that was so empty and absolute as to be thoroughly terrifying. It was worse than being rent by a horrible monster. That would have required sensation, a sense of being. This was its antithesis, a total lack of feeling, a complete absence of either pleasure or pain.

And it was pulling her in.

She was in an endless fall into the void. There was no sight, no sound, no feeling. She tried to imagine herself with a body, flailing for something to pull her out of the pit into which she had fallen, but her thoughts of her corporeal form vanished like mist. She was not aware of even her own scream.

In the time it took for her spirit to be pulled into the box, Heather thought she would go insane. Then, mercifully, there was something in the horrible emptiness. It was like a very dim light on the horizon in an inky-black, moonless night. Two of them, flickering at the very edge of her perceptions.

It was Susan and Ann. She tried to reach out to them, and she sensed them reaching to her. But the gulf between them stretched into eternity.

Thoughts swirled around her spirit. Thoughts of despair. Thoughts of sorrow. Thoughts of regret. Some were her own, some were not. It was as if she, Susan, and Ann were sharing a single consciousness despite the vast gulf that appeared to separate them in the void.

Ann's thoughts were the most anguished, her mental voice the most shrill. She was one step away from insanity herself. But where their thoughts were so intimately shared, now Heather felt her own grip on sanity loosen.

A fourth dim beacon flickered in the distance. It was Diane.

Heather tried to call out to her, but that was a concept which had no meaning here. Diane's thoughts simply pooled with the others as their spirits swirled inside the void.

Bill stared at the road ahead of him, his eyes slightly glazed.

"You don't believe me," Debby said flatly.

"Don't believe you? Fuck, I don't even understand it enough to know whether I should believe it or not!" Bill cried, his voice cracking. "You realize how insane it sounds? Like some crackpot conspiracy theory!"

"Don't you think I know that?!"

"Why didn't you say anything about this before?"

"Because I know how you feel about this stuff! And don't try to deny it anymore, Bill. I know perfectly well you think everything I do is just so much hogwash!"

Bill gripped the steering wheel tightly and took a deep breath. His heart pounded in worry over his daughter. His stomach flipped and churned at the thought of what had been going on between her and Debby. "Honey ... please ... tell me the truth..."

Debby gave him a perplexed look.

"You're not ... you're not just covering up something, are you?"

"What?!"

"I mean ... some of those rituals you do are pretty funky. Where you hardly wear anything. You weren't doing something with Susan that..."

"How dare you!" Debby exploded. "How dare you even suggest I would involve my daughter in some perverted sexual game! You have no idea how it felt to be forced to do these things with Susan. And she was affecting you, too, Bill. It was happening right in front of you! We both masturbated right in front of you some mornings and you never... !"

"All right! ALL RIGHT!"

Debby fell silent. Her breath caught when she saw the tears in Bill's eyes.

"I-I'm sorry," he said in a choked voice. "I'm just having trouble with this ... I don't want to believe any of this could happen..."

Debby laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "I know, Bill. Just get us there, please."

"I'm going as fast as I can. I've already fishtailed twice. Fucking weather..."

"It's okay. Just keep going."

Debby took a deep breath and choked down a sob. She already felt like it was too late. She could sense a subtle change in the energies in the town. The Rite had already begun. If anyone was going to stop it now, it would have to be someone that was already there.

Melissa closed the box and latched it.

It trembled in her hands. Light spilled from the gap between lid and sides, and it rattled against the tiny latch. She stepped forward and placed the box gently on the ground.

She looked up. The shells of Susan, Ann, Heather, and Diane stared at her, unseeing and unfeeling. They were little more than masses of flesh and bone that respired. Their eyes were empty, their brains quiescent, save for what little was needed to keep their bodies alive.

Melissa pointed to a spot before the roaring green flame at the other end of the clearing. "Line up there."

The four obeyed, nothing more than puppets.

"Turn."

All four turned so that they faced the flame. It flickered in their vapid eyes.

Jason shuddered as his cock erupted inside Cassie's mouth. A few drops of his cum trickled from the corner of her mouth. She tilted her head back and hastily swallowed Jason's seed, just before her mouth opened in a loud cry as her pussy throbbed.

Jason collapsed to the side, panting. With his cock satisfied, it was a little easier to resist the effects of the spell. But he could not yet bring himself to stand up.

Ned lifted his head. Cassie's orgasm had served only to fuel his own need. He pushed himself up. His cock stretched the fabric of his briefs, a small wet spot near the head. He panted with both spell-induced lust and his attempts to resist its intent.

He wanted to tell Cassie that he didn't mean it to happen like this, but he couldn't get the words out. His voice simply refused to obey him.

"S-someone stop her," Cassie sobbed as she lay helpless, her body still burning with desire. "P-please ... oh God please..."

Ned thought Cassie had said "him" instead of "her." It made him hesitate for just a moment, but it passed quickly. He yanked his briefs down his legs and kicked them off his feet. He crawled over Cassie, his eyes wild and staring.

Cassie's hands flew up as if to ward him off, only to slide around his sides in encouragement instead. "Ned ... p-please ... stop her..."

"I c-can't ... I-I..." Ned managed to choke out.

"We're t-trying," Jason moaned as he drew himself up along Cassie's side. He began playing with one of Cassie's breasts.

Cassie arched her back and whimpered as Jason's touch sent shivers of pleasure through her body. She looked up at Ned with aching desire as he positioned himself between her spreading legs.

"R-Richie ... where's Richie..." Cassie moaned. "J-Jason, he's not here yet ... m-maybe he... uhhh!"

Jason could not respond, as he had already clamped his lips around Cassie's nipple and sucked it hard into his mouth. Cassie tried to speak again, but her words dissolved into a long, low cry as Ned slid inside her.

For that moment, nothing else mattered to her. The realization suddenly hit her that she had been penetrated, that a boy's cock was inside her pussy. At first she thought she might scream. Only the spell-induced desire and her own silent mantra prevented her.

It's not rape ... I wanted to do this with him ... it's not rape...

Ever since Cassie had learned of the Darkness and its power, this was the situation that had frightened her so badly. She had been sure she would go insane with terror no matter how rigidly controlled was her mind, or how much she liked her partner. She had not counted on her feelings for her partner progressing beyond mere infatuation.

Jason had heard Cassie's comment about Richie and understood. For a moment, the old anger and resentment towards his friend welled up inside of him. He promised he would be here. No matter what. He won't go back on that. His thought was part angry lament and part impassioned plea. If nothing else, it helped him resist the spell's effect just a bit more. Then he could...

"Tophr'altkas ron'kninetala progetha donlas ron'seltha!"

And then it didn't matter anymore. It was too late.

The green flame burst into brilliant, blinding light that surged towards the four girl-husks. Their bodies were cocooned in the stream of power, their eyes now glowing acid green, their mouths dropping open as the energy consumed every bit of space in their empty minds.

Only seconds later, the power emerged from behind the four. Now properly focused, it impaled the air like a lance. The pendant flared like a miniature nova as it received the power and channeled it into Melissa.

Melissa cried out in ecstasy. She felt the power streaming through her body and mind. She felt it unlocking abilities that she had never dreamed possible. It was everything she had wanted. It was everything she had hoped for. Soon she would be able to do anything she wanted.

Richie was in a panic.

He was sure he had taken a wrong turn. At first, the faint glow from the snow-laden clouds had helped keep him on the main road. Eventually, the snow became thick enough to encase him in a hazy fog. He kept running off the side of the road into the undergrowth and rocks. He had convinced himself that he was now hopelessly lost.

But then he saw the green glow in the distance.

Richie was so astonished at the emerald light that he brought the bike to a shuddering stop. For a brief moment, he thought he had gone insane, that the cold and his horribly aching legs had brought on some sort of strange hallucination. When the realization came to him, however, it struck him like an icy fist to his gut.

"Holy fuck," he muttered. "She's started the Rite."

Richie turned the bike back onto the road. His legs screamed in protest as he pushed himself to pedal the bike just a bit further up the hill. The light was so bright that it was like a beacon to him.

Suddenly the pain in his legs meant nothing. Nor did his fear. None of it mattered. All that mattered was keeping a promise.

Penny Sovert felt it.

It passed through her like a wave of blissful pleasure, her pussy convulsing in a sudden, intense paroxysm of pleasure. She moaned and shivered. She trembled, and her hands faltered, causing Melinda to whimper in need.

Sandra Gardner felt it.

She collapsed to her knees, her cunt pulsing, her breath short and heavy. She clutched at the side of the door, trying to pull herself up, but her orgasm was too strong.

Laura Bendon felt it.

For her, it was no more than a passing wave of soft, liquid warmth in her sex. As she was not a slave to the Darkness directly, she did not sense its emotions so powerfully. Normally, she rarely sensed them at all. But it was clear to her now that something very good was about to happen, something that pleased the Darkness to no end.

All of those in Haven touched by the Darkness felt it in some way or form. Everyone knew that something was about to happen.

Even Henry Conner felt it.

He had been typing at the keyboard of his computer when he simply stopped, as if frozen in a moment of time. Finally, he slowly lowered his hands and leaned back in his chair with a slow sigh.

Yes, he felt it, but in a far different way.

For him, it was a sense of impending doom. It was a visceral fear that caused his heart to palpitate and his stomach to churn. He tried not to panic. He tried to observe it critically. This was a golden opportunity, after all. There had been speculation over what might be the consequences of stolen power. Now he had a chance to observe it first hand.

He took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow, which had broken out in a cold sweat. He realized there was one flaw in his thinking. He doubted that he would be around to tell anyone his findings if the Darkness was successful that night.

Debby Radson also felt it.

A wave of dark energy flowed over her as the car passed over one of the lines of force. It stole her breath, as if she had plunged into icy water. Something powerfully evil had just crossed her path.

She clutched at her racing heart, her other hand curling hard into the edge of the seat as if holding on for dear life. The touch of the entity had sparked an instinctual terror in her so powerful that it blocked coherent thought.

When it finally abated, she saw the last of the town's street lamps fall away and the road open into darkness, save for the headlights. Snow swirled and reduced their light to diffuse uselessness as if in mockery of them.

We're too late, Debby thought, and the despair that settled over her was almost as bad as the terror had been. It took all her willpower not to burst into tears on the spot.

Cassie's mind was locked in a torment of conflict. She wanted to cry out in horror at Melissa. She wanted to cry out in pleasure at Ned's lovemaking.

Ned pumped his hips against her, his cock pounding mercilessly into her depths. The experience was more intense than anything she had ever felt. If this had been any other context, she would have willingly submitted and let herself ride the wave of pleasure. It was not just the spell's effects that kept her legs parted for him.

At the same time, some shred of resistance made her push at his chest, albeit weakly, in an attempt to spark some more resistance from Ned. But Ned's will was not as strong, and his own desires for Cassie got in the way. Instead, he was trying to finish it off quickly, to satisfy his own cravings.

Jason grew hard again. He struggled against the constant push of the spell. He trembled as he rose to his knees, intending to straddle Cassie again and slide his cock between her tits.

A burst of noise off to the side distracted him for a moment.

He turned his head in time to see a bicycle abruptly swerve to avoid hitting one of the lanterns that sat at the edge of the clearing. The front wheel slipped, and the bike tipped and crashed, depositing its rider hard to the ground.

Cassie turned her head to the side and moaned, "Richie..."

Pain lanced into Richie's cheek, and something trickled down his face. Richie scrambled to his feet as pain and swiped at it in annoyance. His fingers came away with fresh blood.

His eyes rose from his hand, and he froze. It was his campgrounds vision all over again. "Oh shit..."

"R-Richie ... the box..." a voice came weakly through the air.

Richie turned his head. "H-huh? What ... holy fuck! What are you... ?!"

"The box," Jason croaked. He pushed Cassie's hands away and straddled her torso. "G-get it... "

His words trailed off as he grabbed Cassie's tits and squeezed them around his cock.

Richie didn't understand. His eyes darted wildly. What box? What was Jason talking about?

And then his eyes fell upon it.

It shook and rattled as if alive. Light speared from it in brilliant violence. The seams of wood strained as if about to burst as the life energies inside fought with feral rage to escape from their confines.

Did Jason want him to open it? But he couldn't do that! Agatha said it could damage the souls inside it! No, he had to stop Melissa first.

He balled his hands into fists and charged at Melissa.

Suddenly, he couldn't breathe and almost grayed out. It took him a few crucial moments to realize he was sprawled out on his back. It had been as if something had socked him the gut. His diaphragm ached badly and struggled to expand his lungs properly. He felt as if he were suffocating.

Richie tried to stand, but his legs gave out from under him. He wheezed as his bruised diaphragm fought to draw in air. He was at the end of his endurance. His gaze turned to the box again. Heather and Diane were in there. If he opened it, he might hurt them. Or kill them. But he had no choice.

He crawled on his hands and knees towards the box, panting hard with the effort.

Melissa reached out with her telekinetic power and pushed him aside. He recovered and lunged at it. His hand managed to brush its side before she pushed him away again. Before he could launch himself at the box one more time, the box rose into the air and out of his reach.