Chapter 13

Terri gazed with smug satisfaction at her handiwork, smiling at the sounds of Heather's grunts and moans.

Heather was turned in her seat towards the side, her hips thrust forward, her hands gripping the edges of the chair. Her clothing lay strewn around her seat. Perspiration glistened in the fluorescent lights. Her legs were wrapped around an invisible lover, hips jerking in rhythm to phantom thrusts into her pussy.

Around her, the rest of the class plodded through their assignments, oblivious. Brad even lifted his head, turned it towards Heather for a moment, then went back to his work without any reaction whatsoever.

"Oh yeah," Heather panted. "Oh yeah ... nice... " He legs drew inward, as if tightening around her lover. "Uhhnn ... more ... oh God yeah..."

Terri was pleased. Maintaining two competing perceptions was some effort, but nothing she could not handle. She envied Victor and wondered why he didn't do so much more with his power. Even after only a day, she already aspired for greater glory. She could transform the school into her personal sexual playground.

She licked her lips as she gazed at some of the male students and imagined them kneeling at her feet and pleasing her at her command, simply because they believed it was normal and expected of them. She stopped short of making it reality, but she adored the idea.

Terri let out a slow, excited breath, her pussy warm and tingling. Her thighs parted, and her hand alighted on her leg. She pulled it away with some effort. The class would ignore her touching herself if she so desired, but she had more control than that. She would wait until she had some privacy.

Victor was expecting her to do a job, but once he was done and departed from Haven, she would attend to her own plans. Principal Bendon would not dare interfere.

Terri's eyes flicked down. Her smile faded as she saw Gina turned in her seat. "Miss Caligano."

The girl whirled around to face her. "Yes, Ms. Hollis?"

Terri paused for a second in silent evaluation. What did Victor see in this one anyway? She was sure he was making a big mistake. "Eyes forward."

"Yes, Ms. Hollis."

Terri's gaze lingered on Gina before darting towards Heather. Had Gina seen something? "Miss Caligano."

Gina raised her head. "Yes, Ms. Hollis?"

So perfect and polite. So respectful. "What was so fascinating back there?"

Gina hesitated. "Nothing, Ms. Hollis."

"Really."

A few students looked up. That one word, spoken in that particular tone, meant trouble. Gina's gaze remained steadfast.

"Care to try that answer again?" said Terri.

"I, um, thought I heard a noise. But I didn't see anything when I looked."

Terri considered asking what noise the girl had heard, but nodded instead. "Very well. But please wait until after class to satisfy your curiosity from now on."

"Yes, Ms. Hollis."

Terri sighed. All that respect was maddening. She preferred someone with some fight. The reward was that much sweeter when her victim was broken to her will.

Victor is dead wrong this time, she thought. Heather is one he should be thinking about, not Gina.

The chair creaked with each thrust of Brad's cock into Heather's hungry pussy. Her hands gripped the edge of the seat to hold her steady against his rocking hips. When she closed her eyes, she heard the lustful, low cacophony of moans and gasps from the other students, as well as Brad's own single-minded grunts.

This had to be normal. Ms. Hollis wasn't saying a word. She couldn't be controlling the whole class. Heather saw not a single Aura on anyone other than Ms. Hollis herself.

For a moment, indecision and confusion flickered in Heather's eyes. This felt both wrong and right. But her rising pleasure drowned out rational thought. Brad's cock felt so nice inside her. She did miss having sex with him.

"Oh yeah ... oh yeah ... nice..." Her legs tightened around Brad's hard-muscled body. One calf rested against his ass and felt it tighten as he banged her. "Uhhnn ... more ... oh God, yeah..."

Brad was silent since he started fucking her. His whole focus was on his own actions, like he was on automatic. Normally Heather did not care for a partner that acted little more as a fucking machine, but her need was so excruciating that it begged relief by whatever means.

She tossed her head back, and her chair shook. She soared towards climax, her hips sliding forward, plunging him deeper into her, their bodies slapping hard and loud. It all seemed scripted just like a porn movie.

Yet it had to be okay. The class expected it, like taking tests or doing homework. Ms. Hollis knew how the class was supposed to be run. She was strict in what was allowed and what was not. If she let it happen, it must be okay.

But Ms. Hollis ... she ... she has...

(perfectly normal)

... has...

(ordinary)

... an Aura...

(expected)

... she has an AURA...

"Uhhnnggg!!"

Heather's pussy gushed, the sound of the splash against the chair...

(Brad)

... against Brad rising above the cries of pleasure or groans of sated lust from the rest of the class. Brad slammed into her as she throbbed until she grunted in distress. She wanted to raise a hand to warn him back, but would slip off the chair if she let go.

Like a switch being thrown, Brad stopped and withdrew.

Heather gasped for breath, her orgasm still winding down. A gentle after-ache settled into her pussy over the smoldering embers of her climax. A long, quavering sigh passed her trembling lips, and her feet slapped the floor as her legs dropped. She winced at the stiffness in her back.

She looked around. Everyone in the class was fully dressed, like a movie that had skipped ahead a few frames. "Brad..."

"Gotta get to the next class, babe," Brad said.

Heather turned her head. He, too, was dressed already. He smiled at her and winked. She returned it with her own weak smile before gathering her clothes.

She had to hurry. Students were already leaving to a bustle of activity in the hallway. By the time she donned her blouse, Brad was out the door. She was going to be one of the last to leave the classroom.

Heather threw her belongings into her book-bag, cursing under her breath when a textbook jammed into her notebook, crinkling and tearing some of the pages. She didn't have time to sort it out. She slung the book-bag over one shoulder and barreled towards the door.

"Miss Sovert, come seem me for a moment."

Heather froze, hesitated, then finally turned around. Ms. Hollis' Aura jolted her, as if she were seeing it for the first time. No, she had seen it before. She knew about it from the start of the class. But...

"Miss Sovert?" Ms. Hollis repeated, an impatient edge to her voice.

Heather forced her legs to move. "Yes, Ms. Hollis?"

To her surprise, her teacher smiled. "Did you enjoy yourself, Miss Sovert?"

"Enjoy ... oh ... you mean ... um..."

Heather could not say it, a rare moment when candid talk about sex would not come to her.

Ms. Hollis grinned. "You seemed quite happy with your choice of partner."

Heather's eyes widened. It had happened! But Ms. Hollis must have done it. She has an Aura.

Ms. Hollis tilted her head. "Is there a problem, Miss Sovert?"

"Um ... no ... I mean, when did you start doing that? When did you start letting us have sex in the classroom?"

"I've always had that option, you know."

Heather didn't answer. She was sure that was wrong somehow. She would have remembered something as...

(normal)

... as strange...

(NORMAL)

Heather swallowed. She nodded.

"But you seem to enjoy it so much more than the others. Perhaps I can arrange for more time for you. After school, perhaps."

"But I ... I can't."

"Oh?"

"I get plenty of sex after school, Ms. Hollis," Heather said. That she was saying this to a teacher was unreal. And a teacher with an Aura as well.

An Aura ... and Aura ... she has an Aura ... dammit, SHE HAS AN AURA...

"Then I could provide the opportunity for even more," Ms. Hollis said with a silky smile.

Heather bit her lip. More sex. Yes, she did need that. More than her teacher would ever know. Or maybe Ms. Hollis did. Maybe that was why she was doing this. She had her students' interest at heart, really.

... an Aura ... an Aura...

"Consider it, Miss Sovert," Ms. Hollis said. "That's all. Get to your next class."

Heather nodded and fled.

As usual, Richie was too distracted to pay attention to the lesson. As usual, the teacher resigned himself to Richie's state and didn't bother calling on him. But what distracted him was anything but usual.

Richie could not stop thinking about death.

During baseball season, he could entertain himself with thoughts of hitting the field that afternoon, or go over stats of his favorite players in the pro leagues, or speculate on which of the rising stars in the amateur leagues will be snapped up next. Instead, his thoughts lingered in the cold and dark of the grave.

Sunday's vision had dug claws into his mind and burrowed into his core. The images and emotions of the departed that had ripped through his psyche now replayed despite the chill that crawled up his spine.

Richie wanted to tell Jason about it just to hear him claim it was not real. Or Richie might find comfort in some scientific-sounding explanation, perhaps that he had conjured it in his head because he expected something bad to happen at the cemetery.

Except that he had not expected anything to happen.

Everything else that he had seen with his power was true, even the thoughts he picked up from others. But they were the living. How could a dead body have anything left except rotting flesh?

Don't be stupid, dude. Tell them.

Richie frowned. Heather rejecting him in front of the others had killed any desire for cooperation.

Still thinking with your dick, huh?

Richie's hand clenched. So what if he was? Everyone else was getting it on with someone else in the Harbingers, so why not him? Heather needed cock, he was willing to furnish it. He didn't need sex with her.

Yeah, right. So what DO you need, huh?

Richie could answer only what he did not need: acceptance. He gave up seeking that awhile ago. He could do without it.

Richie did not notice that class had ended until students filed past his desk. He slammed his book shut, still turned to the first page of the lesson, and stuffed it into his book bag. He slung it over his shoulder, its jumbled contents bulging like bricks against the fading canvas.

He was about to head towards Jason's locker when he remembered what he was supposed to do after that class.

Muttering a curse, he trudged through the student tide towards the counselor's office. He almost hoped he'd see something, just so he'd have an excuse to scowl and mutter epithets under his breath. Instead, he found a man doing little more than standing in the doorway of his office, watching the students go by. Not a single wisp of Aura on him anywhere.

"Sizing me up, I would assume."

Richie had not expected to be spoken to, nor for the man to notice that he was being scrutinized. "Huh?"

"Sizing me up," said Victor. "Some like to do that when they see someone new in town. It's a primal instinct that goes pretty far back in our evolution."

Richie frowned. "I don't know nothin' about that."

"Human evolution is a fascinating topic. You can learn so much about humanity from our ancient beginnings."

Richie had to suppress a roll of his eyes. Shit, it's like talking to Jason when he gets his nerd on.

Victor smiled. "But I trust you're not interested in all that."

"Not really, no. Well, gotta go. See ya in the funny papers."

Victor inclined his head as Richie headed away. "An interesting turn of phrase."

Richie stopped and turned back. "What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded.

Victor tapped his chin. "I seem to recall hearing it before."

Richie narrowed his eyes. "Oh yeah? Where? Who?"

Victor said nothing, and continued to tap his finger in a steady rhythm. After a few more seconds, he stopped, paused, and lowered his hand. "Ah, perhaps it was only in a movie, spoken by an actor that sounds like you."

Richie stared, eyes burning. His teeth clenched for a moment before he said with forced civility, "Yeah, whatever. I gotta go." He turned and fled.

Richie felt he had come out ahead. He had acquired a reason to hate the counselor. The conversation had reminded him of his father, from whom he had picked up that expression. Richie used it whenever he wanted to say "bye" in a manner that meant more "I have to get away from you losers."

With thoughts of his father came the resentment over why the man had left and was not there to save his mother.

Richie refused to allow himself to hate his father. Transferring that hatred to the counselor would work out much better. To consummate the arrangement, Richie turned his head and gave the receding form of the counselor a properly contemptuous look. What a fucking tool.

So this is what Richie grew up to be, Victor mused. So much like his father in some ways.

He is the weak link, the Darkness snarled. I will break him. Without him, they are not complete. I won't let them be complete.

Victor sensed the underlying panic in the Entity's bravado. The Darkness was fighting a two-front war, and it needed Victor to help it claim victory on one of them.

Weak link, the Darkness repeated. He will break, and the chain along with him.

Victor quieted his thoughts from the Darkness and folded his hands before him.

Victor was not convinced that Richie was as weak as the Darkness thought. He saw no reaction to his finger-tap, not so much as a flick of the eyes. Most could be distracted by such a gesture, if for just a second, and thus afford an opportunity to influence the subject further. But Richie was too focused for such a simple trick.

Yet the cards were still in his favor. The Harbingers were an obstacle, but not an insurmountable one. The longer it took them to realize the true nature of the problem, the closer Victor would be to completing both his tasks.

"What?!" Melinda nearly shrieked. "The whole freaking class??"

"Melinda, please, keep your voice down!" Cassie hissed.

"I think so, yes," Heather replied.

"Wait, what do you mean, you think so?"

"I mean, yes, that's what happened. The whole class."

Melinda fell against the lockers and folded her arms. "God! Now what do we have to deal with?"

Cassie glanced from Heather to Melinda. "Something doesn't make sense here."

"Cassie, I saw her," Heather said. "She had an Aura. She made it look like it was supposed to happen. Like the class has been doing this forever."

"And she made you do it with Brad," Diane said in a flat voice.

Melinda snorted. "Oh yeah, like he needs an excuse to boink Heather."

Cassie shook her head. "No, something's wrong here."

"And just when is making the whole class a boink-fest right?"

"I don't mean that!" Cassie snapped. Her skin flushed, but she ignored it. "We need to talk to Jason later, but I'm sure he'll say the same thing, that something is not adding up. I just can't figure out what it is right now."

"What's to figure out?" Melinda demanded. "Ms. Hollis is going to turn everyone into sex slaves class by class!"

"But that doesn't make sense. Where would she get that sort of power just out of the blue?"

"Who the hell cares, Cassie? She's got it, that's all that matters."

Diane sighed. "Dammit, why can't I see these Auras? Heather, I-I'm sorry, but how do I know that you're not ... that Ms. Hollis won't make you mess with me like Melissa did."

Heather lay a hand on Diane's shoulder. "Diane, I promised you I wouldn't let that happen again and I meant it. I don't care what she does to me."

Diane shook her head. "You can't control that. I'm going to have to keep consulting Melinda that you don't have..."

"Oh, stop whining!" Melinda snapped. "Heather doesn't have even a wisp. Nothing. Nada."

"But it's worn off now, right?"

"Wait, that's it!" Cassie said. "That's what's off about this! Melinda, did Heather have an Aura when she first left her class?"

Melinda glanced at her sister. "No, she didn't."

"And I didn't see one either. But when Melissa was affecting her, didn't Heather sometimes have one?"

"Yeah, a really weak one. A lot of students had that, since Melissa kept screwing with people whenever she felt like it."

"Cassie, maybe I didn't have one because Ms. Hollis didn't control us all for very long," said Heather. "It was only for the second half of the class. Melissa messed with me for entire class periods."

"But wouldn't there be something?" Cassie asked. "Even for the short time?"

"No, you're right, Cassie," said Diane. "Melinda couldn't have seen anything on Heather. She would've freaked out if she had."

"I do not freak out!" Melinda protested.

"Yes, you do, and frankly, I'd rather you did so we don't miss the warning."

Heather sighed. "What's really creeping me out about this is that it just seemed normal when I really got into it. It still feels that way now, like I have to think about it to know that it was not normal."

"But that would imply you're still being controlled," Cassie said. "So again, where is your Aura?"

Heather frowned. "That's the weird thing. I didn't feel like I was being controlled. It's what I said before, you know when you've been affected by the Darkness. It's like having a bad taste in your mouth after drinking something you don't like."

Melinda nodded. She understood that sensation all to well.

"All right, we need to get to class," said Cassie. "I'll talk to Jason and Richie about it over lunch, and we can all meet after school."

Victor watched as Jason walked away and rejoined his friend Richie at the end of the hall. Both glanced once more in his direction before they disappeared around the corner on their way to the lunch room.

Every Harbinger had scrutinized him, save for Diane Woodrow. As the Darkness had suspected, Diane could not see the Dark Auras, something which it thought it could exploit given time. The Darkness was also unaware of Diane possessing any special abilities, such as Cassie's Dream Gift or Richie's visions of the past.

Victor saw his own possibilities. Diane may feel like a lesser member of the group, that her contributions were marginal. She could perceive an unspoken peer pressure to show some extraordinary ability. Her open lesbianism likely earned some measure of rejection from her peers. It was a recipe for something more than typical teenage angst.

His thoughts returned to Richie. He had never thought he would cross paths with Mike Hendon's progeny. Victor had not cared for that particular task, as far out of his venue and as distasteful as it had been. However, the Darkness needed Hendon out of the way, and its influence was confined to Haven.