Chapter 1

Haley knelt on the glossy floor and gazed up at the Golden Goddess, Elaine. Tears streamed down her face.

"We ... we found Tara," she murmured. "We know why the 'T' twins have been gone for the last two years. They're both dead."

"And the only person who'd might have been able to save them is Lisa, and you exiled her," Holly added, her voice hollow and devoid of emotion.

She was about to bring up the 'M' twins absence as well, but Elaine frowned down at them as she stood up and said, "Don't even go there."

Elaine continued stepping down and knelt next to Haley; "I'm sorry, my darlings. I know how it feels to be the only ones left of your tight-knit little group." She hugged Haley to her breasts and felt the girl break down and sob against her shoulder.

Holly stood, looking alone and forlorn, devastated by the loss. "We will find who did this. And I will kill them. Separate their limbs from their bodies and watch them bleed out."

"That I cannot allow, child," Elaine replied, her voice soft but stern. "The Writ of Stone prevents us from committing murder in retaliation for killing one of us. That primary law keeps us from becoming the masters of those who live in this domain. It provides order and trust in our guidance, and it must be upheld."

"Then what?" Haley asked, sniffing and pulling back from Elaine's embrace. "What are we supposed to do? Give some male monster a slap on the wrist and tell him not to do it anymore?"

"No, of course not," Elaine sighed. "For now, though, you can take me to where you found Tara. I would witness this travesty for myself before I determine what action to take."

Elaine squatted down to study the skeletal remains of the woman half hidden in the tall grasses. She touched the dirty blonde hair and closed her eyes, attempting to pick up any residual thoughts or feelings that may have been left behind. This wasn't Tia or Tara; it was another female of similar build. But Elaine had already found Tara – her desiccated remains lying face down in the dirt, the back of her skull blown out with buckshot.

"This woman's been dead too long for me to pick up anything," Elaine announced, standing up and looking around for another body. So far, Holly, Haley and Elaine had found ten bodies, all female, all murdered – shot, as near as she could tell. Someone had been killing girls out here for a long time.

"Hey!" a female voice called from the edge of the clearing. "I thought I felt somebody roaming around out here," the young, naked female said as she approached, placing her bare feet carefully to avoid thorns and various skeletal parts. "Oh, Holly! Haley! Long time!"

Haley smiled, "Hi, Mari," while Holly nodded and gave the newcomer a half-wave of her hand as she idly searched around for more bones.

"You're looking for more dead girls, huh?" Mari asked, looking around with a grimace on her face.

"Yes," Elaine replied, startling the newcomer, as she hadn't seen the Golden Goddess standing near the edge of the clearing. "What can you tell me about them?"

"Goddess! Forgive me!" Mari exclaimed. She didn't know who this one was, but from the long, flowing blond hair, she had a pretty good idea. "You're Elaine, the Golden Goddess, aren't you?"

"Yes," Elaine replied. "The twins, here, informed me that several murders have taken place. They believe Tia and Tara Simpson are among these remains."

"Tia & Tar..." Mari stopped, stunned at the possibility. "But they're ... they went back to collect more ... They disappeared after Sandi was shot! I thought they'd gone back in time to collect more of us to train as Phoeni. You mean they're ... they're dead? I mean – they've been gone a long time, but..." She finally ran out of words. All but one: "Lisa?"

"She's gone," Haley told her, "but she's not dead – as far as we know, anyway."

"All right, girls," Elaine chastised the young Phoenix. "No more of that, please." To the newcomer, she asked, "What can you tell me about what's been happening here?"

"Well, um," Mari began. "Sometimes girls show up at the Preserve – it's right over the hill back there, and we train them up and sometimes they stay and sometimes we send them back home and..."

"I know about the training program," Elaine interrupted. "I thought Tia and Tara were running it in Lisa's absence. I want to know what you know about these..." she gestured around her with one hand, her eyebrows raised.

"Oh, well," Mari began again, "sometimes the locals find girls roaming out here and take pot shots at them. This is supposed to be private property, I guess. And some of the men down there," she waved her hand at the several ranch houses easily visible along the curvature, "really resent us being here. So they sometimes shoot at us. There haven't been any girls come this way for a while, though, and I often check the area to see if there are any wounded girls out here that might need rescuing."

"Have you found many?"

"Like I said, not lately, and not because they've been killed either, though you can see sometimes the girls who seek us out don't make it to the Preserve. I've saved two in the last year, and none have been killed out here for a long time – at least for the last year and a half."

"The ranchers around here are murdering girls who want to become Phoenix?" Elaine asked, her voice rising in outraged anger. "And nobody thought to bring this to my attention?"

"We didn't know it was happening!" Holly cried.

Haley quickly added, "We told you as soon as we found these bodies!"

"What about you?" Elaine asked, her anger directed at the seemingly innocent young upstart who was telling her all this.

"Me?" Mari asked, nearing squeaking the word. "I thought the people in charge were taking care of that! Tony and Ric run the Preserve, and we..."

"How many girls are at the Preserve right now?" Elaine asked, her voice cold and void of emotion. She sounded ... dangerous.

"Um ... seven," Mari confessed. "It's been pretty quiet for the last year or so – no new trainees or anyone showing up for a while, now." She didn't need to add that Lisa, Tia and Tara had been the primary ones promoting the Phoenix program and, with their lack of participation, no new Phoeni were arriving to be trained – except for the two wounded girls Mari had rescued in the last dozen months.

"I think this is her," Holly murmured, interrupting the discourse between Elaine and the terrified fledgling. They hadn't found Tia, yet, but Holly was pretty certain the skeleton with the staved in skull hidden in the grasses near Tara was her.

Elaine trod over and bent down to examine Tia's remains. "You girls can't take head wounds?" she asked. She didn't know if this was a flaw in the 'design' of the Phoenix girls or a flaw in their training. She herself wasn't a Phoenix, but she knew she could survive a head wound like the one Tia, if this was her, had suffered. She could survive anything except, perhaps, decapitation. 'Or maybe being crushed... '

Haley replied. "Lisa taught us how to come back from complete body annihilation. I can't imagine getting shot in the head would kill either Tia or Tara."

Mari added, "Mostly the girls at the Preserve learn how to survive gunshot wounds to the torso. The guys don't really like shooting us in the head. We die too quickly and they like to ... um ... play with us after they, uh, bring us down."

"But if someone shot you in the head, it wouldn't kill you, would it?" Elaine demanded.

Mari nervously shook her head, 'No.'

"We can survive almost anything," Holly added, offering Mari her support. "And the new Phoenix girls are just as capable of sustaining violent destruction."

"Then why did Tia and Tara die?" Elaine asked, frustration bringing tears to her eyes.

"Maybe they didn't die," Haley suggested as she suddenly thought of an unpleasant possibility. "Maybe..."

"Maybe they just ... left," Holly added, finishing her twin's heartbreaking suggestion. "They left us."

What the twins felt about that was easily seen in the tears suddenly streaming down their faces.

"There are fairies in here," Frank grumbled as he rolled over on the bed.

"How can you tell?" Tanya giggled, having just convinced one to sting his bare butt with a spark of fairy dust – yet another term for Phoenix Fire – while he slept.

Frank sighed at hearing the playfulness in Tanya's voice. It was Tanya's fault he was now awake, and not the fault of that innocent, mindless, miniature creature whose only purpose seemed to be 'Death by Fucking'. More specifically, a fairy would rub herself against a breast or a cock, or even slip between a woman's legs and pester her until the victim squashed them against whatever sex organ the fairy was teasing. Rubbing their sparkly essence into your skin caused the most amazing...

"They followed us through the wormhole," Frank grumbled, his head still buried in the pillow, determined to not turn over and let them play with his cock until he grabbed hold and masturbated himself with it. "They're like an infestation of bedbugs!"

"They only want to play," Tanya reminded him, then a soft grunt let him know she was probably sitting across the room or lying on the floor, covered with them and rubbing herself all over, smearing fairy juice everywhere.

"Sounds like they're playing with you," Frank sighed as he lifted up onto his elbows and dragged himself over to the edge of the bed to watch his sexy wife being assaulted by several dozen friggin' fairies.

And she was.

"So what happens when they get loose and spread all over New Eden," he wanted to know. "We'll all starve to death 'cause everybody'll be fucking friggin' fairies instead of getting any work done!"

A deliciously naked, tiny female suddenly appeared in front of his face, barked at him as though annoyed, then sparked his nose. He smacked at it, but it was already gone.

"Like friggin' mosquitoes," he grumbled, then rolled over on the bed, remembering too late that doing so exposed his half-hard 'morning wood'. "Aw, fuck!" he sighed as he felt the fluttering attention of at least two fairies as they landed and began kissing and licking his dick. Each one was about six inches tall, substantial enough to give his cock some real sensation, especially when one tried to fit that monstrous organ between her legs. Amazingly, they were flexible enough to manage it, but his spewing organ meant their destruction; not that they minded, as it seemed they could instantly re-assimilate after anything he did to them. "Indestructible friggin' mosquitoes."