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Firecracker

By: Nigel Debonnaire



The bouquets of color burst brightly above them; everyone on the deck of the cabin cruiser was looking up to see the show. It was the Nation's birthday, and like many residents of the Lake, Keith Watson took his family and their friends out to see the show from the boat: he knew just where to navigate to get a stunning view impossible to see from the shore. He sat in the Captain's chair, and watched his dozen guests as they took in the show. All were younger than he was, and he was an old 57. His hair was still dark, pulled back into a ponytail under a baseball cap, and his frame lean, but his legs weren't what they used to be, the result of an old war wound. A walker rested in the cabin below that usually propelled him around his little world.

The fireworks continued their show; the faint music of the 1812 Overture sounded from the amphitheater next to downtown. Many boats dotted the water, with many colored running lights, and dark figures lounged on their decks, serenading each other with a succession of beer tabs. It was hot and humid on this Missouri evening, a night where one's clothes stuck and the air was almost too heavy to breathe. On the water was better; breezes moderated the heat.

His daughter Sandy turned and looked at him: "You all right, Pop?"

"Fine, Sandy. You need another beer?"

"Yeah, Dad."

He pulled a Bud from the cooler beside him and tossed it over. "There ya go, kiddo."

"Thanks, Dad. You sure you're feeling, OK?"

"Nothing wrong that ain't usually wrong."

"All right. You tell me if you're feeling bad."

"Thanks, honey. Enjoy the show." Keith turned to look around the deck: most of the passengers were his grandchildren and their friends. All were wearing as little as reasonable, usually t-shirts and shorts, almost all had a cigarette in one hand and a can in the other. 

His son Mike was at the stern next to the anchor. "How's it goin', Dad?"

"Fine, Mike. Thanks for askin' You need another beer?"

"Not yet. Still nursing this'un."

"Okay."

One girl was sitting away from the rest in the corner, her head down, her long bottle blond hair illuminated in flashes from the bursts, barely watching the show. She was so close he could reach out and touch her, but she was lost in her own little world. He turned toward her and said quietly. "You all right, kiddo?"

She glanced up unsure that he was speaking to her. "Yes," came the feeble reply.

"What's your name?"

"Kammie. Kammie Smith."

"Who're ya here with?"

"Stacey and Erin." Stacy and Erin were his twin granddaughters, freshly graduated from High School. They were taking turns flirting with a tall boy wearing only long shorts; as much as they could without attracting their parents' notice.

"How come you're over there?' Keith continuted. "The show's better out by the rail."

There was a sob, and a deep breath. "My boyfriend ran away last week."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Stacy said he took up with a Mexican girl who's gonna take 'im home to Mexico. Took all his savings with 'im; said he's gonna live like a king down there."

"I'm sorry, Kammie. Maybe he'll come t' his senses."

"No, he won't," she wailed as another burst went off overhead. "He said I rode his ass too hard 'bout gettin' a job and making money so's we could have kids and stuff. I told 'im he could join the Army and have it made, and he said I wanted his ass dead in Iraq. Called me a stupid platinum blonde bitch. Slapped my face a few times and walked away two weeks ago."

Keith took a swig from his beer. "He's not good enough fer ya."

A fresh set of sobs accompanied the next display above. "I'm never gonna get 'nother boyfriend, I know it."

"Why d'ya say that, Kammie?"

She looked at him with full eyes. "Cause my tits're too small and my ass's too skinny. I'm justa frickin' washboard with bee stings, that's what Daddy said. Jeff's new girl's got huge tits and a big butt, and long black hair."

"Stand up, Kammie, let me look at ya." She stood up wearing a blue jean skirt and a red tube top. A short girl, just over five feet tall, with short blonde hair and perfectly proportioned breasts and hips for her size. "Ya look fine to me."

"Really? You're just bein' nice."

"No, Kammie, you look. . .lovely. I seen a lotta girls, and you're in the ballpark. You'll get a boy."

"Haven't had 'nother boy since I was in junior high. Jeff's the only one who ever wanted me."

He patted her shoulder. "Ya got lots o' time, 'n no problem takin' it. Don't worry, kiddo."

"Thanks," she sniffled. "You're a nice man."

He buzzed his lips and another burst went overhead. The other guests were chatting, drinking and smoking as the show when on; the Stars and Stripes Forever began in the distance while the Grand Finale went skyward. There was a buzz from across the water as people in other boats oohed and aahed at the display. It was one salvo after another, building to a grand climax as Sousa's famous piccolo part cut through the brass and the percussion to tease their ears. 

It was a cavalcade of reds, blues, yellows and greens, bursting in every direction and every pattern one after the other in close succession. The boats on the lake were almost close enough to touch each other; it seemed the crowd went from one bank across the water in an unbroken chain to the other shore. Keith was sure if his legs were better, he could walk from one side to the other.

The finale was greeted with applause and boat horns that rang up and down the lake. On the bluffs, a procession of headlights prepared to move outward, while the flotilla throttled up to sail home. "Do you want to haul anchor, Dad?" Mike called from below.

"Not yet, Mike," Keith replied. "Let's let the drunks git a head start."

"Okay."

"Have another beer." The kids on deck greeted the suggestion with a cheer, and the tanned boy wearing nothing but long shorts who was flirting with the twins stood on the rail to urinate outward.

Sandy snipped: "What th' Hell are you doing, Shane?"

"Takin' a leak, Ms. B."

"Do you have t'do that here, now?"

"Yeah, I gotta do it now and I guess you don't wan' me to piss in the boat."

The girls groaned and the boys laughed, but nobody imitated Shane. He finished and hopped down to crack another beer. "Who's Shane here with?" Kammie whispered. "I think he's with Stacey's boyfriend. Maybe his brother."

"He's a jerk."

"Yeah."

"He's goin' to Iraq next month," Sandy said matter-of-factly from her spot.

"Good for him," Keith said quietly.

"Whaddaya mean 'Good for him'?" Stacey burst in from the deck, glaring at him. "He's gonna risk his life for our country. Sure, he's an idiot, but he deserves some respect, Grandpa."

"I respect him," Keith replied.

Shane came up, shook his finger in the old man's face and said. "Look Mister, I'm gonna be keepin' your ass safe in Baghdad in a coupla months, so I don't give a shit what you think. If you don' like what I'm doin', then FUUUCK YOU."

A quick motion, almost imperceptible, made Shane bend over double, holding his groin. "I did two years in Vietnam before you were born," Keith replied firmly. "I kept your Grandaddy's ass safe so he could go home and make your Daddy, who could get drunk on his ass one Saturday night and make you. And my Daddy landed on Omaha Beach. So don't chew me a new asshole yet, dipstick."

Shane shook his head, trying to clear it. "You were in 'Nam?" he asked tentatively.

Keith nodded. "And Cambodia. Spent a lot of nights in the jungle, wondering if Charlie was gonna come cut my throat while I was asleep, or gun down my buddies in an ambush the next day before we knew what was happening. We kept America safe on short rations, fucking stupid officers, a President without balls, five million mosquitoes, and a constant case of the shits. When I got home, people spit on me when I got off the plane, and cussed me out 'cause I lost my war. When you come back from Baghdad, little boy, tell me how bad you had it and how big your dick is grown and how important you are. IF you manage to survive Basic Training and make it there in the first place. In the meantime, if you don't behave, I'm gonna throw your ass off this boat here and now even though I am a cripple, little boy." 

Shane nodded and waddled over to sit down as far away as he could. Sandy walked forward, giving him a stern look and a shake of her head, while the others looked away awkwardly. "Dad, you went too far," she said. "You don't know even who his grandfather is."

"I do. Greg Harrison. Good man, saved my butt a couple times in Saigon in a back alley and I saved his three times in the jungle. Died too soon after he came home. Shane looks just like him, only Greg wus a lot smarter."

Mike hauled the anchor, and Keith awakened the engine. He guided the cruiser deftly through drunken traffic to the landing near downtown, where the party boarded. Sandy went back to her spot in the middle of the deck, and Kammie sat in her corner looking at Keith, while the others gradually melted their silence with scattered observations.

While they made the journey, Kammie stood up to whisper in Keith's ear: "Can I come back and talk with you a while? Later? When everybody else's gone?"

"Aren't you riding with Stacey?"

"No, I met 'em at the landing downtown. Let me get off and tell 'em I'm goin' somewhere else, and I'll come back."

"Okay."

They reached the landing, and the most of the passengers got off without a word to the Captain. Mike came over to shake his hand and look at him quizzically, but disembarked after a simple 'Good night.' Sandy came over and looked deep into her father's eyes: "Do ya wanna come over t' our house tonight, Dad? The girls are at a slumber party, and Frankie will be in by noon."

"No thanks, Sandra Jean. Need to be alone tonight. I'll catch up with Frankie before he goes back over."

"If you say so, Dad. You got your cell phone with you?"

"Shit yes, Sandy. Leave me alone."

"All right. G'night, Dad."

He sat watching the crowd thin as people wandered away from the shoreline. There were a couple of bars downtown that were increasing in patronage exponentially, and their music started leaking to the dock. Keith's buddy Harold Kerns wandered over, giving him a friendly wave before resting on his leg propped on a support. "Hey, Keith. Goin' to the Legion later?"

Keith smiled grimly at his friend, tipping his cap. "Not tonight, Harry. Arthur's givin' me too much trouble. Need to take my pills and lie down a while. Don't even think I'll get off the boat."

"Hey, I'll buy you a coupla rounds of medicine, Keith. C'mon. You need a night out. It's been too long."

"No thanks. Drink one for me."

"Sure, sure. Great show tonight, wasn't it?"

"Best ever. How's your missus?"

"Fran's fine. Been running crazy with all the kids and grandkids down. How's Sandy?"

"Goin' nuts getting her kids off to school and seeing her boy back from Iraq for a couple of weeks."

"When does Frankie get in?"

"Tomorrow." 

Harry looked around and saw he was almost alone. He stood up and waved "Well, take it easy, Keith."

"Yeah, Harry. You too"

The crowd was moving away from the lakefront, and Kammie moved against the flow in returning. She stepped back on the boat, and Keith gunned the engine to move off.

They sailed in silence for a few minutes, the only lights were the running lights and the glow of the underwater radar and depth finder. There were fewer lights on the water to dodge, and the stars were coming out of the gunpowder induced haze. She stood next to the captain's chair and hugged his arm as they cruised lightly over the water.

"Okay, why did you come back, Kammie?" he said out of nowhere.

" 'Cause you made me feel good. Shane's been an asshole since he signed up in December. Been pushing people around. He's been mean to me since we were in fifth grade, and lately he's been really mean."

"He'll get taken down when he gets to boot camp. How mean?"

"Boob grabbin' 'n titty twisters in the school corridors."

"They get away with THAT in High School these days? Should have thrown him overboard," he muttered.

They talked about many things on the trip back to Keith's boat slip: the stars, Vietnam, High School, her father who abandoned her, his wife who died nine years earlier. He kept the speed of the boat moderate, and soon found his tie up. Under his instructions, she hopped on the planks and tied the ropes as he made it fast. "What's this doing here?" she asked, pointing to a motorized wheelchair on the dock.

"Gets me up and down from the house. Wanna ride?"

She giggled. "Maybe later. How do you do this when you're by yourself."

"I got it worked out. I kin get a line in the middle sitting at the Captain's chair, and that's steady enough to throw the other lines out, get off, hop in the chair and tie everything down."

"Must take forever."

"It takes a little time."

"Why do it?"

He paused. "I love the water. I love bein' here. Sandy says I'm an idiot, there's a nice VA home 50 miles away, and I could be dead for a week down here before anybody notices. But I don't give a shit. I'd rather die here. I'm stayin' "

She hopped back on the boat. "You wanna to up to the house?"

"Nope. Sometimes I sleep down here. Sometimes I anchor by an island I know a few miles away. Sleepin' on the boat's very relaxing, if the temperature's just right."

"What should I do?"

"Well, the house's unlocked. I got a guest room with a big bed. You can stay there tonight."

She paused and looked at the sky. "I think I'll stay here a while."

"Okay. Why?"

"Cause you're good to me." A long, pregnant pause hung as she looked at him nervously. "Do your legs still work at all?"

He winced as he shifted his balance in the Captain's chair. "I can stand a little bit, take a couple of steps. Use the walker a lot, and the wheelchair to get up and down from the house."

"Did you get hurt in 'Nam?"

"Yes." 

She came up close to look deep into his eyes, as if she was trying to read the story directly from his brain, her breath a butterfly's touch on his cheek. "I always imagined being a soldier's girl. Waiting for my boy to come home, where he was fighting for our country. Fucking him silly while he was home on leave. Taking care of his babies. Jeff's such a wuss, I'm ashamed of him. He's the only boyfriend I ever had, and he didn't want to protect us."

"You got your head on straight, Kammie. But ya don't know what it's like to be a soldier's bride: Sandy was born while I was in 'Nam, and I didn't meet her 'till she was 19 months old. Screamed her head off when she saw me for a week; took a long time t'make friends with her. Viv had it tough, so tough. Almost left me when I came home a cripple. I wouldn't wish a soldier's life on anybody after what happened to me."

"Did ya have other children?"

"I wanted to, she didn't. By the time she thought differently, cancer got her and she fought it for fifteen years."

They sat and looked at each other a while. He broke the silence abruptly. "Why d'ya think you're ugly?"

"'Cause I'm hideous."

"Bullshit. You're cute enough, your face is nice." Her skin was tanned, her brown eyes were set above strong cheekbones and a dimpled smile.

"But my tits're too small. I'm gonna get them worked on when I got enough money."

"No, they're not." 

"Bullshit. Look at these." She stood up and pulled down her tube top. Her breasts were nicely rounded peaks that swung noticeably when she shook her torso for him. "There's not enough there to notice."

"Honey, they look fine to me. Really fine."

"Do you mean it?"

"Mouthwaterin' sugar. Gonna hafta take a cold shower, sweetheart."

She smiled in the dark and pulled up her skirt. A dark bush lurked out from beneath the jean skirt. "You're not a natural blonde," he sneered.

"So what? Ya like how I look, Mr. Winston?"

"Call me Keith. Any girl shows me her tits'n cunt gets to call me by my first name."

"Okay." She came over and put her hand on his crotch. "Wow, I didn't know you could still get it up. I thought old men were. . .impudent."

"Impotent. Never been my problem."

"Can I see your dick?" "Tell me first why you're not wearing panties?"

"Oh, I had a nice pair of red, white and blue panties on earlier today."

"And where did they end up?"

"I was running around with Stacey and Erin, and we was passing this group of boys by Walmart, driving 'round in circles, flirting with them. Stacey showed 'em her tits, Erin mooned them, and when it was my turn, all I could think of was throwing them my sweaty panties."

"Okay. How'd they take that?"

"I looked behind me. They was barkin' like dogs and sniffin' it."

"How did it make you feel?"

"It turned me on and creeped me out."

"Fair enough." He thought for a moment while she was stoking his manhood through his shorts. "Hey, wait a minute, wait a minute. You eighteen?"

"Yeah. Just graduated High School. You were there."

"Oh, yeah, I remember." He unzipped his fly and eased out his dick.

She looked at it wide eyed. "Wow, that's the biggest dick I ever saw!"

"Thanks."

"Kin I touch it?"

"Sure, I guess." She reached out delicately, just touching it quickly with her hand and pulling it away, giggling. It twitched, and she took it very gently and started stroking it along the shaft. 

"Your balls are huge, too. Like a horses' Don't ya have a girlfriend?"

"No. Nobody interested in a cripple like me. Everybody's nice enough, especially down at the Legion, but I haven't had a girlfriend since Viv died."

"Maybe I kin be your girlfriend," she wondered, and kept her eyes glued to his dick. Pulling it up, she took a long look at his balls, and ran her hand on them up and down, making him more rigid. "Wow, you're getting hard, Mr. Winston."

"Please, call me Keith. Any girl strokin' my cock and playin' with my balls gets to call me by my first name." Her tongue licked her lips and her eyes danced for a moment. "Do ya think I kin suck it?"

"Do you wanna?"

"Yeah," she said, and began licking around the end. Treating his cock like a lollipop, she worked around and around it, sucking the end in and out. The distant sound of a firework reverberated across the lake. He looked up at the stars and wondered how he got to be this lucky.

"You enjoying yourself?" he asked, stroking her hair.

She pulled off him with a pop. "Oh yeah, your dick's much nicer than Jeff's. He always came by now and never gave me a really good fuckin'."

"Do you wanna get fucked?"

"Oh, could I?" she giggled. "I'd loveta have this big dick up my cunt. Do we have to do anything special?"

"Whaddya mean?"

"Ya know, do I have to get on top since you're messed up, or something?"

He swung his legs around to the steps down to the cabin. "My arms are strong, and I kin do what any other guy can do. Wanna find out?"

"Sure," she squealed, and watched as he levered himself down the steps and landed on the bed. Skipping down after him, pulling off her clothes and laying down beside him. Stroking his cock, she made it wet with his anticipatory moisture and spread her legs. He rolled over on top of her and gradually inserted himself, going slowly at first until he hit bottom. Starting their mating dance slowly, he built in speed and intensity as she got used to him.

Her face was like an angel's, and she ground her hips under him, clawing at his back, and bouncing in response to his thrusting. She thought it would never end, on and on they went, and she was amazed how he was able to stay on top of her so long. Finally, she approached her climax and felt his seed plow deep within her as she screamed and wailed in her first serious orgasm.

She cuddled in his arms as they lay together afterward. He wrapped his arms around her and after a long silence punctuated by fireworks going off around the shoreline. Finally, he whispered in her ear: "Why are you here?"


Firecracker



*Hey y'all. It was nice to have a break with no dangling story threads to worry about.

This story was one I had cooking for the Halloween story contest, but it took me a few extra months to finish it. For anyone who has read my 'Bottom Tier' stories, this is more of that format.

This story, as it stands alone, is a complete story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. If I never wrote another chapter of it again, I wouldn't feel guilty.

That being said, I feel like I'm not quite done with Willem and Isaac.

Please enjoy!

All Characters are 18+*

*

"The unfinished house has been reported to be 'haunted' because of the abnormally high rate of accidents within. Four men have been injured in the wreckage, which doesn't seem unusual, but the odd thing is that these only seem to happen at night, when the men weren't even supposed to be in the building, weren't even on duty."

Willem was in a bar, so he watched the scrolling black subtitles under the woman's earnest face to get the news story. The woman's face was occasionally replaced with pictures of the building, a derelict old house with peeling blue paint and a sagging roof. And then again to a hospital, showing the four injured men with their faces blurred.

Willem couldn't be sure without seeing the faces, but he thought he could see some of the telltale signs. He reached for the bowl of pretzels and popped the stale snacks in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. The screen was reflected in his pale grey eyes. 

"The company in charge of construction has told us that there has been some untoward behavior, drinking and partying in the ruins at night, and that any injuries are the fault of this behavior. However, we have testimony from a worker who will be referred to as 'C', who states that each of the men was in the building alone, while the injuries occurred. This is Laurie Dhue, from Fox News."

Willem rolled his eyes. Fox was bound to report it wrong, but it wouldn't kill him to look. Activity was rare in the small town that he lived in, but Minneapolis was only an hour's drive away. If it really was something above and beyond human stupidity, maybe Willem could do something to help.

It would only be a little while until the deaths started, if it really was what Willem thought it was.

Willem glanced around the bar. It wasn't a loud flashy bar, but just a quiet hole in the wall where men could meet and hook up. Willem knew most of the regulars, but there was a sweet young thing at the other end of the bar, looking around nervously and nursing a beer.

He had to be one of the kids from the college, sneaking away to the next town over to avoid being seen. He had shaggy brown hair and slim shoulders. He was dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt and converse sneakers. He seemed to be trying to take in everything at once with his wide green eyes.

Willem moved over and sat next to the young man, who glanced at him, startled. Like a rabbit in a den of weasels.

"Buy you a drink?" Willem said smoothly, gesturing to the beer glass, nearly empty.

"Um, sure?" The kid couldn't have seemed less sure. He was eyeing Willem warily. Willem just gave his most charming smile and gestured for the barkeeper.

"Top off this young man's drink, and give me a Cuba Libre."

The drinks were in front of the pair in less than a minute. Bud Lite, and coke and rum with lime. Willem took a sip of his drink and started to talk to the young man, who loosened up slightly. The young man's name was Maxwell.

It was getting to be about eleven when Willem put his hand on the young man's shoulder for the first time. "Tomorrow is a Saturday, do you have any obligations?"

Maxwell glanced at the older man that had approached him in the bar. There was something about Willem that he couldn't put his finger on. Something frightening. Physically, he was just a tall slim man with dark red hair and a great smile and sexy grey eyes. Good looking, with a nice physique and a touch of chivalry, buying the drinks and acting the gentleman. He should have been all over the guy.

But Max just couldn't shake the feeling that there was something off about Willem.

"I'm very sorry." The young man murmured, getting up. "I... I have somewhere I need to be tomorrow. Here."

Maxwell was fumbling money from his wallet, blushing bright red.

Willem sighed. "You've had a bit to drink. Let me call you a cab. No, no keep your money. I had a nice time and a nice talk."

Willem made sure to see the tipsy boy into a cab and back to the college. He was in a darker mood than he appeared. All he could think about was the stream of handsome faces that had hesitated before coming to his bed, or made sure to get away after they had slept with him once.

He was an attractive man, a kind, intelligent, and successful man. Modesty wasn't his strong point, but he knew that he was good in bed.

But he always drove them away. They could always sense that something wasn't quite right.

Willem walked out to his car. He had nursed one drink all night long and wasn't feeling the effects. He started to drive north to Minneapolis. He was angry, and he hoped that there really was a demon in that house. He wanted to take out his anger on something.

---

Eli Burns had shut down the construction site. The injuries were more baffling and complex than anyone knew. He had shut down the construction site after the first two incidents, but another of his men had wandered in late at night, and the most recent attack was on a local homeless man.

Nobody but the police and the contractor knew that they were attacks.

The four men in the hospital had each lost a huge impossible amount of weight in one night. Almost forty pounds on one of them. They all had burn marks around their lips and genitals and eyes. The last man hadn't yet woken up, and the other three remembered nothing.

Eli Burns knew that it wasn't his fault. The first had been deemed a freak accident and the entire foundation had been searched, safety and security had been tightened, and hours had been reduced. After the second attack he had stopped the project indefinitely.

He had reacted properly, and yet if the attacks continued, he would turn into the scapegoat. He already knew that the media was trying to pin it on him, making it seem as if construction had continued after the horrible injuries.

He heard a knock on the door of his office and checked the clock. It was after midnight. Who the hell was here after midnight? Burns was here for the overtime himself, knowing that it might be a while before he got paid at all, much less overtime.

"If you're with the press, television, radio, anything at all, fuck off. No comment, no trespassing."

He thought that whoever had come knocking had left, but then he heard a soft male voice. "How long did the comas last? It's hard to get information from the hospital."

Eli Burns froze.

"I didn't commit the crimes, if that's what you're thinking. But I know that I can stop them."

"Who are you?" Eli snarled, grasping his company-issued cell phone in his hand, ready to flip it open with his thumb.

"My name is Willem, and I'm afraid you might have an infestation. With creatures like this, it only takes one or two to qualify as an infestation. I'm something of an exterminator."

Burns wanted to flip open the cell phone and call the police badly. But something in the man's voice reassured him.

"Trust me. You don't have to see me, or speak to me again, but I can get rid of your problem. I just need some information."

"Why should I trust you? You could be the attacker! What do you want, money?"

"I am not the attacker, and no, I do this service for free. Just tell me what you know about the victims so I can know what I'm dealing with. I don't need to know names or phone numbers. Just the gender, age, and symptoms."

Eli relaxed slightly, keeping his hand on the phone.

"Three construction workers and one bum. All were men. Forty-year-old hispanic fellow, thirty-eight-year-old white guy, twenty-six-year-old white guy. The bum was black, and they don't know his age. Each of them was in a coma for three to five days after their attack, and they all had burns on their eyelids, mouths, tongues, and dicks. They don't remember anything, not even the day before they were attacked, and the bum still hasn't woken up."

"Thank you, I'll take care of your problem now. If you call the authorities, and trust me, I'll know if you call them. I wont."

Then the voice was gone.

Eli glanced down at his cell phone. There was no way the guy could know if he called the authorities, was there?

Eli decided to wait one night, then alert building security. He stayed in his office all night though, afraid to walk out before all of the building's lights were turned on.

---

Willem stood in the middle of the empty street, eyeing the sagging yellow police tape that had been strewn over the chain-link fence surrounding the house. Some construction equipment lingered, cinderblocks and plywood, but the vehicles were gone.

Something was in there, and Willem knew what it was almost one hundred percent. He hadn't had to deal with a succubus in a long while, but at least he knew it would be easy. Most demons were like animals, harmless if left alone. Willem usually only had to deal with the ones that were frightened or crazed by busy cities or humans that could see them. But succubi and incubi were a different story. They were malicious sexual vampires that fed off of living energy.

He quickly climbed the chain link fence and landed on the torn-up mud that had once been the yard. He climbed through a smashed window and looked around in the near-darkness, his pale eyes glowing very slightly.

He was surprised to hear a soft mewling sob. "Hello?" Willem murmured, flexing his hands. As long as he could get a hold of a demon, it was as good as dead. "Who's there?"

Willem moved over the creaking and rotten floorboards, following the sobbing. A quavering voice whispered, and Willem strained his ears to hear.

"Papa?" The voice whispered. "Papa? Is that you?"

Willem felt cold. Had the succubus dragged some little kid in here? The voice sounded older, husky, but even a grown man could be reduced to begging for his mother and father after a succubus was through with him.

Willem turned the corner into some sort of living room. There was no furniture, but something small was huddled in the corner under a pile of stiff canvas drop-sheets, splattered with pale blue paint.

"Papa?" Whispered the pile of drop-sheets.

Then, the creature inside pulled back a sheet to reveal a dark mussed head with a pale heart-shaped face. Dazed glassy eyes peered out into the moonlit room. Willem squinted, and he saw the tiny horns in the messy black hair. They were like sheep horns, ribbed and curled slightly back, but what was unusual was the size. Willem had seen incubi and succubi before, and they had horns as long as a man's arm. This dazed and confused little creature only had horns the size of a curled finger.

"I'm so hungry, Papa." The little creature whispered. "So cold... Papa?"

"Yes, I'm here son." Willem murmured, curious. He paced several yards away, knowing that these demons could be fast if they needed to be. The strange little incubus crawled out of the drop-sheets.

Small and skinny though he was, tufts of dark hair under his arms and between his thighs revealed him to be older than Willem thought. His hair was a tangled rat's nest and his horns were shiny-black. His eyes were dazed and dark and hungry, and his skin was moon-pale. He lacked the great raven-wings that Willem had seen time and time again, and only had tiny vestigial wings on his shoulder blades.

The boy was crawling to him on his hands and knees, and Willem felt the glammour. The boy was alluring enough, but he felt the attraction that could be used to draw humans in. The boy flopped onto his back, spreading his legs to show the surprisingly large and thick penis that swelled into a powerful erection. Underneath the penis was a set of heavy testes and a small twitching pink hole, lined with crinkly dark hairs.

The eyes were dazed and hungry. Willem could see the little creature's ribs and hip bones. He was trembling.

"Hungry little incubus... why are you so small? Are you a baby?"

The boy shook his head, even more confused. "Papa?"

Willem shook his head, walking in circles, keeping his distance. His own erection distended the crotch of his jeans, but he kept himself removed, protected from the little incubus' glammour by his own force. "No, not a baby. Even baby incubi have large horns, and a tail. Do you have a tail? Little one?"

The boy rolled over onto his hands and knees, following him like a stray dog. He could see a long fuzzy tail, like a cat's tail. Except that it forked at the end into two separate swishing limbs.

"Papa?" The boy mewled.

Willem shook his head slowly and sadly. "I'm not your Papa... You killed him, didn't you? You're a halfling. Was it your mother or your father that was human?"

The boy shook his head slowly. The creature was very confused and weak from hunger. Willem knew that he should just swallow the little halfling up, end it's misery, but he was so curious.

He unbuckled his belt and pushed his underwear down, revealing his angry red cock. "You are a mystery, little one. I'll feed you, and you can tell me how you came to be."

The creature's dull eyes brightened with hunger and he lay on his back, spreading his legs, showing his genitals and that tiny pucker.

Willem got on his hands and knees over the little creature and cradled the large cock of the tiny incubus in his hand. He stroked it, watching precome dribble from the swollen red tip. He had to be a halfling... Incubi and a Succubi were as ethereal as any other demon, only materializing when they felt like it. This boy was very solid, very real. The little halfling mewed when Willem stroked his heavy cock. When Willem let go, the tip of the boy's massive cock dribbled precome into the boy's navel.

Willem touched the little dimple in the boy's stomach. As a rule, if a demon had a navel, it was just stage dressing. Part of a disguise. This navel was real. This child had been born of a human womb. That meant that an Incubus had been the father. Interesting.

Willem was jolted out of his thoughts by the boy squirming under him. Willem watched warily as the boy got on his hands and knees, facing the strange man who had entered the half-made home.

The boy caressed Willem's cock. His hand was small, the skin white. Willem was shocked by how warm those slim fingers were on his thick cock. Feverish, almost. the boy opened his mouth, but Willem halted him.

"Hold on there, little one. Open your mouth, let me see what you have in there."

The halfling looked up at him. His dark eyes were round and sleepy and confused. He opened his mouth, sticking out a pink tongue, and showing where his canines came to very slight blunt points. Barely noticeable. More noticeable was the tattoo on the soft pink surface of that tongue. The faded symbols.

Willem put his thumb on the halfling's pointed chin and held his mouth open a moment longer, to satisfy himself.

"You have sharp little teeth my friend... Do you promise to be careful if I let you suck my cock?" Willem kept his voice gentle. The halfling was weak from hunger, and soothed by Willem's soft words. He cooed and sucked gently on Willem's fingertips.

Willem was on his knees, and he leaned back slightly, feeling the floor creak softly under his weight. His cock was thick and angry red. His circumcision scar was uneven, from some minor lapse of attention on the part of some doctor twenty-seven years prior. Twenty seven years of near-constant proximity with demons that gave him his power.

The little demon crawled up, his vestigial black wings trembling. Wisps of black down rained down to the floor. He lowered his head, with the little black horns gleaming like ebony. He stuck out his soft pink tongue and licked his cock hungrily.

"Feed all you like little one... I have a bit too much for you to ever really drain." Willem murmured. He touched the halfling's hair, stroking gently as the demon started to suck, his throat bobbing as if he were drinking, though all he did was gently suck Willem's cock.

The demon was trembling with ecstasy. That fat long cock was throbbing between those slender white thighs as he bowed his head to suck the stranger's cock. The stranger wasn't a little man like the others. The stranger was a big man. Full of essence. Full of food. The little demon was starved for it, almost as badly as he craved the gentle touch of the stranger's hand.

He tried to control himself as he had with the others. He didn't want to kill the stranger, who stroked his hair and spoke to him kindly. He couldn't stop sucking. The man was so delicious. The man was going to die. He was going to suck all of his life out of him and then he wouldn't just sleep, like the others. He would die, like papa.

The demon started to cry, tears dribbling down his cheeks. Slow hot tears.

"Why are you crying, little one?" The Willem whispered. The demon looked up at him, those hungry sleepy eyes full of shock and awe. Willem smiled, showing teeth that also came to very slight points. His grey eyes glowed in the darkness, shedding faint silver light on the halfling's awed face.

"You and I have a bit in common, little one. You are too hungry to listen now, but I will tell you. Just as soon as you have a nice long feed."

Willem reached into his shoulder bag and slathered his cock with lube from a small bottle. It was a good thing that he had been at the bar before pursuing this little interloper. The demon was as substantial as he was, and needed the lubricant as a human boy would have.

The boy saw what he was doing, and dropped to his back, spreading and folding his legs to show his asshole. His long cock lay on his belly, leaking precome. The little halfling mewled with hunger as the man got down on his knees and lined up the tip of his lubed cock with the demon's asshole.

The halfling's dark muddy eyes opened very wide and his mouth opened and he let out a little shriek of ecstasy and pain. Willem panted. He could feel the halfling feeding, trying to suck out all of his life energy to make it his own. But Willem had more energy than the little halfling had ever experienced before, and the halfling was writhing with ecstasy.

The little demon had a hot ass. Willem felt like the hot muscles were softening to accommodate him, opening to his cock like a flower to a bee. He hadn't meant to really fuck the boy, just to dip the head of his cock in and allow the boy to feed. But now that he realized he would be able to stick his entire manhood in the boy's excellent little ass, he was starting to have second thoughts.

He put his hands on the boy's soft stomach. "Are you hungry, little one?"

The boy was feeding. The shadows under his ribs were almost gone, the gaunt look of his hips was softening. His eyes were changing color. But the boy nodded, panting high and hot and soft.

Willem grinned, his pointed teeth clicking together with delight. "Well alright then."

He put one hand on the boy's slim thigh and the other on his shoulder and he heaved with his hips. The stroke was enough to move the boy's entire body and make him wail. His muddy brown eyes were wide with shock, and his back arched high, his little vestigial wings fluttering under the half-moon curve of his spine.

The boy's eyes had changed. Willem thought, as he moved slowly in and out of the boy's hot tight little hole. The boy clung to his shoulders, panting quickly, his eyes fluttering with ecstasy. Willem could see the eyes changing. From black, to dark muddy brown, to a deep cherry red.




Firecracker



Willem grinned. "You hungry, boy? Well I can give you a meal that you wont forget."

The boy glanced up at him. The dull animal-like torpor was dissipating. Willem could see coherent confusion in those dark red eyes, but the boy still nodded enthusiastically, thrusting his hips.

Willem carefully gathered the boy up in his arms and thrust the boy down on his cock all the way to the hilt. The boy's eyes popped open and he squealed. Willem bounced the boy up and down on his cock. The halfling was like a rag-doll in his arms, pliant and soft and keening for more.

Willem swore and laughed, his shoulder muscles flexing as he moved the boy up and down. The boy was starting to become blearily aware. His feet made contact with the floor, and suddenly those small hands were on his shoulders. Willem tensed, getting ready for the halfling to pull some kind of trick.

Instead, the halfling grabbed his shoulders and started to move up and down himself. Faster, harder, panting in soft gasps. His breath was like the hot dry air from a bed of coals. Those red eyes were getting brighter. Glowing slightly in the darkness. Willem could feel the hot slick sheath of the boy's rectum getting hotter and hotter. Cradling him in a heat that made his orgasm rush towards him.

Willem whispered a few words in the low tongue. Then the heat on his cock, which had been bordering on painful, became merely pleasant. He could no longer feel the skin of his face and neck tightening with the heat of the boy's breath. The boy kissed him, mewling. Willem could feel the boy stop feeding. The boy was full.

But the boy was still fucking him, still thrusting himself up and down on Willem's cock, crying out in a small delirious voice.

The air around them was shimmering with heat. Willem had protected himself, but he saw a corner of the drop-sheets smoldering.

"Come on, firecracker." Willem murmured, stroking the boy's sweat-slick hair, feeling the horns just above his temples. The demon was moving up and down entirely by himself. "Come for me baby... Come for me."

Willem swore as that sweet hot little ass clenched on his cock. The boy plunged down to the hilt and cried out, a small scream into the stranger's chest. Even with the protection, Willem could sense the searing heat. The drop-sheet caught alight as Willem pumped the strange boy full of semen. The spurt of come on his chest was so hot that he could feel it through his shirt, through his protection.

The Halfling went limp on the floor, panting and crying. Willem stomped out the fire on the drop-sheet and looked down at the small crying boy.

There was something different about him now. Willem pulled up his pants and buckled his belt. When he released the protection, he could feel just how hot it had gotten in the room. The stain on his shirt was so hot... If he had released the protection any earlier, it would have scalded him.

When he had entered, the boy had been all but feral. Not understanding his words, mewling like an animal. Now he was crying weakly. Crying from loss and sorrow and fear.

Willem nudged the boy with his foot and the kid looked up. His eyes were bright ruby-red, but he looked more human than ever. He was crying, but the tears turned to steam very quick. He was crying boiling water.

"Who are you?" The boy whispered, crawling away. Semen was leaking down his legs. Out of his gaping anus. "Wh-Why... Why aren't you dead?"

Willem crouched down, not getting too close to the distraught boy. "My name is Willem. I could have killed you. But I wanted to give you a chance to speak. A chance to feed, and a chance to tell me your side of things."

"What is your name?"

The boy looked up at him again. His eyes were surrounded by deep bags. "Isaac."

"Well Isaac. How did you get to be this way?"

Isaac started to cry harder than ever.

"I didn't want to kill him." He whimpered. "I... I was just so hungry. Papa was trying to cure me. Find a way to fix this. I was so hungry."

Isaac curled up even tighter. "I ran away. I stayed here, so no one could find me. I was too weak to move. I figured I would just starve to death."

Willem nodded. "But then the construction workers came. You hid during the day, but a few always came back at night. You tried not to kill them like you did to your daddy."

Isaac nodded. Shaking with grief. But he was exhausted. Weak with it.

Willem made his decision.

He gathered up a drop-sheet and held out his hand. "Come on Isaac."

The boy looked at his hand, and then back at him. His bright red eyes swam and steamed with tears.

"Follow me. I can take you somewhere safe. You wont hurt anybody again."

The boy just looked lost. But he was so tired that he listened to the stranger. The stranger that had fucked him, fed him, spoken to him with that soft voice. He stood up, and Willem wrapped him safely in the crumpled drop-sheet.

"Follow me."

---

The boy... Isaac. He was curled up on the backseat. The drop-sheet covered every part of him but the dirty blackened soles of his feet.

Willem drove just a hair under the speed limit. He had a history of speeding tickets, and the last thing he needed was to be stopped by a cop with his strange passenger.

The boy didn't even stir until Willem stopped the car and cut the engine at a small yellow house at the end of the block.

He moved a little, and let out a small hurt moan.

Willem gently manhandled the boy out of the car and led him to the house. He walked slowly. He was uncoordinated and limping.

Willem led the boy to the kitchen and poured him a tall glass of water. The demon drank thirstily, downing the water in a single long draw. Willem poured him another one.

"You're very dehydrated. You can stay alive on nothing but living energy, but you'll need a lot less of it if you take care of yourself in a traditional way. Do you want me to make you something to eat?"

The boy shook his head, and sagged. Willem managed to catch him before his bony little body slipped to the floor. "I'm sorry... You're so tired little one... I'll take you to the bed.

Once on the bed in the upper room, the demon's eyes closed. He didn't stir again. Willem looked down at his slim form, still covered in the singed drop-sheet. He carefully removed the sheet to replace it with his softer blankets.

He saw the shiny place on the boy's inner thighs where the come had dripped out of him. He wiped a little at the moisture with the drop sheet.

"If you're hungry when you wake up... Just find me, okay little one?" He murmured, stroking that soft black hair. Feeling the polished horns.

Isaac was dead to the world.

---

Willem slept on the couch that night, and when he woke up he decided to make breakfast. If Isaac woke up, he'd get something to eat.

He was putting pillsbury oven cinnamon rolls on a cookie sheet when he heard the bed creaking slightly the floor above him. He smiled and continued with his work. Putting the rolls in the oven and digging around in the fridge for grapefruit and yogurt.

He heard the so-soft padding of feet down the stairs, and heard those tiny footsteps come into the dining room. But even though he knew that the boy was watching him, he didn't turn away from the two large grapefruits he was slicing. He used a knife to make sure that the sweet pink flesh of the fruit would come away in a spoon.

"Who are you?" Those words were as soft as breath.

Willem turned his head slightly and he saw the boy standing in the living room, wearing a shirt of his that fell halfway down his slim thighs. His hair was messier than ever, and those bright red eyes were curious and afraid. They still had bags around them, despite the boy's long night of sleep.

"My name is Willem. But that's not what you really want to know. I'll finish making breakfast, and then we'll talk. How does that sound?"

Isaac just looked back at him, not saying a word.

"Do you want milk, or orange juice?"

"Juice, please." Isaac whispered, sitting down on one of the chairs. Willem caught a glimpse of the head of his cock as the shirt rode up. He turned back to the grapefruit with a smile on his face.

---

He gave Isaac a plate with two grapefruit halves on it, both dusted with sugar. A cup of strawberry yogurt. Two small cinnamon rolls, and a blob of cottage cheese. As he was pouring a tall glass of orange juice, Isaac devoured one of the cinnamon rolls and managed to spoon about half of the yogurt into his mouth.

"As much as you want, Isaac. There are more rolls, and I have more food after if you're still hungry. Try to slow down, or you'll get sick."

Isaac ignored him. Fair enough.

Willem started on his own breakfast, but by the time he finished his grapefruit halves, Isaac was going to the kitchen to get more rolls. The teen was very hungry.

With good reason. Who knew the last time he had actually consumed food? The lack of food had worsened the deep sexual hunger.

Isaac went back to the table with four cinnamon rolls in his hands. He took a long draught of orange juice and gobbled at the sweet pastries.

Willem patiently finished his breakfast. Soon, Isaac slowed in his frantic eating and wiped his mouth with a napkin, looking up at Willem with those big red eyes.

"My mama was a demon hunter. She found people like you and stole their souls. With weaker demons, or the less substantial ones, it was easier. There needed to be somewhere for those souls to go. So she gave them to me."

Willem took another bite of cottage cheese, and watched as a million questions crossed the boy's eyes. He spoke the first one that came to mind.

"Why didn't you kill me?"

Willem took a sip of milk. "Because... I was curious. I have plenty of questions about you, too. Do you want to trade? One question at a time?"

Isaac nodded slowly, looking down at the plate. He dragged his little finger over the plate, gathering sugar-frosting to bring to his mouth.

"What are those tattoos on your tongue?"

Isaac looked up, his eyes unbearably sad.

"...I looked normal about two months ago. I... I didn't have these." He touched his horns. "My eyes were blue. I didn't have wings, or this fucking tail. My..." He blushed, his eyes dull with fear and pain. "My penis was smaller. Everything changed two months ago. When the tattoos faded away. It just happened, suddenly. I was at home, and all of the changes happened. It was so fucking sc-scary."

Willem watched, silently. The boy was trembling with distress. The events were still so raw, so fresh in his mind.

"So they were binding tattoos, meant to stop you from showing your true nature. But they didn't last."

Isaac looked up at him, tears steaming and gathering on his lids. "My true nature? A monster?"

"Not a monster." Willem said softly. "Though there will always be those who see us this way."

Isaac sniffled. "What about you then? Why are you like you are? How come you aren't dead, after... After what you did?"

"I am like you. A hybrid. I was born to two human parents, but you can't stay human after being fed the souls of demons from an early age. I am a vessel. And every year, I leak a little more demonic energy into myself."

Willem grinned. "By the time I'm an old man, I will be more demon than human. But that's why I didn't die. You were hungry, and you drained energy from me. But that energy was not mine. It was some demon's soul. I feel lighter... By an infinitesimal bit."

"My turn, then... How were you born? A half-incubi?"

"My... My mom. She was raped by a demon when she was young. The demon kept plaguing her throughout the pregnancy. But when I was born, the demon gave me the tattoos." Isaac looked down. "She... She never told me when she was alive. But she had... Letters addressed to me in her will."

Isaac scuffed his dirty forearm across his eyes. "You... How did you find me?"

"Demons show up in this world all of the time. It's my job to get rid of them. I discovered you on the news. I have a few contacts who tell me when and where, but I discovered you on my own. The signs were obvious, for those who know where to look."

"I know this may be hard for you to say, but I need to know." Willem leaned closer. Isaac looked up, half-paralyzed by those silvery eyes. "Who was your papa? The man you killed."

Isaac looked back down at the plate. "My stepdad. He married my mom when I was five. He was my step-father, I just called him papa when I was little. He liked being called that."

Isaac swiped his arm across his eyes again. Steam rose up from his arm. "Mom must have told him about me. We both knew about my demon father, so when I changed, we tried everything. He found a tattoo artist to try and redo the tattoos. It didn't work. When I started getting weak and hungry, he thought that I was a vampire. He managed to steal blood from a blood drive. But when I drank it, it just made me feel sick."

Isaac started to cry. "I just got hungrier and weaker, and the weaker I got, the less human I got. I'm part monster now. I can feel the huger and it makes me a bad person. When I got really hungry, I... I... I lured him in."

Isaac was crying too hard to talk.

Willem sighed softly and got up. "So then, he did it because of the glammour, and you drained him.

Willem walked around the table, and put a hand on one of those small slumped shoulders. "It wasn't your fault. Shh..."

Isaac curled up so he was hugging his knees. "Shoulda killed me." He mumbled. "Shoulda killed me."

"Don't say that." Willem murmured.

Isaac just curled up and took several deep breaths.

"What's going to happen to me?"

Willem sighed. "You're going to go upstairs and take a bath. It will make you feel better."

Isaac looked up. "But... What's going to happen to me?"

"I don't know. We'll work things out. You can't go outside right now, not looking like that. I know a few demons that might be able to teach you how to disguise yourself. I can find you a home, as long as you promise not to hurt humans."

Isaac shook his head slowly. "But... I can't..."

He stood up.

"I'm going to go take that bath." He whispered. "I have to think."

---

Willem heard the water running. Then he heard Isaac sloshing around for a few minutes.

Then he was very quiet.

Willem casually knocked a chair over, keeping his ears open. After the clatter of the chair, he heard soft sloshing. He felt better after hearing evidence that the boy had not simply drowned himself.

Willem went about cleaning the small kitchen. Then he went on his laptop. After checking his email, he went about scanning the news. He had a couple dozen news sites. He checked the obituaries of all of them first. Then strange news articles and crime articles. Then just a general scan. Weather was also important.

He never stopped listening.

He wrote down a few possible disturbances. Odd weather systems in New England. A strange murder in Oregon. He would call his contacts in the area.

He perked up slightly when he heard Isaac standing up in the bath. Heard the water draining. Heightened senses was just one of the many trade-offs. A normal human would have heard the water. But would a normal human have heard the minuscule sound of a towel scraping flesh? The sound of hair being combed? A sigh from behind two closed doors and a hallway away?

Willem sent a few emails himself, and waited to see what Isaac would do.

---

He was a little disappointed when Isaac crawled back into bed. But not surprised. He suspected that the young demon hadn't slept well (or at all) for the last few months of his life. He wrote a note and taped it to the inside of his bedroom door.

Food in the fridge. TV Downstairs. Books on the shelf. I'm out shopping. --Willem

He glanced at the bundle under the blankets. The boy was completely hidden. His breathing slow and rhythmic.

Willem drove to a local Target. He picked up four pairs of jeans, half a dozen t-shirts. A nice warm red sweatshirt. He picked up socks, even though he didn't know Isaac's shoe size. And he purchased a dozen pairs of underwear, boxers, briefs, and in two different size ranges.

He also bought hats.

An oversized baseball cap, the kind that was popular with teenagers that Willem saw. A plain black winter hat. A fedora. A regular baseball cap. He made sure that the sweatshirt had a large hood. The horns curled back, so they would be easy to hide, but they did need to be hidden.

He also bought some sunglasses. Mirrored ones, mostly. Or pairs so dark that Willem couldn't see the color of his own eyes through the lenses.

He took his purchases home, and Isaac was still asleep.

Willem frowned. The boy was so exciting for him. So fascinating.

Willem was bored.

He paced the house. He got back on his laptop and tried to watch an episode of 'Game of Thrones'. He couldn't focus.

So he went to the basement. He had a treadmill, and a full weight set. He sighed, and got to work, turning on the radio so he could listen to the news even then.

---

He was listening to a news story about civil unrest in Greece. He never made it much further than the USA, but the story was interesting.

He was on his back on the small half-bench. He had his arms bent, and straining. He waited for a beat to suck in air, so he could hear the radio better. The bar across his chest weighed more than he did.

When his arms straightened, Isaac spoke softly, surprising him.

"You should really have someone spot you."

He dropped the bar into the cradle and sat up. He had changed into gym shorts and a wife-beater. He knew that he was shiny with sweat. That he stank. He felt a twinge of embarrassment, and at the same time, he wondered if the red-eyed boy found him attractive.

Isaac was still in the baggy shirt. He was standing in the doorway, quiet. He looked so much better than he had this morning. Another five hours of sleep had faded the bags under his eyes. The bath had freshened his skin, and he had spent some time taming his hair. It was curly, but neat.

Willem had his equipment set up in the laundry room. He took off his tank and used it to wipe his sweaty face and hair. "Yeah... But I usually don't have any company around here. I got you some things."

He pointed to the target bags.

Isaac dug through them, quiet. He bent over, unthinking, and Willem caught a glimpse of his sweet ass cheeks, before he tugged the hem back down. His tail swished as he looked through the bags. Before, his tail had looked mussed, dirty. Now the fur on it was sleek and shiny. The twin tips curled and beat the air.

He smiled looking at the items, but he didn't move to put them on. He had a look in his eyes. A look that Willem could not decipher.

"What is it, Isaac?" He asked quietly.

"Thank you, Willem." It was the first time Isaac spoke his name. "But... I can't put them on yet."

Willem stood up. Feeling the glad burn of his muscles. "Why not?"

Isaac sighed long. Willem could see the wings under the surface of the shirt. "I..." After a long pause the boy finally said it. "I'm hungry." The boy whispered.

Willem's cock ached. Isaac wasn't using his Glammour, but as far as he was concerned, the boy didn't need to use it. Isaac was so fucking sexy. Just the memory of the way Isaac had ridden him...

But Willem didn't show how glad he was. He was serious.

"I know that it will be strange, but I can feed you. Just tell me how. Tell me how, so I can do it as... Comfortably, as possible."

Isaac's cheeks were hot and red. He looked uncomfortable, and ashamed.

Willem leaned back. "You can keep the hunger low by taking care of yourself, eating and drinking. If you had still been in the house, you would be close to starving again. We can keep the hunger down, but don't be ashamed. I'm here to keep you safe. To keep you from hurting others or yourself."




Firecracker



Isaac looked at him for a long moment.

Willem expected the boy to be shy. To suck his cock. Even to turn around and refuse until he was really hungry. He wouldn't have blamed Isaac. Every man he met had been afraid of him because of the traces of demon about him. Having this hungry boy deny him for a few days wouldn't be any different.

But Isaac didn't just offer his ass.

He turned around, and got down on his hands and knees. The shirt rode up all the way, above those round little ass cheeks, above the heavy cock that hung between his legs, and the large eggs in their soft sack. The shirt slid down his silky white skin, stopping where the fabric pooled around the bases of his small wings.

Isaac turned around, his tiny pink asshole spasmed. His cheeks and hole and legs were bare. He had shaved in the tub. Even his balls were smooth and pink, freshly bared. His eyes were hot and red with more than hunger. In the first smooth motion, he had dropped to his hands and knees, in the second he lowered himself down so his head was buried in his crossed arms, and he let his knees spread far apart.

"Come here." Isaac rasped. "Feed me."

"Please."

It was all Willem could do not to jump up and fuck the boy as hard as he could. He got up and dropped his pants, letting his own cock jump from his underwear. Ten seconds, and he was nearly all the way hard. Isaac was panting under his breath. His hips were moving so slightly, he was humping the air with eagerness.

Willem had a bottle of hand lotion, to soothe his hands after lifting weights. He took three pumps of it and slicked it on his own cock, getting every inch.

He grabbed a towel from the basement floor and when he knelt behind Isaac, he nudged the fabric under the halfling's knees. As he did so, he leaned forward and drew his tongue across that tiny clean pink hole.

Isaac whimpered and bucked his hips once. Willem grabbed those young firm buttocks with his lotiony hands and spread them apart so he could bury his face between them. He sucked and licked and lipped that sweet little hole, being as rough as he dared. Isaac yelped and squirmed under his tongue.

Willem reached between and stroked the boy's huge throbbing cock with his slick hand.

"Gonna feed you good, Isaac." He panted, lifting his head. He worked two slick fingers in there. The feel of his ass was amazing, instead of clenching, like all of the men he had been with, the muscles loosened, opened, unfolded. The boy's ass let him in.

"Do it." Isaac panted. "Do it, Do it, doitdoitdoitdoit!"

Willem raised himself up, and carefully led the tip of his cock to that spasming little hole. Before he thrust in, he leaned over Isaac, and clasped his shoulder with one hand. The other he wrapped around the demon's chest, holding the boy so close to him. Willem could feel those tiny wings fluttering rapidly, pinned against his chest and Isaac's back. His face was buried in that silky black hair. He could feel a horn pressed into his temple. He could feel how hot the air was as it puffed from Isaac's mouth.

Then Willem thrust himself in to the hilt in one stroke. Isaac tensed, every muscle going stony, as he yelped like he had been stung. His yelp melted into a jilted moan as Willem thrust in as fast and hard as he could. He couldn't help himself. The boy made him mad, like an animal.

He could feel the boy feeding. Isaac wasn't as starved as he had been. The only change was how hot the air was getting. Willem swore and put a protection on himself. He was afraid, under the lust he knew that he was being so rough with the boy...

Then Isaac spread his kneeling legs even further. The droplets of his precome landing one the towel let out wisps of steam.

"Harder!" He moaned. Isaac was drunk on sex. Wild with it. Needy with it.

Willem grinned, like a wolf. "That's my firecracker..."

And he did his best to oblige.

When he neared the end, he reached under the boy and stroked that thick obscene cock. He could barely wrap his hand around it all of the way. It was wet with precome that would have burned his hand, had he not been protected.

He felt the boy squeak and squirm under him as he reached a climax. He felt the thick cock spasming. He heard the hiss of steam and smelled burning cloth.

Then he came.

Willem cried out at the top of his lungs as he came. A wild keen of lust and triumph. Uncontrolled.

The boy was limp underneath him, panting. Willem drew his slick cock in and out a few more times, drawing out the glow.

He was about to get up, when Isaac mumbled. "Don't go."

He stayed on top of the boy, on his knees, his cock still in the boy's slick ass. The shirt was ridden up to his neck. Willem stroked those soft black wings, first with a hand, then he kissed them. The edge, the base. He let the tips of the pinions tickle his cheeks, eyelids.

"You're still hard..." Isaac mumbled.

"I'm sorry." Willem said quietly.

Isaac crawled from under him. But as Willem sat back on his calves, reaching for the towel that had been under Isaac's knees, the halfling stepped on his hand.

He looked up, and the small boy took off the shirt. His cock still jutted out in front of him like the figurehead of a ship. The boy was standing, Willem was kneeling. He couldn't read the look on Isaac's heart-shaped face. His bright red eyes.

Then Isaac put his hand in Willem's dark red hair, tightening his fingers into a fist.

"Do you fuck anyone else?" His voice was soft. His body language was anything but.

Willem looked up at Isaac. He leaned forward and kissed the tip of that huge cock.

"No. But I'd like to keep fucking you."

Isaac swayed slightly.

"I was scared. I hurt people. I wanted to die... But..."

His voice suddenly sounded angry. His voice trembled with emotion. "I can't stop thinking about you. I don't want to stop thinking about you. I don't want you to leave me." He sounded scared.

Willem leaned forward and took the tip of his cock. He sucked on the tip, feeling how wide it was, feeling the edges of a foreskin at his lips. Tasting sour bitter come. Feeling the way blood throbbed under the surface.

Isaac let his head tilt back, and he whimpered, very soft.

Willem had always pursued, always been on top. He had always had to.

He wrapped his hand around the base. As he ran his soft lips up and down the side of the warm shaft, he whispered.

"If you'll have me... I'll be with you. I'll make you mine. You make me yours."

Isaac's eyes burned. "I wont be your toy. I wont just be a... a receptacle."

His little firecracker was possessive. His little firecracker was hungry.

"Do you see me, Isaac?" Willem whispered. He took the boy's cock deep. He felt the resistance as the head pushed against the back of his throat. He pressed harder, and the head slipped back. Swallowing the essence of demons for years had destroyed his gag reflex. It was more physical than most people thought.

Isaac's young white thighs were trembling. Willem could feel, he was holding Isaac's hip with his left, and his leg with the right.

Willem withdrew with a slight cough. "I can suck your cock. Even take it, if you give me time, and lube. I will fuck you. I will take it from you. I will do everything you want, and some things you haven't thought of.

"I just needed the chance."

Isaac answered by pulling on his hair, pulling his head down to take more of his cock. Willem could feel how hard he was. Feel his dominance. Feel the lonely frightened boy gaining confidence by having some power over another human being.

Being on top was just what Isaac needed.

Willem took what Isaac gave him. Even though his jaw ached and his throat throbbed and even his weakened reflex made him cough and choke, he took what the demon boy gave to him.

His protection was helpful. Even when not feeding, the come that Isaac slung down his throat was hot enough to scald human flesh.

Isaac dropped to the cold floor. Shivering.

Willem saw it coming. He edged closer, and put his arms around Isaac's shoulders just in time for the boy to start trembling.

Isaac never let out a sound, but Willem held him close, and whispered "Shh..", all the same.

Willem managed to snag the towel between two of his fingers and brought it up around Isaac's shoulders. He released the protection. It was warm around them, a small bubble of heat from Isaac's heat, a bubble that would soon disperse.

Isaac was huddled in his arms, in his lap. He could feel Isaac's limp cock against his. Isaac's chin was on his shoulder. Willem's arms were around his slim back. He reached up under the towel to touch one of those small beautiful wings, just to feel the shape, let a silky feather slide between his fingers.

"Do you want to take a shower?" Willem asked quietly.

The demon nodded.

---

In the shower together, Willem didn't feel awkward. It was the first time he had done something like this. Isaac was quiet again. Deep in thought. He let Willem do whatever he wanted.

So Willem cleaned the small wet young man. He drew a blue loofa over every inch of his smooth young skin. He took a softer washcloth for when he gently squeezed that long dick in his hand, the washcloth between. Isaac shuddered a little and his cock stiffened. Willem slowly stroked, watching Isaac's face every moment, to make sure the half-demon wanted it.

And he did.

Isaac closed his eyes and breathed in long slow breaths, that shortened and quickened as Willem continued. Making long slow strokes with the washcloth. He reached between Isaac's legs to fondle that heavy sack of his, to feel the individual testes, to gently squeeze and weigh.

Then he reached between those buttocks. He felt how slick it was, still. With two fingers, he fucked the boy in time with the strokes, entirely focused on his pleasure.

He kissed Isaac's ear, nibbling on the soft lobe.

He could feel the air getting warmer. He shifted the heat of the water to lukewarm. The water pounded down on the boy, countering the heat.

His lids fluttered, his eyes bright red.

Willem turned the water even colder.

Steam rose up from Isaac's skin. Willem shivered, but continued his strokes, with fingers and washcloth. He was so hot on the inside, Willem had to remove his hand, but as he did, Isaac shuddered and moaned.

The come didn't burn anything this time. It dripped to the floor of the shower and steamed, before the cold water washed it away.

Willem turned the water back up. Isaac looked up at him, and Willem finished his cleaning. Isaac squirmed, sensitive, when the older man leaned down to lick come from the tip of his cock, clean him thorough.

"Thank you." The halfling whispered. Red met silver.

Willem smiled and stood straight. He took a bottle of shampoo from the stainless steel shower rack. "No..." He put a glob in his hand. "You don't need to thank me. If anything, I should be apologizing."

Isaac's forehead wrinkled, his brows drawing together. "What do you mean?"

He closed his eyes when Willem started kneading shampoo into his dark curly hair. He had shampooed his own hair this morning, but it felt good to have the older man's fingers on his scalp. Willem worked around the small shiny horns.

"I took advantage of this... Situation. I understand that you needed to feed, but I haven't been feeding you. I've been fucking you. How I wanted. I might have hurt you." His voice stalled for a moment. He sounded miserable. He felt miserable.

"I... I've been alone for a while."

Willem moved him to the spray. Isaac felt the water washing the suds from his hair. "But I shouldn't have taken it out on you. I promise. I promise that from now on, I'll only do what you tell me to. If you don't want to be here, I know a succubus... She can teach you how to get your energy from normal humans. She can take care of you.. and--"

"No."

Willem stopped talking abruptly. He moved the wet strands of hair off of the young man's face, and reached for the conditioner. Waiting for the words to continue.

"Willem?"

The older man closed his eyes. He loved to hear his name from another man.

"I don't want to leave, Willem. I want to stay. If I can."

Isaac turned around, facing the older man in the shower. The man who had a glob of white conditioner in his open palm. He looked at Willem. Looked him in the eye.

"You gave me a chance. You were going to kill me, but you let me live. I... I trust you. Let me stay here. Please let me stay."

Isaac closed his eyes as Willem worked the conditioner into his hair. "You can stay here, Isaac. You can stay here as long as you need."

Willem quickly shampooed his own hair, and when they were both clean, he turned off the water. He took a fresh towel and briskly toweled the younger man off.

---

It was five in the afternoon. They were both starving. Willem offered to go and pick something up, and Isaac wanted to come along.

Isaac had no shoes, so he wore a pair of Willem's, two sizes too big. He wore jeans and one of his new shirts. He pulled the black wool hat low, over his ears and over those dangerous horns. He wore the red sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head for extra protection. He wore a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

"I look like an asshole."

Willem laughed out loud. It was just such a surprise. Isaac smiled back at him. He had such a sweet smile, that it was loathe for Willem to have to say,

"Be careful, when we are out and about. You should smile with your lips closed."

Isaac looked confused, and then he touched a finger to his canines, remembering his sharpened teeth. Then he frowned.

Willem had his turn to feel like the asshole. But at the same time, he was kind of timid speaking to the younger boy. Sure, they had gone so far sexually, but he had still only known the boy for less than twenty-four hours. He felt like he barely knew what to say to him.

They got into the car, and Willem noticed him looking at the backseat. "What do you feel like? Chinese, fast food, something sit-down..."

"Um... Chinese?"

"Sounds good. Then we can stop and get you some shoes, and anything else you need."

Isaac smiled at him. "Thanks, for letting me come." His lips were together this time. He learned fast, but Willem felt kind of sad. There had been something very endearing about that wide toothy smile, even with the elongated tips of his canines.

"I don't want you to get cooped up. As long as you wear the glasses and hat, no one should need to know that anything is off at all. Now, Lee-an Chin? Or would would you like to stop at the Great Dragon Buffet?"

He chose the buffet.

---

"This is fine."

"But you like the black shoes, you don't have to wear those shoes if you don't want..."

"But..." Isaac looked uneasy. "The black shoes are almost seventy dollars."

Willem smiled. "That's not a problem. You need shoes. And you like the black shoes."

"How..." Isaac put the shoes back in a box and tucked it under his arm. "How do you even get money? You were in the house all day..." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't bother you about money."

Willem put his hand on Isaac's shoulder. "There isn't anything you 'shouldn't' bother me about. We are living together. And more." Isaac flushed slightly. Willem wished that he could see his eyes, his expression. "I make money off my, ability. I get a paycheck every month. A sizable one. As long as I keep up my efforts, it keeps coming."

Isaac looked startled. They were walking to the cashier. "Who pays the check?"

Willem shrugged. "My mom worked for them. She got the same paycheck. She trained me to hunt and eat demons, so I wouldn't be the next one on their list. I've only ever seen a representative once or twice."

Isaac looked thoughtful.

Willem bought the shoes.

---

It was late when they got back. Isaac was tired, despite his overload of sleep. Willem checked his email and news sites. Isaac checked out the exercise equipment in the basement.

A new assignment. Something about a demon trapped in a vase. They just needed him for 'disposal'.

Willem listened carefully. Isaac was messing with the treadmill. He made up his mind.

"Isaac? Are you tired?"

"Um..." The half-demon was walking up the stairs. "Not really."

"Would you like to come with me on an assignment. It's just a little one. It's in Iowa, so a few hours of driving. You can nap on the way, if you're tired. We can get a little motel room down there. You can see what I do."

Isaac smiled, this time as toothily as he liked. It was an adorable smile. Animalistic, in a way. "That would be fun... Let me get some of my clothes."

Isaac packed a spare t-shirt, pair of underwear, and his toothbrush into a plastic grocery bag. Willem had a duffel. He also brought his laptop, as well as a book he was working on.

He didn't expect this to take very long.

---

Snow started to fall. Willem drove slow and careful (for a change) so he wouldn't startle Isaac. They were quiet at first. Then they talked for a bit about movies. A satisfyingly neutral subject.

Then it was politics, then the education system. Willem stopped at a gas station to pick up donuts and a big gulp. And for a while after that, it was just a comfortable silence. The darkness of the car, the pale blue light from the dashboard and radio. The sight of snow falling in the headlights. The soft winding tunnel of the road, broken up by oncoming headlights.

"Isaac?"

"Hm?"

"We're nearly there. I want you to keep your sunglasses on. Don't show your teeth. I'm just going to go in and finish it. It wont take very long... but you might want to stay out in the car."

Isaac sat upright. "No... I want to come in with you!" 

"Okay, okay, it's not a big deal. I... I just thought you might not want to see this."

Isaac took a deep breath as they pulled into a long dirt driveway. The farmhouse was down about a quarter of a mile of unplowed road. The car slowly shuffled through it.

The windbreak trees bent and bent backwards, slowly. Creaking like giants.

Outside the small garage, another car was parked. A car that looked supremely out of place. A long black Crown Victoria. Willem could see the cigarette ember glowing. An agent had showed up. This demon had either been under surveillance, or this house had.

"Are you sure you want to come?"

Isaac nodded.

Willem parked and got out of the car. Isaac straightened his sunglasses. The Crown Vic's door opened.

Willem had never worked with this woman before. She was in her late thirties, he guessed. A bit heavy. She had a round face with slightly tilted black eyes.

"I'm Elizabeth Nguyen. It's nice to finally meet you Mr. Carter. Who is this?" Her voice was nothing but polite, but her eyes followed the slight teenager bundled in hood and sunglasses.

"This is my young friend Isaac. He was having a little trouble adjusting, so I have him on parole. Do you have an idea what kind this is?"

A Dreamer. This house has had thirty-four occupants since the nineteen seventies, which brought our attention. Every house or apartment with an abnormal rate gets a citation on our database. So the woman here called the police saying that there was a haunted vase. They thought she was delusional, headquarters sent me right away."

They walked up to the porch. "I am almost completely sure that it is a Dreamer, however, I do not have your abilities. We should--"

"Proceed with caution. I understand. Where is the woman?"

"At her sister's house. She left last evening, and I made a duplicate key when I came to speak to her."

She put the dupe into the door, jiggled it, and after a few stubborn clicks, the lock finally gave. The woman had turned off the heat when she left, so Willem's breath frosted in front of him as Elizabeth Nguyen flicked on the light. It was a very nice living room, with a flatscreen television, and two older couches. 




Firecracker



Willem could see through to the kitchen, and he made note of the pictures on the ottoman. A middle aged woman, painfully thin, but pretty, smiling a bright somewhat horsey smile. While standing with some horsey-faced kids, while standing next to a horsey-faced brother, while riding a horsey-faced horse.

The vase was on the table. A pretty thing, but supremely out of place. A monster of green ceramic and faded markings. Markings that looked like pretty flowers at one moment... And like binding runes the next.

He put his hand on the vase, the back of his hand. He had gotten shocks from possessed artifacts before, better to touch them with the back of his hand. A shock to the back of the hand would make him jerk away, a shock onto the palm of the hand could make that hand clamp down all the harder.

No shock, but it was warm. Very warm for a piece of old ceramic that had been in an unheated house for twenty-four hours.

Willem closed his eyes, and Felt, with a tendril of the demon energy locked in his core.

Like responded to Like, the demon within stirred. A Dreamer.

"Is this it?"

Elizabeth was cool and professional, but both Willem and Isaac could hear the inexperience. Could hear the fear. Willem knew that she did not do this full time. That she was new. Demon-hunting was only a full-time job for the ones who did the grudge work.

"No. You'll know when it happens."

He closed his eyes, and took a piece of white chalk from his pocket. As well as a long piece of string and a wooden golf-tee.

"Step back please."

He put the tee on the ground, and using the taut string, he drew a perfect circle, using the tee as a focal point. He quickly scrawled a few runes on the inside.

"This circle is simple. I don't expect trouble, but the two of you should get in it anyway. Okay? Don't smudge the chalk or the runes. Do not put one finger or fold of clothing outside."

Once they were inside, the act itself was blindingly fast.

He turned and with a single sweep of his hand he cast the vase to the floor. As it fell he shouted a single word. It was too low, too twisted for Isaac or Elizabeth to hear.

The vase shattered and a THING was in the room. Not a shadow, the air did not ripple, no distortions or physical weight, no sound. But at the same time, Nguyen gasped and felt the skin of her back and arms crawl. Isaac was more sensitive. He could feel it. He could feel how Angry it was. How Hungry it was.

Willem was smiling. Standing there and smiling. He reached out and his hand wrapped around something about as thick as a wrist.

Suddenly it was there. Even Elizabeth saw it, vaguely. But Isaac froze and watched as the gigantic shape became visible. Colorless, shadowy. A great long snake-thing. It was slick and lithe as a worm, as an eel. It had wide fleshy wings like a manta ray. A wicked stinger slung low under it's abdomen. A hideous blind bullet-head. A horrible groping tentacle sliding from a fat genital slit above the stinger.

Willem opened his mouth. Unhinged his jaw, it seemed. There was no way that his mouth could open wide enough to accommodate the demon, and no way that the demon could shrink to fit into his mouth. Neither happened, and yet Isaac watched as both happened. Some dimension was being crossed. Some boundary was being tested.

The head slid past Willem's jaws. He snatched at the writhing six-foot body. The wings flailed at his head. The tentacle tried to grab his wrist. The stinger jabbed at him. He grabbed the abdomen, his fingers sinking into the not-flesh.

He laughed. It was a horrible sound. A choked gurgling. His mouth was full, obscenely wide as he forced the demon past his teeth. His eyes were alive, glowing a hot no-color.

Isaac trembled.

The wings rolled up feebly and went down his throbbing gullet. The remaining four feet of body and tail twitched with less and less strength. The tentacle wrapped around his throat, but Willem continued to laugh, he ignored it, using both hands to keep that stinger as far from his face as he could.

Isaac grabbed for Nguyen's hand. The woman squeezed back hard. Her skin was slick with sweat, cold.

Willem grabbed the stinger itself, and pulled it out, the muscles on his arms defining, flexing rippling with effort. The tendons on his wrist like cables. His fist quickly closed, the stinger dissolving to nothing. The demon went limp, except for feeble twitches of the tip of it's tail.

It still took Willem another two minutes and sixteen seconds to finish swallowing that long thick tail.

His brow was wet with sweat. He looked like he had just woken up from a long fever. He did not smile, though he had laughed during the act. He glanced at Isaac. And he wondered if he had dome something irreversible.

"Miz Nguyen?"

"Yes?" The woman asked breathlessly.

"Do you have a broom?"

---

Isaac said nothing until they got to the motel. He stepped in and looked around. It was a small room, plain, but neat. A TV, a single queen-sized bed. A chair and desk. A bathroom with a shower stall and tub.

Willem got in and sat on the bed. He picked up the remote, looked at it, and then tossed it aside, laying back.

Isaac thought that the older man looked exhausted, despite all of his insistences that it had been easy.

Isaac sat on the floor at the foot of the bed where Isaac's feet hung down. He unlaced Willem's shoes. Pulled off his socks. Willem's feet were large and white and long. The toenails clipped. Isaac started to rub.

"Hmm..." I thought you said you weren't going to do this." Willem's voice was sleepy. He was so tired. It made Isaac feel better. Relax. He wouldn't be able to just get over what he had seen, but he couldn't deny that the red-haired, silver-eyed man made him feel safe. And something about that laugh...

Isaac had been scared. But he had also been rock-hard.

"I never said that." Isaac murmured softly. "I said I wouldn't be your receptacle. I wanted to know that you would take care of me. I don't care if I do this, as long as you do it sometime as well."

Willem moaned as Isaac stretched back his toes, making a slight crackling sound. "Mmm, yeah. I'll rub your feet if you want baby. Just... I'm so tired now."

He really was. He was drifting away. Isaac couldn't let him do that.

He crawled on top of the bed. Peeling away his layers first. The red-haired demoneater looked up at him through lidded eyes. At first Isaac had just been stripping, but when he saw that look, he went a little slower He took the hem of his t-shirt, sliding his fingers up his flat stomach, up up, stroking his nipples through the fabric, before stripping the fabric completely off.

He unbuttoned his jeans. "Unzip me, Willem."

Willem reached, but he slapped that hand away. "With your teeth."

Isaac straddled Willem's throat, pinning his hands. Isaac was panting. His cock was so hard. And Willem was so dangerous.

Something about knowing that Willem could kill him. Knowing how strong that Willem was, knowing that Willem could have swallowed him up... it made the act just that much more erotic when he forced the older man to take his zipper between his teeth and pull it down. Seeing the submissive cast to his silvery eyes. Seeing those full soft lips gently nudge at his package through the black fabric of his boxers.

"Not yet." Isaac panted. The air was getting hot. He could tell. Willem was whispering those words again. The words that kept him from burning up when they fucked.

Isaac slipped out of his pants, feeling his cock slap up against his belly. He undressed the older man. Willem seemed to enjoy the act. Going limp, and letting Isaac growl at him in frustration and arousal when he wouldn't lift a finger to help.

Willem was naked, his cock red and oozing. His pubic hair was dark red and coarse. Shining like a tangle of copper wire around the base of his cock.

Isaac didn't want to straddle his throat. He got up and pushed Willem. The older man moved complacently, glancing at the younger man, who was frustrated to the point of being adorable.

Then Willem smiled up at him. "You really want my ass one of these days, don't you?"

"I'll get to that." Isaac said, smiling wickedly. "But for now, open up."

Willem was on his back, his head hanging over the side of the bed. He opened his mouth, to receive the fat blunt head of Isaac's cock. Isaac moaned. Willem's mouth was wet and hot. This position was new for him. Before he had changed, he had been a virgin, and everything he had done to his stepfather, and to those men, it had been in a haze.

Isaac pushed in past the gag reflex. He saw his cock go all the way down, saw the outline in his throat. He pulled in and out three times, slow, to make sure he wasn't hurting or suffocating Willem. The older man snatched Isaac's ass and buried a finger deep in his ass, making Isaac squeal.

Isaac bent down, kissing Willem's hard stomach. Taking that cock into his own mouth. He was distracted, flinching and dancing and gasping from the sensations in his crotch. He was barely able to concentrate on Willem's cock. He tried to do the same to the older man, reaching around to finger him.

He wet two fingers with saliva, and pried open the taut little hole. Willem's rhythm became staggered, uneven.

Isaac giggled around the sweet-bitter taste of the precome, and the fleshy cone of the head.

He was still giggling when he tasted the come. It was so bitter, so much of it, that it dribbled out. He stood up and pulled his cock out. Willem only smiled upside-down at him. "I couldn't resist... I like having my ass played with."

Isaac flushed and pushed his cock back in. Three strokes later he muffled his cry into Willem's stomach.

---

After they both cleaned up and brushed their teeth, they crawled into bed. Willem turned off the lamp. He was nearly asleep when Isaac asked him.

"Why were you laughing?"

"It's a powerful feeling. Like fucking. But more intense."

After a moment of silence, Willem mused. "Of course, I prefer fucking. Eating a demon hurts. When I say intense, I mean it. It hurts so bad during, but at the same time it's like a drug. If there wasn't that feeling, I would have killed myself a long time ago. Back when my dear sweet mother was cramming the Succubi and the Dreamers and the Afreet right down my throat."

Isaac's hair smelled sweet. It was soft against Willem's cheek. He had the young man curled into the shape of his body. He could feel the soft small wings against his chest. He could feel the tail, warm and furry curled around one of his legs.

"How old were you?"

"Hm?"

"When... When your mother fed you your first."

"Five. Five is an important number in this business. You had five symbols on your tongue. Each rune is made from five lines. Protective circles have no lines, but binding circles need a pentagram. My mother fed me half a dozen innocent Immolation Mites. They cause the occasional forest fire, or spontaneous combustion, but mostly they are like sparrows, live and let live. She needed to feed them to me so that when she fed me my first Imp, he wouldn't tear me apart from the inside."

"Oh."

Quiet.

"I'm sorry if I frightened you. That Dreamer was insane. She couldn't leave the vase, and she hated humans for trapping her. If we had simply freed her, she wouldn't have been content with feeding on nightmares, like they are supposed to. She would have killed people.

"Dreamers are simple. Like dogs. That one was driven insane by her hatred. Killing her was the only option. She punished all of those people in that house by feeding on their good dreams. All they had were the nightmares."

"You didn't scare me." Isaac lied.

"Isaac, I can feed you. I can keep you safe. I can keep you from hurting others, so I will. I hope that you trust me."

Isaac sighed. Willem could feel the breath leaving his body, and then expanding his ribcage again.

"I trust you." The half-demon whispered. "Good night Willem."

"Goodnight Firecracker."

By the time the clock said midnight, the two of them were fast asleep.

*

*Hey again! It wont be nearly as long until the next stories. I am in the end stages of my story 'Cat and Dog' which will be another one of these not-quite-episodic thingys. (someone should really come up with a name for that.)

All other stories are in the twilight zone, so no promises.

Kisses and Spanks, 

--Cruel*  



Firecracker Ch. 02



"Dad, you have no idea how much you're embarrassin' me, embarrassin' your family."

"I think'a do, Sandra Jean. But it don't matter; it's none o'your business."

"Stacey and Erin're so ashamed you're living with their classmate they haven't been out with their friends since the 4th of July."

"They oughta spend a little more time at home. 'Specially since they're goin' off to college soon."

"Dammit, Dad, can ya only think 'bout yourself?"

"No, I can think about lotsa things. I think about you all plenty. I think about Frankie in Iraq."

"And what would he say about this?"

"Got an e-mail this mornin'. Said: 'Way to go, Grandpa. My whole platoon things you're th' bomb, 'cause you're still gettin' it done.'"

There was an icy pause. "You could have remarried," she said at last.

"To who? Nobody been intrested till now."

A loud gasp came over the line, followed by exasperation. "Surely you're not going to marry that poor kid?"

"She's not a kid, she's eighteen."

"You know what I mean. She could get. . .she could get. . ."

"No, she couldn't. She's on th' Pill."

"Dad," she wailed. "That's far more than I wanna know."

"Well, Sandra Jean, I'm sorry, but you asked."

Another icy pause. "Dad, you could get your heart broken so bad. What if she walks out?"

"Then I'm alone agin. Been there a lot, not afraid of it. I know she won't stay long. She jest needs time to get her act together. Not gettin' any dumb ideas 'bout marryin' her, or happily ever after, or any shit like that. I'm jest takin' it one day at a time."

"Dad, don't you care what people think? What people are saying at the Legion?"

"I don't take her to the Legion."

"They are talkin' about it."

"So what? I don't care. My friends're amazed, and Rosie Brown was so jealous last Friday night you coulda read a book from the glow."

"Rosie Brown would make you a good companion."

"She's a frigid bitch, Sandy, always has been. No fuckin' way."

"Language, Dad. Holy cow."

"Don't ya think I don't know those words."

"I know full well you do, anda don't want to hear it from you."

He sighed heavily. "Look, I'm fine, Kammie's fine, and it's a beautiful day. Chill."

"What if her parents find out?"

"Sandy, how dumb are you? Don't you know your girls' friends? Kammie's mom OD'd the day after Christmas last year, and if her dad showed up, I'd shoot the bastard for walkin' out on her when she was three. She was livin' in a trailer park next to Meth cookers by herself, sleepin' with a baseball bat, scared to death. She's better off with me."

"And you're a lot better off with her, I'm sure," she said with a sarcastic tone in her voice.

"Duh. Twenty five years by myself is a bit much. Got some catchin' up to do, now my Jackson's got some action."

"Shit, Dad, you're so gross."

"Look, Sandy, just chill. I know: by the time she's old enough to appreciate me, I'll be dead. Don't matter. This'll be over someday and you'll be respectable again. Folks that don't talk to you now aren't yer friends. I gotta run."

"All right, Dad, but this isn't the end of it."

"I hope not, Sandra Jean, I hope not. Bye."

"Bye."

Keith Watson flipped his cell phone shut and settled down to watch the hummingbirds at his deck feeder. They were circling in the bright morning light, one valiantly trying to protect his ground against five others trying to sneak a nip of nectar. He was a weathered man with chiseled features of 57, hobbled by a wound received in the jungles of Vietnam, and living in a house on the shore of the Lake of the Ozarks. His long dark hair was pulled back into a pony tail, and his wrinkled face was clean shaven. A clean white t-shirt and jeans awkwardly draped his body, his almost useless feet in white socks. A walker sat next to his rocking chair to help him get around the house, but he sat watching _Mike and Mike in the Morning_ totally at peace with the universe.

A new cell phone tower stood on his lot, so between that rental income and his pension, he was comfortable again. He could afford Kammie at this time of his life, and she needed respite from a life of troubles, as far as he could tell.

The front door banged open and shut. The staccato burst of keys hitting the counter and light steps flitting down the hallway warned him he was not alone. Kammie Smith came into the kitchen part of the great room of the A frame house, her arms full of fresh produce. She was short and well proportioned: her long blond hair was gathered on top of her head, and she wore a blue halter top, white short shorts and sandals.

"Hi, studpuppy. How's it hangin'?" she intoned over the counter.

"Good, Sweetness" he replied over his shoulder. "How's the Farmer's market."

"Wonderful. I got some fresh sweet corn, tomatoes, green beans and taters."

"Great. Harry Kerns gave me some deer meat at the Legion last night, so we'll eat good tonight."

"You bet." She bounced around and sat on his lap, giving him a big, open mouthed kiss that lasted several seconds. "Ya miss me?"

He hugged her and smiled. "Yup."

"I think you're glad to see me. Somethin's stirrin' down there." She wiggled in encouragement and giggled at the response.

"Well, ya never leave me alone, so it's no wonder I can't get it down."

Standing, she flipped her halter top up over her head, revealing sun kissed breasts. "Can't leave'im standin' there all alone." She unzipped his fly and pulled his hardening cock out, stroking it to fullness. Her other hand undid her zipper and her shorts feel to the floor, revealing a huge wet spot.

She sat on his lap facing him, putting her legs through the arms of the rocker to straddle him, and worked her tanned bottom up and down to insinuate him to fully inside her. He grasped the arms of the chair and matched her rhythm as best he could, pecking her neck and licking her earlobes as they came in range. 

Soon, she started shuddering, tossing her head back and forth as her climax built. Her curvy butt moved faster and faster, her hands on his arms, her legs gripping his, her delicate nipples turning into rubbery rocks. A gasp and a shriek, and her orgasm began; he leaned forward to probe her ear with his tongue, letting up only when she sagged into him, breathing heavily.

"Wish you wouldn't call me Studmuffin." he murmured into her ear.

"You haven't let me down yet. One way or another."

Her eyes focused again and she looked at him with dancing brown eyes. "I think we have some unfinished business here," she giggled.

"Yeah. Whatca gonna do 'bout it, Sweetness?"

"I think I'll come up with somethin'" She lifted herself off his hard cock, and knelt before him, stroking the wet shaft. Her tongue sought out his balls, swirling and circling while her hand responded to his accelerated respiration but going faster and faster. Keith held himself in control for two infinite minutes before he started jetting semen over her brown back and her platinum blond hair. Sitting up, she milked every drop from him, licking off the last flecks and taking his corona into her mouth to make him quiver uncontrollably.

They sat for several long moments, her head in his crotch, kissing his limp dick. He sat and gazed out the sliding glass door at the hummingbirds dance, barely taking it in. Finally he said: "You want something, don'cha?"

"Yeah."

"What?"

"I wanna get some stuff from the trailer. My old home."

"Oh? Think that's a good idea?"

"I'm not goin' back there to live. It's a shitpile. It could burn for all I care. But I want some o' my stuff."

"How many trips we talkin'?"

"One. Just ten minutes. In and out. No problem."

"Well, I kin see a potential problem, but I kin get ready. Go 'head, get a shower and change and we'll git goin'."

"You don't think I want to go around with sperm in my hair all day?" she said as she got up and flounced away. He gave her delicately curved bottom a resounding smack before she got out of range, and got himself up, zipped up, found a clean shirt to put on, and moved to get his special equipment for the morning.

The sun danced between the green branches of the back road to the trailer park. It was mostly shaded, distant from any town, and heavily cratered, torturing the shock absorbers. Kammie's trailer park was surrounded by thick brush on three sides, and about twenty beat up trailers and campers languished in the brightening sunlight, satellite dishes sprouting like mushrooms from the roofs. Kammie directed Keith to her spot, and darted quickly into the door.

Keith looked around and wished he still smoked so he'd have something to do. A couple small dogs strolled by on unfathomable business, stopping to look Keith over in his truck, strolling across the sparse grass and finding a sunny basking spot. The blue glows told Keith at least three residents were watching _The Price is Right_.

Suddenly, a door banged open, and a huge man emerged holding a tire iron. His hair was disheveled, his face unshaven, body hair almost crawling out of his sleeveless t-shirt. A scowl dominated his face and he stumped over to Keith's window. Keith opened it an inch.

"Whatca doin' here?" he growled.

"Jus' helpin' a friend." Keith replied cooly.

"Ya got no friends here." He whacked his palm with the tire iron.

"Ten minutes from now I'll be gone forever." 

"Yer goin' now or yer gone forever."

"No thanks, bro. Waitin' for a friend."

The man pulled back the tire iron, getting ready to make a swing when he suddenly noticed the barrel of a .45 pointing down his nose. The metal bar froze in mid-air.

"Where'd ya get that?" he mewed.

Keith looked at the grizzly man calmly. "I'm a sheriff's deputy, got a radio right here, and you've threatened me. I can shoot ya now if I want."

His eyes crossed as they looked down the barrel of the gun. After a couple of moments, he objected softly. "Ya can't do that."

'I was in 'Nam. You won't be th' first."

His eyes were sweating and his hands started to shake. "People'll see."

"Oh? You sure this won't be like Skidmore, where the town bully got kilt in broad daylight but nobody saw it?"

The tire iron dropped to the ground. Slowly, he took a step backward, and finding himself still alive, took another. The careful moves picked up pace until he was practically diving back into his trailer.

When the man disappeared, Kammie came out of her trailer with a suitcase, a cardboard box and a boombox. Putting the stuff in the back of the extended cab nervously, she slammed the door shut and got in. Keith started the engine, and leisurely put it in reverse.

"What happened with Glen?" she asked.

"Who?"

"The guy in the trailer. I thought he was gonna mess you up."

"I messed him up."

"Oh, I see now. I didn't know you had a gun."

"Nobody else needs to know."

"Check, honey. I'll even forget."

"Forget what? Wanna go on the water after lunch?"

"Yeah," she bubbled, her mood changing immediately. "Like to go skiin'."

"Okay. I'll get out the fast boat."

The ride back was uneventful, and Kammie fixed Keith a light lunch. She changed into a green bikini while he changed into shorts and another t-shirt. His motorized chair took him to the dock, and he got his boat ready. She helped him launch the boat, untying the ropes and jumping in as it floated away. The engine roared to life, and they sought open spaces where they could run fast and free.

The sun was high, but there was no other traffic on that part of the Lake on a mid week afternoon. Keith handled the boat with practiced ease from the captain's chair, and Kammie basked in the sun. They arrived at their launch point, and he prepared the lines while she put her skis on.

She undid her hair and took her top off before getting over the side. "Aren't you gonna put on a life vest?" he asked.

"Nope. I'm an excellent swimmer, can't sink."

"Don't like it, Sweetness."

"Stacey and Erin and me go skiing like this all the time."

"Topless?"

"No, without life vests. I'm a pro, don't worry."

He scratched his face then shrugged his shoudlers. "Awright, Sweetness, if you insist. Bet you'll live to regret it. When you get tired jest give me the high sign and I'll rescue you."

Kammie got settled into the water and braced herself; Keith throttled up and pulled away. She got up the first time and they ran long sweeping circuits on the water. The water was as smooth as a table top, and he reveled in the speed as he fly back and forth. Occasionally they passed a boat at the distance or a group picnicking on a dock. She waved brazenly as she went by, drawing waves and an occasional toot from a boat horn in reply.

Looking back, he saw the Water Patrol coming up behind him, so he cut his speed and let her down, swinging around to her position to meet the newcomer, putting the boat between her and the law. "What's up, studmuffin?" she said from the side of the boat. 

"Water Patrol. Stay under the water."

"Won't I drown?"

"Not your head, dammit. Keep the rest of ya outta sight."

"Sure, honey."

The boat pulled alongside Keith's boat, and he smiled at the newcomer. His son, Mike Thomas, was the patrolman. "Hi, Dad. How's it going?"

"Great, Mike. Like a soda?"

"No thanks. Goin' a little fast for an old man today."

Keith shrugged his shoulders. "Nobody else's here, and you know I can handle my boats. The little girl jest wanted t'have sum fun."

"Yup. Heard complaints about a topless skiier from some folks over yonder. Know anything about it?"

"Don't see anybody topless around here, do you Sweetness?" he asked over the side.

"Nope," came the thin voice in the water.

"Hi, Kammie," Mike said. "Are you covered up?"

"Yup."

Keith turned around and they looked over the rail. "I can't see her tits, Mike, can you?"

"Nope. The water's a little murky today, Dad."

"Oh."

"You two better head home. Anybody else complains and I'm up shit's creek."

"Don't want that t' happen, Mike. Thanks."

"No problem." He looked over his shoulder and pointed up an arm of the lake across the way. "Everybody over there's weekenders, so ya might wanna ski over there next time."

"Thanks, Mike. My love to Sandy and the girls."

"Sure. Bye, Kammie."

"Bye."

"Bye."

The Water Patrol boat turned and sped off toward the dam; Keith waited while Kammie handed up her skis and got back onboard. He took off homeward while she stretched out in the sun, drying herself.

"Sweetness, ya might regret that later."

"It feels good, honey."

"All right, but I warned ya."

They got home to the slip and got the lines tied. He could feel the heat from her body as she sat on his lap, but said nothing. As the reached the deck, she got up and stood, stretching. He gave her a healthy smack across her shoulder and was rewarded with a high pitched scream. "I think ya got a sunburn, Sweetness."

"You're awful, jest awful." She looked down; her skin from the waist up was reddened. Gingerly, she touched her nipple and winced. "Damn."

"I told ya. Sun's more bright on the water, ya can burn pretty easy."

"Shit, forgot the sunblock today. Guess I got distracted," she said with a twinkle in her eye

"Well, I got some aloe in the bathroom cabinet. Let me lie down, lie down next to me and I'll help ya."

It took him several minutes to hobble with his walker across the great room and to the bedroom, where he fell down on the bed with a big groan. She brought him a glass of iced tea, and fetched the aloe vera gel. He patted the bed, inviting her to lie down, and he poured a large blob of gel into his palm. Laying on his side, he began to work the soothing balm into her skin, first on her back, slipping his hand under her bikini bottom to fondle her, then moving down her legs. She flipped and he started at the bottom, working on the front of her legs, her belly, and her chest. Puckishly, he flicked her burned nipple and she gave him a smack, feigning indignation. But he covered her red breasts with the ointment, working it in to her purring approval. Finished, he pulled down her bottom and worked a finger into her slick valley, stroking her lower bud with his thumb. She sighed and moaned, her body glistening with aloe, her tongue licking her lips. Soon he had her shuddering in a climax.

After she recovered, her hand slipped down and unzipped his shorts. He smiled and let his mind unlatch itself from thought as she pulled his pants down, her tongue seeking his wetness and her mouth drawing him in. The sun sank in the West, the hummingbirds flew their circles and the crickets began to sing as his soul took flight into ecstasy and he erupted in salty sweetness. She stayed until he was done, then came up and snuggled into his side.

She looked at him laying by her side. "I love you, Keith. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Thanks, Sweetness. You're the best thing that's been in my life for a coupla decades."

"I know it's tough for you, the way your family thinks."

"Hell, don't worry 'bout that. If Mike was pissed, he'd have written us up. Sandy'll get over it someday, and your friends'll be off to school soon. I gotcha now, and that's what matters."

"Yes, now's what matters."

They lay together looking into each other's eyes for a long moment. The breeze rattled a few loose shingles on the roof. He put his hand behind her head and murmured. "Someday you'll go have a life, and I'll be alright."

She stroked his cheek and kissed him. "I gotta life now, and I'm keepin' it.



Firecracker Ch. 02



*I'm back, Baby*

The boy woke up, as he always did, opening his eyes to see the protective circle, etched in deep blue lines on the ceiling above his bed.

His mother's hand was on his shoulder. The woman was tall, fierce in a way that many had a hard time describing. Her hair was fire-red. Her eyes had a ring of silver around the pupil, very close, very thin. She was dressed in boxers and a tank top, her breasts were sagging and flat from so many children, but she still looked regal as a queen.

"Wake up, Willem. It's time."

The boy yawned and rolled over.

"Willem, it's nearly midnight, and there's a new moon. We need to get this done tonight. Your birthday is in a few days, we will never get another chance."

"Mommy?" The boy whispered sleepily, rubbing his eyes with one small uncoordinated fist. "What are we doing?"

The woman gently kissed his tussled dark head. "I'm going to make you strong, sweetie. I'm going to make you a hero."

He rolled out of bed, pawing sleepily at his eyes. His faded Muppet Babies pajamas were worn at the knees and elbows, a few inches above his pale ankles.

"Come on, sweetie. I'll get you some Graham crackers and milk when we're done. It wont take very long at all."

"Kay Mommy." Willem murmured.

They went down to the kitchen, and Willem eyed the chaos boredly. Mommy was always drawing things on the floors and the walls. He had gotten in trouble at kindergarden for drawing some of them in his pictures. The principal had called Mommy, talking about what sounded like 'Satan war ship.'

Willem had asked Mommy if that was a new TV show, because it sounded awesome.

The dining room table had been shoved into the kitchen. A huge basic pentagram had been carved into the floor ages ago, but Mommy had outdone herself.

Normally the pentagram was in white, but she had filled in the carved lines with black this time. She had scrawled layers and layers of intricate runes with black and red and yellow and ochre colored chalk. Some blue and white runes were in the middle. Willem knew that white and blue were protective, and the other colors meant trouble.

"Be careful, sweetie-pie. Careful, don't smudge the chalk. I want you to sit in the middle."

"Can I have crackers, mommy?"

"In a minute, sweetie."

Willem picked his way through the chalk. He sat down on the small round pillow that Mommy had put at the center. He watched her with sleepy blinking eyes as she lit the multitude of candles. Normally the candles were white. He had seen her light yellow candles once or twice.

These candles were black.

She picked her way through, and put herself in the small bare crescent shape in front of her son.

"You are the fifth son of a fifth son, just as I am the fifth daughter of a fifth daughter. You will be more powerful than me, because you are born of a fifth daughter and a fifth son. One day, you will make all demons tremble."

Willem yawned.

"Just a few minutes longer, Willem. Then we can have some crackers, and go to bed."

She started to chant. When she chanted, her voice became low and unrecognizable, like the snarling of a beast.

Willem sniffled a little. The air was getting thick, and hard to breathe. His stomach hurt.

He felt... Hungry.

Mommy brought out a small mason jar, and he saw five pokey little lights buzzing around in it. Like fireflies. The lid of the mason jar had a pentagram drawn on it with red crayon. All of the flames on the candles went low. Nothing but tiny blue dots. 

"Open wide, Willem."

Willem obeyed. His front top teeth were both missing. He gave her his crooked gap-toothed mouth to fill.

With her elongated two fingernails, first and middle, she scooped up an immolation mite. Her fingernails were painted with tiny pentagrams. To contain it. The creature was ugly as sin, so small and stupid that it could not disguise itself even to humans. Like an ugly mutated wasp, far too many legs, swollen with poison. 

She placed the dazed mite on her sons tongue.

"Swallow, my sweet."

Willem started to cry. He swallowed it, but he whimpered with the pain. "Mommy! It hurts! It stung me!" He tried to get up.

"Stay in the circle, you little shit!" She bellowed. She grasped his jaw. Willem froze and opened his mouth when the second mite came. He writhed as it stung the inside of his mouth, and as his body was wracked with pain and a kind of savage pleasure that his young body had no idea how to handle.

Every hair on his body was standing on end. His pupils were so dilated, that the brown irises were nearly gone. Every muscle was stiff. His eyes were wide and starey with fear and pain.

The third mite came, dropped from his mommy's long scoop of a fingernail into his open mouth. Like a mother bird, depositing some worm.

He cried out. He had stings stippling his small pink tongue.

"Two more, my sweet. Two more."

Willem rose unsteadily, ready to totter out of the circle. His mother whispered a harsh word and suddenly invisible hands were clutching him from all sides, holding him still, wrenching his mouth open.

"Hold him, Izarys. Hold him till I'm done."

A rumble came from the naked air. The grip on her helpless son tightened till he squealed with pain.

He seized, unable to move from the spot, unable to close his mouth, tears streaming from his dilated eyes.

At the fourth mite, Willem nearly lost consciousness. His mother slapped his cheek to keep him awake.

"Stay awake, love. I have the antidote right here, but we need to finish the ritual, one more, one more."

Her son's face was swelling grotesquely.

She had to force the last mite in through his swollen lips. She started to chant as her son convulsed from the venom running hot and red through his veins. Steam rose from his pores. His flesh was swelling everywhere. His sweat was extremely inflammable.

She finished the chant, and suddenly the candle flames were back to normal. The light seemed normal. Sweat soaked her brow.

"That's enough Izarys."

Willem dropped to the floor. His heels drummed against the floor as he convulsed, smearing the chalk lines. He wasn't making any noise, he had stopped drawing breath.

She plunged an old-fashioned syringe, with two holes for the fingers, into the swollen inner tube of her young son's neck.

The skin on his eyelids and around his lips was pale lavender. His breathing eased right away, but it took a few minutes for the swelling to go down enough for him to open his eyes.

"Why?" Willem bleated. A helpless question, slurred by his swollen lips, and weak sobbing.

"You'll know when you're older." The red woman soothed.

--

When Willem woke up, his skin did not burn. He was not swollen up like an inner tube. His tongue was not blocking his entire mouth in a swollen pus-filled boil. He could open his eyes.

He was no longer five, but twenty-seven.

He was alone in bed.

Disoriented, he wondered if the events of the last few months had been nothing but a feverish dream.

Then the door opened and in the light from the bathroom down the hall, he saw the silhouette of a curly-haired head with small horns.

"I didn't mean to wake you." Isaac whispered.

Willem turned onto his back and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "You didn't. Bad dream."

Isaac closed the door behind him, and it was dark. Willem and the boy both had heightened senses, so Willem was still able to see his lithe naked form slip into bed.

Isaac burrowed under the sheets, and Willem could feel the warmth of his body before the younger man actually touched him. Isaac rested his head on Willem's chest, and cuddled in close.

Willem buried his cheek in Isaac's soft curly hair. The blunt point of one horn tapped against his cheekbone. They used the same shampoo, but Isaac had a smell all his own. Spicy.

"What was the dream about? If you don't mind?"

Willem brought his hand up and touched Isaac's cheek. The halfling gently sucked on the tips of his fingers.

"It was about when my mother fed me the mites."

"Did it hurt?"

Willem closed his eyes. "It hurt a lot."

"Why did she feed you the mites? You said that they were innocent."

Willem sighed. "It's how the vessel works. With every demon I eat, I become a stronger vessel. Immolation mites are about as weak as demons get. If she had just taken a human off the street, and fed them a mite, they would have died. Even with the antidote.

"She needed the ritual. I was stronger because my father was a fifth son, and I was a fifth son. The ritual strengthened me. Once I absorbed the energy of the five mites, I was a strong enough vessel to eat a small imp a few weeks later. After the imp, I was strong enough to eat another imp without getting horribly sick."

Isaac shivered a little. "I saw what it was like with the Dreamer, and in that parking garage in Iowa. It must have been horrible, early on."

Willem nodded, and then moved his fingers deeper into Isaac's mouth. He sucked. Willem could feel the halfling's cock against his hip. He could feel it twitch.

"It was. She was feeding me about once a month, and even being as careful as she was, I nearly died. More than once."

Isaac abruptly spit out his fingers. "Could you still die now? If there was a demon strong enough?"

Willem laughed. He turned onto his side and kissed Isaac full on the mouth. Isaac kissed back, his eyes still full of concern.

"I've been eating demons since I was five years old. My mother started feeding me full-sized demons when I was eight. I'm the strongest vessel I know. Maybe the strongest in the world."

Isaac laughed, and rolled so he was on top, giving up any pretense of snuggling and grinding his cock into the other man's crotch.

Willem smiled up at the boy on his lap. Willem's vestigial wings were flapping to keep balance. His horns were shiny and dark. Willem knew that Isaac liked to polish them.

Isaac grinned. His elongated eye-teeth were just barely visible when his lips were pressed together. When he bared his teeth, they gave him a feral look.

His crimson eyes glowed in the dark.

Willem ran his hands carefully up those slim hips. Isaac grasped their cocks together. He started to stroke. Willem groaned. Isaac's cock was velvety hot and soft, the foreskin was like satin against his circumcised cock.

Isaac held their cocks together. Willem smiled up at the boy as Isaac rubbed the ball of his thumb over Willem's head, spreading slippery precome.

Isaac bent down and kissed Willem's mouth. Willem felt the heat. He whispered the protective words.

Willem gently bit those soft lips. Bit at the tongue that came out. Sucked on it. He reached down and stroked Isaac's cock, thrusting up with his hips.

Isaac breathed out. The hot air surrounded them. Made the air crackle. Willem smelled hot cloth. The smell of singing fabric was a thoroughly erotic smell to him, by association.

Isaac groaned and ground his cock into his lover's groin. Harder and harder until his breath was coming in frantic little pants. Willem gently teased one finger into Isaac's taut little asshole. Isaac's tail lifted, to give him better access.

Isaac arched his back and his come came out in three spurts. The first landed on Willem's chest, the second one reached about as far as his navel. The third one just dribbled out into Willems coppery pubic hair. Isaac's vestigial wings flapped wildly, sending puffs of hot air everywhere, balancing him. His breaths were coming in great gasps.

He could feel the cool spurts of Willem's human come on his stomach.

After a quick rinse with washcloths and beating out the corner of a pillowcase that had lit on fire, the two men slept soundly till morning.

--

Isaac was not a morning person.

Willem knew better than to wake the sleepy half-demon, so he slid out of bed and pulled on a pair of boxers before going downstairs to check his computer.

He did his hour-long trawl of the websites he had linked to his main web page. He made a quick file of anything interesting. A series of grisly murders in Mississippi. A couple of missing person's reports. A fire in a closed factory. Ninety nine times out of a hundred, these were regular crimes. Nutjob murderers, random acts of arson, runaways, but every now and then...

Willem checked his emails.

He quickly scanned and deleted all of the unimportant looking ones. Half were receipts of conformation of online shopping. Isaac bought most of his clothes and things online. Willem enjoyed buying video games, and he purchased his chalk and candles and the occasional bit of equipment from a Wiccan website.

Then he went down to the more important emails. There were three. All from his employer.

The first one was debunking the grisly murders. It had just been a crazy suicidal teenager on a killing spree. Horrible, but human.

The second email was a working order. A demon that had been under tabs had gone crazy and raped half a dozen people at a campground in Wyoming. Willem had to get there and track it down.

The third email was the one that made Willem feel sick.

--

"We're going to Wyoming!"

Isaac groaned.

"Hup! C'mon, sleepyface."

Isaac made a crabby squeaking sound when Willem yanked off the covers. Then started rubbing his eyes.

He stretched like a cat, sticking his rump in the air, two-pronged tail lashing, while stretching out his arms and arching his back and with his little vestigial wings fluttering at the air. Willem reached in to give his ass a playful smack. Isaac yipped and rolled onto his back. His cock was hard, laying against his belly like a thick piece of meat.

"Isaac? If you can get all your things ready for a weekend trip in the next..." Willem checked his watch. "Ten minutes, then I'll give you anal when we get to the hotel."

The tips of Isaac's tail twitched, and Willem could see the pupils dilating. The half-demon practically sprang out of the bed and started yanking clothes out of the drawers.

--

"I'm boooorrreeed."

The car was packed, and Isaac was bouncing in the seat. It was very hard to arrange air travel for Isaac, seeing how odd he would be to even the most cursory TSA checkpoint, so Willem was traveling a lot more often by car.

"Get the DVD player out and watch a movie." Willem suggested.

"I'm sleepy, and horny."

Willem sighed. "People will be hurt if we get there any later. I promised you anal, just remember that. And if you really have to go, jerk off in the car. I don't care."

Willem looked out of the corner of his eye and saw Isaac giving him puppy-dog eyes. Willem took a deep breath and sighed it back out.

"Just a quickie." He grumbled, a small laugh underneath his grumpy demeanor.

He pulled the car to the side of the highway, pulling into the dusty hardpan behind a billboard. They still had the badlands ahead of them, and if they drove hard for the entire day, they would be close. Isaac hastily pushed his car seat back and leaned back in it.

No time for finesse, they had a lot of driving to do.

Willem firmly groped the thick meat of Isaac's oversized cock through the soft cloth of Isaac's sweatpants. The half-demon groaned a little, twisting. Willem quickly turned the knob of the AC to full and murmured the protective words and yanking down his partner's waistband.

Down went the underwear, and the pants, and Isaac's fat cock sprang to attention. Willem went down on the soft pink head with a wet and slobbery kiss. He roughly cradled the shaved pink balls, feeling the soft beginning of stubble. He pushed his fingers under and massaged Isaac's perineum, knowing that the little stretch of skin was capable of driving Isaac purely crazy.

Isaac squirmed. He made adorable little squeaking noises as Willem went down deep, feeling the blunt head against the back of his throat.

Willem went up slowly, sucking gently, before plunging down, letting Isaac's cock pierce past any resistance.

Willem could smell singing cloth, feel how hot the air was getting, despite the AC. He slipped his fingers back and started to massage the taut little ring of Isaac's anus, going up and down in a quick pumping rhythm with his throat and mouth.

"Ah! Ahaaaah!" Isaac yelped and jerked his hips. Willem choked slightly and stayed down long enough to suck out all of the come, sucking a little harder than necessary out of annoyance.

Isaac yipped and squirmed a little until Willem detached and spat a mouthful of boiling-hot semen out of the window. "Happy, my prince?" He teased. Isaac just grinned and tucked his dick back in the sweatpants. Lazily swatting at a smoking drawstring. 

--

The badlands were hot and barren and alien. Driving through them was like driving between and around the craters on another world. Isaac was half-dozing, staring out the window when he heard the buzzing coming from the cup holder.

"Iz, my phone is ringing. Could ya pick it up?"

"Sure." Isaac felt sluggish with the heat. In a good way. He had the old-fashioned flip-phone in his hand when Willem stopped him.

"Quick, Isaac. Check the caller ID first. Tell me who it is, and don't pick it up."

Isaac heard something in Willem's voice that stopped him from trying to make a half-baked joke. He looked down at the screen.

"Screen sez Jo-Ann Whelk."

Willem relaxed. "She's from the agency, answer for me."

Isaac flipped open the phone and answered. "This is Willem Yeoman's phone, he's driving right now?"

The curt voice that reached him made the warm sluggish feeling evaporate in a hurry. Made the two burgers in his gut do a slow greasy flop.

"I'll... I'll tell him." Isaac whispered.

He flipped the phone shut and Willem gave him a sharp worried look.

Isaac looked down at his knees. "Whelk said that another demon-hunter got there first and tried to catch the demon. The demon was wounded, but got away. Six people are dead and another five are missing."

Isaac was looking at his knees, so he didn't see the look of pure alarm on Willem's face. The speedometer needle inched up from seventy to ninety. Isaac didn't see the resentment and anger and real fear.

"Isaac... I want you to call Whelk back and tell her to get you a room at a different motel."

Isaac was startled out of his thoughts and he looked up at Willem, mouth already open and a slew of questions on the tip of his tongue.

He swallowed his questions when he saw how strained and pale Willem's face was.

Instead of righteous anger, Isaac's voice came out in a timid squeak. "Why?"

Willem took a deep breath. "That other demoneater... It's not safe for them to know about you."

"Willem... You're going really fast." Isaac's small voice snapped Willem out of it a little. He looked down to see the orange needle trembling at just under 110 mph.

Willem loosened his grip on the wheel enough so that color seeped back into his knuckles. The needle inched down until it hovered around the 80 decal. Speeding, but for Willem, that was normal.

It was very quiet. Isaac gave Willem a wry smile. "Does this mean no anal?"

--

Isaac turned on the radio and kept an eye on Willem. Mostly the speedometer. He had never thought about other demon-hunters. Never thought that they might be a danger to him.

"I thought you said that the agency was okay with you and me? Why do we have to worry about the other one?"

Willem's voice was calm, but Isaac could see the needle inching up again. "I'm not a part of the agency. Neither are the thirty other demoneaters. We're not employees, we're 'independent contractors.' I don't meet them often, but I don't trust any of them. There's only one other that regularly does work in this continent. And even then, they're usually further south."

"Willem? Why do you call them demoneaters? In the agency, they always call you a hunter."

He laughed grimly. "They distance themselves that way. They don't like to watch. They don't like the pure facts of it. When they call me and the others 'hunters', they can pretend that we are assassins. Soldiers, even."




Firecracker Ch. 02



"But up close, we aren't assassins. We're just predators."

"Willem." Isaac whispered. "Speed."

The badlands on either side were blurring past at such speed that when Willem slowed to seventy miles per hour, the new (and still illegal) pace felt slow.

--

Whelk was a tri-state agent. She took care of Wyoming and the Dakotas. Because of low population, they only needed one agent and a handful of pencil-pushers to keep an eye on the three states. Most outbreaks happened in the poorer reservation areas in South Dakota. But this campground was closer to Devil's Tower in Wyoming.

"If I can get this taken care of quickly, I'll come back to this motel, kay?"

Isaac nodded, looking out the window. The badlands had passed them by, and they were in a little prairie town, a good twenty miles away from the Wyoming-South Dakota border. The original motel had been only a few miles from the campsite itself.

Whoever the other demoneater was, Willem wasn't taking any chances.

It was a run-down motel 8. Isaac could only see a handful of cars in the lot, and the sun was hovering over the flat horizon like a pulsing orange ball. The flatness of the horizon was monotonous and a little frightening. Like being in the middle of a microscope slide.

Isaac glanced at the sun through his dark glasses. He imagined a gigantic eye.

"I know you wanted to go with me to the campground, and I'm sorry." Willem had calmed down, now that they were near the destination. Isaac shrugged and leaned over to give the man a kiss on his copper-stubbled cheek. 

"I'll just watch some TV. I'm glad I came. We saw some cool stuff today. Maybe on the way back we can slow down a little, see some sights?"

Willem pulled the car into a parking spot. "That sounds great. I can't stay long, but maybe I can stretch my legs, and once we get to the room I might be able to give you a quickie."

Isaac fumbled with his seatbelt. His hands were a little sweaty from earlier, so his fingers slipped on the surface. Willem had already slipped out of the car.

Isaac opened the door. "That sounds amazing, do you think we'll get a room with a view of the... Willem?"

Isaac straightened and saw Willem. The older man was holding onto the upper edge of the car door with a white-knuckled grip. The tendons in his arms were standing out like cables. When Isaac saw Willem's face he got a cold feeling in his stomach. Something was very wrong.

Isaac whirled to see what Willem was staring at so intensely, with that guarded look of hatred and mistrust.

--

Willem felt his heart jackhammer at the sight of her smug face.

Her hair had grown out. It surrounded her head in a flaming puff, blowing in the wind. And did Willem detect a hint of grey?

He did.

She still retained that strand of thin fierce beauty that had stayed with her. Even after all the kids. Even after all of the indignities she had suffered at the hands of demons.

She looked fierce in the light from the setting sun. The oversized camo jacket on her thin shoulders, the sleeves blowing in the wind. Her thin but child-ravaged body on display in a tight tank top. Her nipples were poking against the thin fabric. The size and shape of pencil erasers.

"As if fucking men wasn't enough for you. Now you're fucking demons."

Willem found his voice, even though he could have sworn it wasn't possible. "Izarys is a demon, last time I checked. You don't have a problem fucking him." As he spoke, he moved around the back of the car, planting himself between her and Isaac.

Willem's eyes darted to the ripple in the air above her shoulder. "Isaac, get back in the car. I'll explain everything. You're coming with me."

Her eyes flashed. They were all silver now. Once upon a time, they had only had a ring of grey. "You can't leave now... I need to speak with you. That's the only reason I came up to this wasteland anyway." Willem bit his lip and refused to rise to the bait. That dangling fishhook heavy with six dead and five missing.

Isaac crept back into the car, closing the door and locking it, looking out with his wide concerned eyes. His eyes flashed cherry red through the glass. He was well fed. Willem kept him well fed.

Willem darted around the car, pointedly ignoring his mother and that shimmer above her shoulder. Even though taking his eyes off of her made every hair on his body stand up with fear. Willem thought he could feel every individual drop of sweat becoming pregnant on his skin.

"Willem, it's been three years, wont you even listen to what I have to say?" He could hear the sob in her voice. How much of it was real? He didn't even know anymore.

"Mother?" Willem held the car door open and kept his eyes fixed on the shimmer in the air. Izarys was too powerful to ignore, and it was easier than looking at her.

"Yes?"

"I don't know where she is, but whoever she is, you're going to have to find someone else. Because I wont help you. Not with this, never with this."

Willem got into the car, and for a paralyzing moment, he couldn't get the key to go in. His fingers were slippery with sweat, and the keyring seemed obscenely big, so many keys and fobs. Isaac was staring out the window with single-minded intensity. At the woman who was walking closer.

Willem started the car and squealed off. The rapidly spinning tires left swatches of hot rubber on the pavement of the parking lot. He didn't relax until they were back on the road. He kept the speedometer needle just a hair above the speed limit the entire time.

"So." Isaac said softly. "Your mother?"

Willem glanced at the boy in the front seat. He wasn't sure if Isaac looked nervous and out of sorts from meeting his mother, or if Isaac was just reacting to how nervous he was.

"The other demoneater." Willem whispered. His arms and legs felt cold, the sweat on his body felt cold. His fingers on the wheel felt trembly. He hated how she could do this. How quickly she could make him feel like a scared and helpless kid. 

Facing down a mason jar with a pentagon in red crayon.

"All you need to know right now, is that she's crazy. She's crazy, and you are worse than nothing to her. If I can help it, she wont ever see you again."

--

Isaac and Willem checked into the original motel. Willem took a heavy black suitcase out of the trunk. His personal clothes and toiletries were in a small blue duffel.

As soon as they got in, Willem opened the suitcase and started taking out slim sheets of paper.

He pasted four of the sheets on the door with little blobs of poster-tac. Each sheet of paper was scrawled with runes. "Protection." He muttered, as he worked.

He took a fat jar full of some kind of lotion out of the suitcase. He put on a single latex glove before spreading a thin clear layer of the lotion around the entire edge of the one window. Isaac slowly walked to the bed and sat down, watching Willem work.

There was something deeply disturbing about the fastidious way Willem set up the protections.

Isaac couldn't think of it. He watched Willem screw the lid of the jar shut and gingerly take off the latex glove, keeping the wet fingertips on the inside before throwing it away.

Isaac was about to open his mouth, but then he realized that Willem still wasn't done.

He was closing the bathroom door now, and pasting more of those long thin sheets of paper on the door. He was mumbling. His voice was strained and stuttering, so different from the normal lazy way he spoke.

"If you need to go, go now... Nothing will tak... I mean attack you while I'm here, but the bathroom... Dangerous. Too many wires, pl-plumbing. Yeah. Safer to close it off."

Isaac finally put his finger on it. Willem's shoulders were rounded and his back was hunched. Even his neck was bent down. He kept looking up, over his shoulders, everywhere but at Isaac.

Willem was terrified.

Isaac closed the black suitcase with fingers that felt too stiff. He sat on top of it. He waited patiently for Willem to finish sealing off the bathroom door, waited for Willem to come back to the suitcase.

Seeing the half-demon sitting quietly on the suitcase seemed to snap Willem out of it.

Isaac spoke slowly and firmly. "There are six dead people, and five people missing. The longer you spend here, the more likely it is that those five people are dead. The more you worry about me while you're there, the worse of a job you'll do."

Willem said nothing. He sat down on the corner of the bed. He looked Isaac in the eye. For the first time since they had seen his mother. Isaac stared him down.

"Take me with you. You just said that nothing would attack me while you were with me. I trust you."

Willem silenced Isaac by grabbing one horn and yanking the young demon up, squashing any further words with his hard mouth.

Isaac took the kiss passively, surprised. Seeing Willem so nervous, seeing his moods shift like this, it was a whole new flavor of unsettling.

"You're right. Of course you're right."

Willem took a shaky breath and looked around the room. Seeing the protections that he had put up.

"The campground is just a mile away. Short drive."

"Want me to do it?" Isaac whispered. "Give you a chance to calm down?"

That brought a ghost of a smile to his lover's face. A touch of the old him.

"You driving, Firecracker? How exactly is that supposed to calm me down?"

This time Isaac kissed him. "If I can't drive, can you at least promise to tell me what's going on? You told me about how she forced you to eat the mites, but you haven't told me anything that explains this."

Willem took a deep breath. "She's obsessed with creating demoneaters. She's one, and she is directly involved with creating three of them in all. Myself, the guy who takes jobs in central america, and a seventeen year old girl that she's still training. I'm her only son in the business, but I have..." His mouth twisted into a heartbreaking smile. "I have the best pedigree."

He was packing his black suitcase, taking it out to the car. Isaac followed, quickly adjusting his hood and mirrored sunglasses. The sun beat down on him, but the heat didn't bother him like it bothered humans. Or even Willem.

"The one in Guatemala, his name is Vincent. He's a distant relative. She bullied her aunt into having five kids, and then bullied her cousin into having half a dozen kids until a fifth son of a fifth son was born. And the girl... She's been almost consistently pregnant since she was twelve."

Isaac stopped. Startled. "But you said she was only..." 

Willem nodded curtly. Slamming the trunk door. He opened the hood of the car. The engine was overheated from the long day, steaming. "Seventeen. My mother doesn't care if it's a boy or a girl, but it needs to be the fifth of it's gender. The girl's had four sons and she's not even eighteen."

Willem laughed, and Isaac had never heard an angrier sound. "I'm sure there are half a hundred families from miles around that got seeds from my mother's babyfarm."

"Will..." The older man stopped his jittery angry rant for a moment when his young lover hugged him from behind. Taking both of his hands and holding them still.

Willem couldn't believe how he sounded. He felt like he was unravelling. And it was all her fault. Slower, calmer, he continued.

"I'm her biggest achievement. She's the fifth daughter of a fifth daughter, and a fifth son of a fifth son was my father. She started feeding me from the earliest age possible. She had a plan. A dynasty of fifth-sons and fifth-daughters. Getting more and more powerful as the bloodlines stacked up. She wanted to put me out to stud with half a dozen fifth daughters."

Isaac felt cold, and he could barely hear what Willem said next. "I don't want anything to do with her fucked up plans. I've been nothing but breeding stock to her all these years. But she has it tangled up in her fucked-up mind that I wont do it because I'm gay. She's tried to hurt people close to me before. Sometimes, she gets through my defenses."

This felt so wrong. Hearing Willem like this. Hearing him sound so scared, and defeated already.

"Fucking faggots."

Isaac practically jumped a foot in the air. He had been hugging Willem from behind for half a minute, and another man in the lot had taken notice. A sneering stoop-backed old man with his lower lip bulging around a pinch of tobacco, taking a suitcase from the bed of a lovingly maintained old truck the color of Isaac's eyes.

Isaac could feel the muscles in Willem's back tense up. The older man didn't look it, but he was very strong. Isaac put his hands up on Willem's shoulders, got on his toes so he could talk softly in his lover's ear. "It's nothing, Will. It's just an old bastard. Let him be. We got bigger problems."

Nine times out of ten, Willem would have ignored the old man. Not the best of percentages to begin with.

And the demoneater was having a rough day.

Willem walked purposefully towards the truck. It was crimson and mirror-bright. Washed, maybe even waxed, recently.

He swore. At least that's what it sounded like. Only Isaac recognized the low twisted syllables, though not their meaning.

The car alarm started screaming. The red car rocked violently back and forth, tires leaving the pavement two at a time, then slamming down hard enough to burst loudly. All of the safety-glass bowed out at once. The horn honked loudly. Once.

Willem crossed his arms and watched, a good ten yards from the possessed vehicle. His eyes glowing and his mouth set into a small white line. Destroying the car only helped a little. The look on the old man's face was more trouble than it was worth. The agency would be on his ass for sure.

The car settled on it's blown tires. The body was bowed and crinkled out of place. The windows were set, but whitened and bowed with cracks. The once-gleaming hood was marked hundreds of short gouges, revealing bright sheared metal underneath. The remaining paint was rippled and distorted with heat. The old man was on his ass, his face white and his mouth trembling. Utterly speechless. A brown stain of tobacco juice dribbled down his chin.

"Watch your language." Willem said. Soft, his voice almost kind.

Isaac didn't say anything to him until they were nearly at the campsite. It seemed wise.

--

"I've never seen you do anything like that." Isaac could see Devil's Tower against the sunset. It was striking. The black pillar alone on the plains, haloed by the sun. The sunset sky was a huge seeping bloodspot, the clouds edged in gold and purple.

"You've only seen me work when I'm against small fry." Willem seemed a lot calmer. Appearances weren't everything. "The Dreamer, those imps in the parking garage, the sun-dog in Illinois... All of those guys were small. I didn't have to fight them, only eat them. The sun-dog was the only one that had enough brains to know what I was.

"There isn't a single demon that I couldn't swallow. But the stronger ones are still dangerous. I have tools at my disposal."

Willem burped slightly. "You saw the shimmer in the air above my mother? You heard me talking about him? Izarys?"

Isaac nodded. "Well, I have a couple of friends, too. A few I can call up... and one that I carry around with me. I always meant to tell you about Min. The timing never seemed right."

Willem had a sheepish little grin on his face. "She lives... Well, I'm a vessel. She lives inside me. Mostly sleeps and gluts herself on the demons I eat. She's a security measure. She makes sure that the demons I eat stay quiet, and if I need something, or someone, wrecked..."

Isaac knew that his mouth was hanging open. He clicked his teeth together. "Can... Can she... hear us? Now? Or when... When we...?"

Willem winced. "Well. She sleeps a lot. But when she's awake... She can see through my eyes, listens through my ears. I tell her to leave off when I'm doing something private... And she mostly listens."

Isaac bit his lower lip. It was hard not to see the funny side, but at the same time he felt a little betrayed. "Do you have anyone else you want to tell me about?"

Willem sighed. "The only two entities that are near us right now are Min, and a wisp that does recon for me. The wisp likes to change his name and identity all of the time. Right now he's a 'he' and he likes to be called—" Willem sighed heavily. "Enchilada. Enchilada lives in the left headlight of my car, so he can't hear us right now. Min is sleeping. She's gotten pretty lazy over the years."

Willem had a wry little smile on his face. Isaac got the distinct impression that Min was not asleep.

"I... I could see the Dreamer a little. I could see the imps clear as day, and the sun-dog had an aura. How come I've never seen Min or Enchilada? Or... Or the others?"

Willem pulled the car off of the highway. Riding on a narrow unpaved road. "Min is an incredibly powerful entity. That's why she can survive distinct inside of me, when most demons immediately revert to energy. You can't see her when she's resting with me, and when she's outside, she can disguise herself seamlessly. Not only to humans, but also to you and most other demoneaters. Izarys can do it, too, but he likes to have a presence. And Enchilada is rarely out in the open. He's either in the headlight, or out doing recon. The others... I've asked the others to keep their distance.

"You... You were going to tell me about this, right?" Isaac kept his voice quiet, but it was impossible to completely disguise the frustration. "That you had... an attack dog sleeping in your stomach, and an enchilada in your car? And god knows who else?" 

Willem pulled to the side of the road. All the lights from the emergency vehicles were flashing from an adjacent dirt road. "I should have told you about Min. I should have told you about my mother. While we're at it, I have a few more things I want to tell you. But I'll tell you everything when we are somewhere surrounded by protection, and when Min is asleep, fair enough?"

Isaac slid out of the car. "Is... Is the headlight-wisp the reason you've been getting so much Taco Bell?"

Willem sighed. "He likes the smell. This isn't so bad. For a few months, she called herself 'diaper'."

Isaac stopped in his tracks to stare at Willem, pulling his coat from under the seat. "You're making that up."

Willem gave him a look, brows raised almost to his hairline. "Honey, I wish I was making that up." He pulled his creased brown leather jacket over his shoulders, keeping his arms free of the sleeves. Isaac blinked, and realized he had seen somebody else wear their coat like that. Just today.

--

Whelk met them at ground zero.

Willem glanced at Isaac, knowing that she wasn't probably who he was expecting. Whelk was maybe all of four-foot-ten. She had a round moon face and deeply creased brown skin with gray flyaways escaping from a bun resting on the back of her neck like a wrecking ball. Her sharp black eyes were framed by massive red horn-rims and her green tracksuit had a dusting of cat hair and dandruff on the shoulders. In one hand she had a neon-green workout bag, and in the other she had a hissing Coleman lantern. She looked more like a quarrelsome grandma from the rez than a secret agent.

She didn't believe in wasting words on something so banal as a greeting. "She fucked us, Willem. I can't stand that cunt. What is this?" She gestured to Isaac. "I get that Boss is okay with this, but you don't have to bring your pet here. Especially when she had to bend over backwards to clear the Fish out of here."

"Don't talk about him like that." Willem didn't look at her. He didn't feel like getting into a fight with Jo 'Bad Wound' Whelk. So he spoke to her, but didn't look. Instead, he walked around the campsite, inspecting the shredded tent under the harsh white light of Whelk's lantern. "With 'that cunt' around, I can't leave him alone. He wont effect my work. If anything, he can help. He can see past the first two Planes without glasses, and he's fireproof. His name is Isaac, and he isn't a pet."




Firecracker Ch. 02



"It's okay, Will." Isaac said softly.

No. Willem thought. It wasn't okay. His employer didn't care about Isaac. If he didn't know what Bad Wound was capable of, he would have punted the little bitch across the campsite. He bent down to look at a sleeping bag that had been flayed open by claws. There was only one bloodspot. In the center. He snapped his fingers.

"Enchilada!" He barked. He spoke the binding words. The symbol of the contract they had bound between them.

The wisp rushed out of the headlight. Sliding over the ground rapidly until he was bouncing around Willem's feet. He was pulsing a soft indigo, bouncing and spinning weightlessly, a little cheerful ball of ectoplasm. Willem heard Isaac gasp.

"Why are you so happy?" Willem said sharply. "A little decorum?"

The wisp pulsed red once, then his light brightened and steadied so he was the same color as the hissing Coleman lantern.

"The bodies have already been taken by the Fish. The five that were in this campground were only taken." Willem picked up the shredded bloodied sleeping bag. "Sorry I snapped at you, Enchilada. But I want to find them. Can you find them?"

The wisp rushed up at him. Lit on the fingertips of his left hand and zoomed down his arm, across the span of his shoulders, and jumped dizzyingly off of his right fingertips. While he did so, he flashed in every color of the rainbow, and then some. Willem was forgiven. Then the wisp jumped inside the shredded sleeping bag. The bag rippled and twisted with the wisp flurrying around inside. Flashing red and blue, like a police car.

Willem looked over at Isaac, who had crept forward to watch the wisp work. Despite everything, Willem had to smile at the look on Isaac's face. He seemed slightly spellbound. "He's so... pretty. I thought he would be almost invisible, like the dreamer, or just a shimmer, like Izarys."

The wisp bolted out of the sleeping bag and dashed in three mad circles around Isaac, flashing bright purple. "No... Don't be afraid. He likes you, Iz. He's a vain little thing."

The wisp flashed green and bounced off of Willem's head before racing away through the trees, flashing red and blue again. The resemblance to emergency lights was not accidental.

"What are Fish?" Isaac asked him. Willem was digging in his suitcase, looking for that damned yellow candle. Whelk answered before he hand the chance.

"Fish just means officials, halfman." She took out a phone and sent a text. "And if you're done with the site, we have to get out of here. Boss only has so much sway with these Fish."

Willem was startled by Isaac gently shoving him out of the way and closing the suitcase. The slim boy unzipped an outer pocket and took out a fat corn-colored stub of candle. "The yellow is for connections, right? You were looking for this one?"

"Yeah, how...?"

Isaac rolled his eyes and picked up the suitcase. "You heard what she said. We have to get out of here, and you always forget when you leave something in the outer pocket."

"Your boy's right." Bad Wound had something that might have been a smile at the corner of her puckered mouth. "Hurry it up."

Willem flushed and lit the candle with a word, following them and cupping his hand around the flame to protect it. At least she wasn't calling Isaac a pet.

--

Isaac sat in the passenger seat of Jo-Ann's SUV while Willem sat in the back, cupping his candle and not moving an inch, or saying a word. A white rabbit-foot hung from the rearview mirror, and the far back was filled with a dozen pieces of matching red luggage. It smelled like menthol cigarettes and rancid cooking oil.

"Will?" He asked quietly, "Are you—"

The tiny woman behind the wheel reached over and snapped her fingers in front of his nose, startling him into silence. "Hesh. He's binding his mind with that little rainbow sprinkle, and he needs to concentrate. Pretzel?"

Isaac looked doubtfully at the bag in her hand. "I... I thought you didn't want me here."

She looked at him over her red horn-rims. "I don't. But that doesn't mean you don't want a pretzel. I was a bitch, and it's probably for the best that you're here." She gave the pretzel bag a little shake. "If that red cunt is after you, best to run with him. He's just about the only one who gives her pause. Even Boss is wary around her. So, pretzel?"

"Sure. Thank you."

Willem pulled out of his trance suddenly, startling the half-demon into dropping his pretzels.

"Shit. Shit. Shit shit-shit-shit... SHIT."

He pinched the candle out and threw his body back in the seat, snapping his head back against the headrest with enough force to make the seat tremble.

Isaac couldn't sit forward, he turned around, biting his lip, not knowing what to say. This wasn't like the other times. This felt a whole lot more real. People were dead, and they were in danger.

Jo-Ann broke the silence. "We weren't part of your little séance, Willy, I don't want to guess."

Willem spoke without an inflection in his voice. Without lifting his head to make eye contact. "Seven dead, four missing. Tell the Fish that they'll find her at the bottom of the north face. And the southeast."

That couldn't be it. That wasn't all of it. Isaac reached and took one of Willem's hands, squeezing it. "What else?" He asked softly. Willem's hand was limp for a moment, and then he squeezed back. Hard, almost to the point of pain.

"It took the last four to the top of the rock. Unless we have a helicopter that I don't know about..."

Jo-ann already had a phone clamped against her ear. Her bun had come loose from it's moorings. It waggled at the back of her neck when she moved her head in small fast increments, looking out all windows, like a trapped animal. She started speaking rapidly in a different language. It took Isaac a surprised moment to realize she was speaking French.

"Willem?"

The older man didn't answer. Isaac could see his hands on the armrests of the backseat. Rhythmically clenching and unclenching. Isaac watched the knuckles go white, then pink, when white. This wasn't right. Willem was the one who had the answers. The one who was in control.

Maybe it's my turn to have the answer. The thought pushed Isaac to ask again. "Willem, do you know what this demon is? You said that the agency had been monitoring it before."

For a long moment, the only sound was Jo-Ann's rapid French, punctured by fragments of silence. Isaac wondered if he was even going to answer. Not for the first time that day, he wished that he had just stayed home.

"It was one of the dangerous kind, an Iblis. Most demons are insubstantial in this dimension, so their intelligence is also unstable. Fragmented. Most are stupid as rocks, and that's why they don't get into trouble. K'taal doesn't just have intelligence. It has speech, it has a thinking animosity towards humans. And he's gone insane. Dreamers, Incubi, Succubi, it doesn't matter. They only take as much energy as they need. K'taal is devouring whole human souls, and getting stronger with each one. It wont stop."

Willem leaned forward slowly, resting his head in his hands. "And it's hurting them. K'taal's angry at them and it's hurting them. It's not using Glammour or anything. It's too far away for us to reach it, and Enchilada was almost killed just trying to get a glimpse of it."

"Couldn't we lure him down somehow?" Isaac felt his stomach get fluttery and knotted up. He had an idea. A half-formed, awful idea.

Whelk tossed her phone onto the dashboard with an authoritative whap. "We can get the Fish to go up to the top for the victims, but we need to clear that freak out of there, first. Your boy-toy is right, Willem. What do you have in your box of tricks that could lure that thing down?"

Willem made them both jump by slamming his fist against the inside of the door. "Nothing!" He spat. "Nothing that will work. My cunt mother already made it wary. It's holed up on it's tower, and it'll attack any Fish that go up there. We need to find a way to get ourselves up there. And quick. It's torturing them. One at a time. Raping them. Killing them.

Isaac decided it was time to snap him out of it. "Willem, shut the fuck up." It was the first time he had ever said something like that, and the look that his lover gave him was almost enough to shut him up. Almost. "Punching the car isn't going to do a goddamn thing, and I don't see you suggesting anything. Forget about your mother, there are people getting hurt!"

It was time to ask. Time to ask about that terrible, awful idea. "You said he wasn't using Glammour. Can Glammour effect other demons?"

The guilty look on Willem's face evaporated instantly into something else. A new, stony kind of anger. "No. Absolutely not. Abso-fucking-lutely not. Don't even think like that."

Jo leaned over, eyes bright behind her red plastic horn-rims. "Shut up Willem, you said he could help, and he's being a better help than you, right now. So answer his question."

Isaac could see the cords in Will's neck. See a darkness in the look he threw at the old woman's way. He quailed only a little when Willem turned that look on him. His silvery eyes looked brighter than ever. "Isaac." He spoke softly. "This thing has already killed seven people. It didn't just kill them, no. It paralyzed them with it's breath before raping them, flaying their skin off an inch at a time. It eviscerated them. Desecrated their flesh. This isn't a human, that you can just swallow whole without a second thought!"

"Like what I did to my dad? Is that what you mean?" Isaac didn't know it was possible for his own voice to sound so cold. The air felt hot though. Very hot. He could see beads of sweat on Willem's brow. "Tell me Will. Can I use Glammour on this thing, or not?"

"Isaac!" It was the first time Jo had used his name. "He's a wretched son of a cunt, but calm down." The small wiry hand on his arm was rough as horn, but gentle. She didn't flinch away. Even though heat was emanating off of him in visible shimmery waves. "We're not going to let that Iblis touch him, Will. That's the point. You're boyfriend is ready, willing, and able. We have to do this. Every second we bicker, K'taal is skinning or eviscerating."

Caught between the three prongs of Isaac, Jo, and logic, Willem finally gave in. Leaning forward. "It will work, but Iz?"

Isaac had cooled down, but the air all around him still felt hot and soupy. Jo-ann was looking at her fingertips, pink and scalded. He looked at Willem, feeling scared and angry and very cold.

"Listen to everything I say, Iz. I mean it. K'taal is wary. Twice-shy. If I put any protection on you, even a protective circle, K'taal will smell it, will know it's there. I'm going to use you as bait, and bait usually gets..." Willem could barely choke the words out. "Bait gets swallowed. You don't have to do this, Isaac. I can't promise that I can protect you, so please."

Isaac pushed the car door open. Willem mirrored his movements. When they were standing outside, in the near-dark, Isaac squeezed the older man as hard as he could. Burying his face into Willem's shirt, smelling sweat, not caring. "I do have to, Will. I killed my own dad. I can save these people. Don't try to take that away from me."

Willem kissed the top of his head. "That's my Firecracker. You're right. Let's get started." He sounded about as enthusiastic as a man getting ready for surgery without anesthesia. "No goddamn time like the present."

--

Bonds were hard to establish. But far harder to break.

So while Willem prepared his partner to be a fucking worm on a hook, he could feel Enchilada in a corner of his mind. The wisp loved bright colors, and had tied his emotions to them. Blinding white pulses of fear and wretched dark veins of pain bled through the back of Willem's mind. He couldn't get the wisp to stop. The little thing was so afraid that he was huddling in the headlight socket, weeping in the only way he knew how, by strengthening the bond between the two of them and sharing the awfulness of what he had seen in vibrant skewed images and splashes of bleeding color.

He needed to concentrate. Enchilada, while exceedingly bright for a wisp, was frightened out of what little speech and clarity he possessed. 

"Will?" Isaac's voice snapped him out of the chromatic bruise of Enchilada's fear. "Will, wh-what is this for?" Willem caught the tremor. Isaac's hands were already untying the drawstring of his sweatpants. But he wanted an answer. His coal-red eyes were fixed on Willem's. Despite his composure, he was probably as scared as the gibbering wisp in Willem's head.

Willem reached and pulled down the zipper of Isaac's sweatshirt. He was gentle, sliding the sweatshirt off of his shoulders. "I'm going to mark you as a sacrifice. It will extend the range of your Glammour, but just to him. You're going to stick in his craw. He wont be able to ignore you." Willem pulled Isaac's t-shirt over his head, the young man lifting his arms to help. It was very dark. The only light now came from the stars and the faraway emergency lights, pulsing in time with the blood in Willem's temples.

In the almost-dark, Isaac's thin chest glowed like ivory. Willem bent down to his suitcase, opening it up. He moved his finger past the rows of candles and boxes of chalk. To a rarely opened pocket containing half a dozen plastic bottles of body paint. He'd bought them at craft stores, and added one or two ingredients of his own.

Isaac kept his sweatpants up as Willem squirted some of the bright red paste on his finger. The stuff wasn't red like Isaac's eyes. It was a flat plasticky candy-apple color.

Jo could barely see in the dark, but she saw him pause. "We don't have time to fuck the dog, Picasso, get painting."

Willem was running on his own short fuse, clouded by Enchilada. It was only Isaac's hand on his shoulder that quieted him. The young man looked up at him. "C'mon, Will. She's right. We don't have time." He took a shaky breath. "Just slather me up, before I lose my nerve."

He started at the base of Isaac's throat. When he had first seen him, those collarbones had stood out in sharp contrast, like wings. He dabbed the paint into the hollow, and Isaac gasped at the coldness of the paint. Willem traced a quick practiced circle. The apogee was level with the notch of Isaac's collarbones, the bottom curve at his solar plexus. Willem slashed the circle in five places, breaking it with hyphens of red paint.

"Turn around, Iz." Willem murmured. Isaac did as he was told. His vestigial wings were folded tightly to his shoulder blades. Willem touched one with his clean hand, he could feel Isaac trembling. Willem kissed Isaac between his shoulders, on soft downy skin between his wings, before replacing his lips with cold candy-apple paint.

The markings for a sacrifice were very specific. Broken protection circles, not in protective blue or standard white, but in a sickly red. The color of supplication, invitation, invocation.

When he was done, Isaac was naked, and marked, shivering on a dirt road under and overturned bowl of dim alien stars. The monolith of Devil's Tower blotted out the remainder of a clotted purple sunset.

"Lucky for us, K'taal made it's nest on top of a ley line. We're on it, too. Bad Wound and I will be off the line, so it wont sense us. Don't breathe in if it tries to get close. The breath will paralyze you. We're going to be a hundred yards away, Iz. I'm going to have Min, and I'm going to put a protection on myself. When it comes..."

Willem took a hard angry breath. "When it comes, you'll have to trap it. We can't come in unless it's guard is down... Or if it's trapped." Willem clenched his fists and his teeth. "This is sick. This is so fucking sick."

"I can do this, Will." There it was. That vein of steel Isaac always had in him. "Hell. I'm made to do this. Of course I'm scared out of my mind, but I have to." Despite the brave words, Isaac's tail was pressed firmly between his legs, trembling.

"I know you will, Firecracker."

Isaac wanted to kiss him, Will knew. But he had paint on his lips. Willem kissed his hairline between his polished black horns, and ducked into Bad Wound's car.

Isaac looked so small behind them.

--

Once, Isaac had stumbled in the dark like a human. Since that day, that horrible black day when his tattoos faded and his wings grew, his night vision was almost as good as his day vision.

He couldn't see the SUV though. It was too far away. He had never felt more alone in his life.

He turned his eyes up, to the apex of the mountain of nowhere. K'taal. He thought. We're coming for you, K'taal.

He hadn't used his Glammour since Willem picked him up. Had never used it on purpose. But doing it again felt natural as breathing. Comfortable as slipping on a pair of old shoes. It felt like casting a net, thinner than spider's silk, stronger than bone.

And he was trawling for one very special catch.

He could feel what Willem had called the ley line. It was humming under his feet, only a few inches wide, but it amplified the Glammour, let him cast it further and farther. He could sense life. All sorts of life. Human, animal, even demon. But they slipped through his Glammour. They weren't what he was looking for.

Isaac stood in the middle of the dirt road, his bare painted feet straddling the ley line. To a watcher, it would look like he flinched without reason.

He could sense the Iblis. Sense a massive slavering thing, thrusting and furious. A tangle of rage and lust and pain. A maddened animal, tempered by a cold vicious intelligence. It went against all of his Incubi instincts, but he tightened his Glammour on K'taal.

Isaac gave a shuddering gasp as the Iblis lunged. He was alone and naked on the dirt road, and he could feel the thing rushing closer, careening down the tall sheer face of the starless lichstone outline. He could hear rocks tumbling from the cliff face to the sloping hill of scree and boulders below. Stones that had held steady for millennia, shaken loose now by a demon on the hunt.

"I can do this." He whispered. "I'm half-Incubus. I was made for this. Fuck. Fuck. Oh fuck."

K'taal had halved the distance between them in less than ten seconds. Isaac just barely muffled a shout to Willem. The Iblis would certainly hear him. The creature was maddened by Glammour, but not helpless with it.

He could see it. Oh fuck, he could see it. A huge humped shadow lunging down the boulders of the scree hill. A beast, but with too many legs. A beast that moved faster than any mortal beast that had any business in North America.

It was everything he could do not to run. He faced down the thing that made the ground shake. The tremors numbing his bones through the soles of his feet. He could see it's hide, black and shiny like crude oil. An impression of a hideous elongated snout, not an upper and lower jaw, but more like a cruel three-pronged beak. A mane of long stiff quills that clacked and rustled like dry bones, a dozen dragonfly wings, thrumming and humming, lashing Isaac's face with veils of grit and stench. The thing stared at him with an asymmetrical ring of oilblack eyes around it's long tearing mouth. The eyes were loose and jiggling in their sockets, like jelly, or a cluster of soft poisonous eggs. There was a cold mad intelligence in those eyes.

Isaac took a shaky breath, and drew in his net. It took ignoring every instinct he had to lure in the rapid freak in front of him. "Come on." He squeaked. "Come on, then." 

The thing hissed. Isaac moaned and covered his ears. The hissing hurt his ears. It was like a million wasps, a death rattle, the thing's breath washed over him, reeking of dust and rotten meat, cold as a grave. Isaac closed his mouth and eyes, not letting any of it in. It circled him thrice. It was too fast. Isaac was choking with fear. It was all he could do to keep up the Glammour. Will was right. The Iblis wasn't buying it. It was already wounded. Two of it's muscular shadowlegs dragged. It's tail ended two feet behind it's hindquarters, dripping noxious black fluid from the thick wounded stump.




Firecracker Ch. 02



"Fuck me." He meant to shout it, but it came out as a dusty whimper. He couldn't even hear his own words over the sound and fury of the circling Iblis.

But K'taal heard him. It stopped it's furious circle-stalking. It stood in front of him and reared onto it's hind four legs. The three-pronged beak opened, showing a hideous lamprey circle of teeth that seemed to go on forever. He remembered not to breathe in, just a moment too late, and the screech made Isaac physically weak, paralyzing his limbs, spiking his head with agony. The air from K'taal's lungs was cold and acrid, drying the lining of Isaac's lungs, making him cough and fall to his knees. The only warmth he felt was the dribble of fear-piss down his leg.

It's skin was wet and icy. Slick as an eel, but not a fraction as soft. Isaac cried out with revulsion, trying to recoil his skin away from that slick corpse-cold. His cheek was scraping against the dirt road, he struggled to get on his hands and knees, anything but prone. Somewhere, somehow, in the terror-blank of his mind, Isaac remembered. I have to trap it. I have to trap it or-.

He couldn't even keep that fragment straight, not with something huge and sharp and cold stabbing at the small of his back.

He bit his scream between painted lips. He writhed onto his back, his limbs slow and heavy, using K'taal's wet rotten hide to slip inside his grip. "Fuck me!" This time it came out a snarl. He reached up with both hands, grasping thick hollow quills for support. Isaac couldn't lay his hands willingly on that black frost-rimed skin. He would go insane.

The thick shadowlimbs tore his legs apart, pushed one knee up to his chest. "Oh fuck." Isaac whimpered. "Oh F—"

He wasn't able to scream when the Iblis first entered him. He greyed out momentarily from the shock. When he opened his eyes, he could see the thing thrusting over him. It wasn't the pain. It was the coldness. The coldness was killing him, freezing him from the inside out.

"Gotcha." Isaac gasped. "I fucking got you."

It was the last thing he ever wanted to do, and he knew it would hurt. 

Isaac let out a scream of anticipation, and clenched down with his ass. 

K'taal screamed back. This wasn't a bone-cold rush of poison air. This was a startled painful screech. The humped oilblack harbinger that had killed seven people wasn't just afraid. It was terrified. The gigantic hurting cock in his ass didn't seem as big, as hard, and it wasn't a fraction as cold.

"Yeah? Getting a little hot for ya?" Isaac clawed at the sleek hide of the shadowbeast. Where his fingers went, the skin scorched and blistered. "Little too hot for you? Too fucking bad!" He squeezed his asshole hard as he could, gasping with pain, while the Iblis screeched and reared, trying to recoil away.

"Isaac, let go!" Willem was shouting. When did he get here? The Iblis tried to just turn tail and run. It turned completely around, trying to twist and jerk out of the half-incubus that had trapped it. Isaac was holding him too hard. They were stuck together, like mating dogs. It screeched and whimpered with pain, shuddering it's many limbs. The bone-crest clacked and rattled as it dragged the halfling behind it for half a dozen meters, skinning Isaac's back raw.

Isaac barely felt the pain of his skinned back. "It's too strong!" He shouted to Willem. Softer, he said. "Come here, K'taal. Don't you like me?" He redoubled his Glammour, binding the Iblis to him in strands of an invisible net, hotter than coals, sharper than wire.

When he hugged the repulsive black body to him with arms, legs, and tail. The beast squirmed and sobbed with anguish even while desperately thrusting it's thoroughly softened (?melted?) cock. The air was rank with rotting scorched flesh. Isaac could feel something building up in his bones, in the center of his chest, where his optic nerves crossed in the fleshy bridge between the halves of his brain, in his gut, in the heels of his feet and the knuckles of his hands. It wasn't an orgasm. His limp cock flopped between the two of them like a worm. It was something unspoken and glorious that he rushed towards. Something powerful.

"C'mere baby." Isaac crooned. Mocking the writhing Iblis in his arms. "I'll give you some sugar."

"Isaac!" Willem screamed.

Isaac kicked himself on top of the struggling demon, and exploded. He reached the peak of the not-gasm, and the world was suddenly nothing but fire. Fire from his eyes, his skin, his hands, his mouth. Consuming him, part of him. He was fire. And for the briefest moment, he knew what it was like to be a pure demon, insubstantial, an aspect of inferno.

And he liked it.

--

Willem was the closest thing on modern planet earth to a classically-trained demoneater.

His mother had taught him an eclectic mixture of techniques from cultures and schools of thought from around the world. From focusing chakras, to performing a ruqyah, to using sonic frequencies as a deterrent. He had been tutored for a year each by three other demoneaters, from Japan, Russia, and Iran. As well as taking lessons from demonologists too numerous to count.

Yet even as he saw what happened in front of his own eyes, he struggled to believe it. Nowhere-never, had he learned how an incubus—a half-incubus at that—could do what his Isaac was doing.

"Isaac!" His throat was raw from smoke. His body was streaked with blue paint, not a sacrifice's broken circles, but spirals of warding runes within protective overlapping circles. Circular chains of protection for himself, the demoneater. Meanwhile, he had practically strung Isaac up with a dinner bell 'round his neck.

Although, apparently not defenseless.

Isaac rolled on top of the chittering, terrified Iblis. Willem had personally seen the damage an Iblis could do to humans, but some how, some way, Isaac was basically unharmed. He could feel the heat blistering from the halfling's body nearly ten yards away, out of the range of K'taal's thrashing wings and legs. The ground was torn up, a stunted prairie tree was splintered, boulders torn up, but his boyfriend was clenching onto the wounded demon like a vise and all K'taal was doing was taking it, screaming all the while.

It was the only reason he wasn't already in there. If he broke Isaac's Glammour, the halfling was dead.

Suddenly, there was fire. There was no concussive blast. Only the howling wind-suck as the flames ate up the oxygen, and K'taal was free. Flames licked it's body, black flesh sloughing off against every branch and stone, as it stumbled, blind and keening from the inferno.

Right into the inferno's boyfriend.

"Min!" He spoke the words of their covenant in the low tongue. The bastardized mongrel language of demon and man. The words had power that the demon- and man-tongues lacked.

K'taal was burning, wounded, pinned by the Afreet Willem kept in his stomach. But that didn't mean it was over. He spoke the now-familiar low incantation. The phrase that kept him fireproof.

Willem had a demon to swallow. Enchilada hated this part. Hated it so badly that the wisp finally broke the bond between them. Willem barely noticed him go. Barely noticed the pale bleeding body of his lover shivering in the circle of scorched earth.

"You fucker." Willem unhinged his jaw. There wouldn't be any more speech for K'taal. Low or otherwise.

"Mercy." The burning thing pleaded. "Mercy." It's voice was the rasp of millstones. The splintering of bones. The crumbling of forgotten idols. It smelled like rotting flesh as it burned. A smell as strong as a concrete wall. As it begged, the milky heat-scarred eyes popped and leaked down it's long beak. The vitreous fluid was fibrous and smelled like sulfur.

Willem bound that beak shut by a chain threaded with white snakeskin. He punctured those milky staring eyes that were intact, buried his fingers to the third knuckle.

His grip set, he began to feed. The waves of pleasure and agony racked him. The flambéed Iblis tasted as foul as he smelled. It struggled the whole while. Down to the last twitching foot. When the demoneater was finished, he could barely stand, and the stars were fading.

But Willem doubted if any meal had ever satisfied him more.

--

Isaac heard their voices dimly, as if through a caul. Words were so indistinct, made even harder to hear by the noise from the engine. 

He was still naked, but now he was curled up in the backseat of the SUV, covered by a creased brown leather jacket. The smell of it comforted him, despite an uneasy pang of déjà vu.

"That's the largest demon I've swallowed in a while." Isaac heard the voice first, the words took a moment to stick. It was just such a relief to hear that voice, though he couldn't quite reason out why. "The motel is just a little further up this road, I'll get a cab to pick up my car from the campsite. Thank you for driving us, I don't think I'm good to drive."

"Sure. But I want to stay with you until he wakes up. Boss is going to have questions. And I don't like to face her empty-handed." Jo's voice was the softest Isaac had heard it, yet. "The boy handled himself well. And he's the only reason there aren't eleven bodybags in that ambulance instead of seven. That's going to count for a lot with her."

"I wish you had just taken him somewhere safe. That took hours, and he's in bad shape. I think he inhaled some of K'taal's breath, and-"

Isaac tried to sit up, and grunted. His entire body felt like a bruise. Every part of him was strained and aching. His stomach felt like it was twisting inside out. He lay back down. Surrendering after the first attempt. He could barely hear Willem's words through the pounding in his temples.

"Hey... Hey, you're awake. You're okay now." Willem didn't look much better than he did. His cheeks were smeared with blue paint, the pattern long since rubbed away. He had deep grey creases under his eyes, dark enough to be bruises. The whites of his eyes were badly bloodshot. It looked like staying awake was a huge effort for him.

"Am... I?" Isaac whispered, his voice was hoarse, almost gone. Everything felt so dim. So fuzzy. The movement of the car made him nauseous. His lips were numb, like they had been shot up with Novocain. Speaking took an effort, and everything was sliding in and out of focus. He forgot the rest of his question. His head felt so heavy. He used the fingers of his left hand to tilt his own head back. "Am... am... W-Will?" His voice cracked on the last word. 

"Damn it." Willem's fingers felt warm. Normally they didn't. Normally they felt so cool, soothing. When Willem held up his head, Isaac didn't have to strain the muscles of his neck and shoulders. He felt Willem's thumb pulling open his eyelid. He let out a feeble whine of annoyance, batting at the offending hand.

"Fuck. Hey, hey, stay with me, Iz. The motel is just up the road. I'll take care of you there. You're gonna be okay." 

Jo-Ann 'Bad Wound' Whelk kept her eyes on the road. "What's wrong with him?"

Isaac let his head fall back to the upholstered seat. The hollow feeling in his gut didn't really matter. But he couldn't seem to get warm. He feebly pawed at the leather jacket, trying to pull it closer. His teeth were chittering. He could barely hear Will reply. "He isn't just poisoned. Whatever he did, however he did it, he's got nothing left. He's starving."

As the sky bled pale, the SUV pulled into the motel parking lot. As the car idled, Isaac raised his body up from the upholstery of the seat. His arms were shaky, his muscles had all the strength of old rotted rubber bands. He couldn't see. He blinked. Over and over, trying to see through the scrim of shadows falling over his vision like soft moth wings.

"Can't." His lips and tongue felt like they were filled with sand. He tried to work some saliva into his mouth. He couldn't feel his tongue touch the inside of his mouth. He could only hear the swiping sound inside his head, minute and dry and desperate. He didn't feel the breeze when Willem opened up the back door. Didn't see the door open.

Willem gently manhandled the poisoned halfling out of the backseat. Isaac moaned painfully as Willem's arm cupped his scraped back. Whelk had cleaned the wounds while he was unconscious. His sense of smell seemed to be the only thing not affected by the poison. He could smell Willem as the older man hefted him up. The smell was distinct for him, he would recognize it anywhere.

Starving, poisoned, and barely conscious, it didn't matter. Willem had him.

"I'll come to you as soon as he's fed and stabilized, Jo."

The tiny woman getting out of the SUV shook her head, the bun ticking back and forth at the base of her neck. "You're useless after you swallow them, Will. Especially the big ones. Get your rest. I'm in room nine."

"Thanks, Jo-Ann."

Isaac blinked and blinked. Trying to clear the fluttering shadowwings from his vision. He was still blinking when Willem carried him over the threshold. Willem's arms under his knees, around his scraped shoulders felt feverishly warm. Isaac could hear a dim clicking sound. Is that my teeth?

It was.

"You're lucky." Didn't feel that way. "You didn't fill your lungs all the way. If you had, your veins would be black by now." As it was, the veins in his arms and temples were taking on an unpleasant bulging quality. Isaac felt something brush his forehead. A kiss.

Then he felt the bed under him. Willem quickly pulled the coverlets down over the shivering halfling. Isaac moaned. He couldn't get warm. He could hear the bathtub gurgle, then roar through the thin wall. Where was Willem?"

Isaac only had to mew once with fear before the older man was at his side again, stroking sweaty hair out of Isaac's dull black eyes. His tail lay limp on the coverlet between his legs. At Willem's touch, the tips of his tail twitched feebly.

"I wish this was over." Willem whispered. He carefully picked Isaac up. The halfling's collarbones were wings again. He weighed about as much as a rag doll. "But this isn't going to be fun."

They were in the bathroom. Willem emptied a clear tube of pink rock salt into the tub. The salt was mined from the Himalayas, and had been triple-blessed by five flavors of holy man from all around the world. It was the only surefire cure for Iblis venom.

Unfortunately, a half-incubus wasn't immune to that kind of firepower. Willem carefully lowered Isaac into the tub. "I'm so sorry." He whispered. He kept his left hand under Isaac's head, keeping his face above water.

The instant Isaac came in contact with the water, venom started to seep out of his pores. His veins lost their unhealthy grey tinge, the mottled whites of his eyes cleared. Red blood seeped back into his lips, eyelids, and fingernails. The water billowed with clouds of black inky Iblis venom.

Willem checked an old-fashioned silver stopwatch anxiously. Isaac started to moan. He struggled and thrashed, splashing grey water everywhere. He tried to climb out. "It hurts!" He babbled, his mouth no longer numb. "Willem, Will, Will it BURNS!"

Willem's hands, forced him down into the firewater. All real heat had lost it's sting for Isaac, but the black water around him was scalding him, killing him. He was weak and emaciated from whatever he had done to the Iblis. Too weak to fight against the demoneater holding him still.

"I'm sorry!" Willem choked. "You have to get it out. All of it. Just a few seconds longer, Iz. Just a few more!"

Isaac went stiff in the water, sobbing and shaking with the effort of holding still. His skin had to be melting off of his bones. The water was molten and evil and Willem was holding him down. "I have to get your face."

"No!" Isaac begged, he tried to sit up again, but Willem pushed him down.

"I am so sorry Isaac." Willem grabbed a cloth from the grey water and lay it over Isaac's face, pressing his hand down over the half-demon's mouth to muffle the agonized scream and puff of black steam.

Even on Willem's hands, the saltwater felt caustic, like strong bleach. "Fifteen seconds, Iz, just a little longer." He yanked the drainplug a few seconds early. The water was the color of ink, as it drained it left a chalky black ring on the inside of the plastic tub.

Isaac wasn't struggling anymore. His ribs were rising and falling in the inky water, shallow, quick, like a sick dog. Willem snatched the rag off his face and twisted the knob open. The shower curtain wasn't drawn, so hot water needled down on the both of them, pooling on the small white tiles of the bathroom floor.

Black beads of venom ripened and trickled down Isaac's leeched-white skin. The scummy water was sucked down the drain and the unsalted water washed off the last of the black poison and burning salt.

Willem shrugged out of his shirt and jeans He stepped into the tub, feeling the water pelt his back. He made sure his feet had a good grip on the pebbled no-slip floor of the tub, and he pulled Isaac up. The halfling was semiconscious. He had a weak grip on Willem's arms, trying to stabilize himself.

Willem turned so Isaac took the brunt of the spray, making sure that the water washed away every trace of venom and salt from Isaac's hair, feathers, and tail. From the raw scraped skin down his back.

Isaac's lidded eyes fluttered open. The whites of his eyes were clear and healthy, but his irises were black. An undifferentiated flat void.

"W-Will?"

"How do you feel? You must be hungry, don't worry I'm gonna—"

"Shh..." Isaac slumped into his arms. More from being unsteady than anything. Willem twisted the knob shut. It was quiet in the puddled bathroom, save for the water dripping from their bodies. He could hear the engines of the cars on the highway, hear Isaac's labored breathing. He had a ball of lead in his gut. He knew what Isaac was going to say.

Where were you?

Why didn't you come for me?

Don't touch me.

"I think I love you."

The five small words hung between them. Willem started to say something, but shut his mouth when Isaac spoke.

"I... I'll figure that out later, when I can think. Re-regardless, you... brought me back." Isaac's words were slow and a little slurred, broken by a big yawn. "So stop... Stop punishing yourself."

Willem let out a shaky little laugh as the heavy sick feeling in his gut melted away. At least a bit. He kissed Isaac between his horns. "You're too goddamn good for me. Too good for this world."

"Please... I kn-know you're tired..." Isaac yawned hugely, and Willem could see that his canines, normally slight points, had elongated into something like fangs. "But I'm so hungry."

The halfling was as light as a bundle of sticks. A faggot Willem mused. Isaac was mumbling something. He could only hear snatches of it. "Already used Glammour on that thing... Don't wanna do it again... I think I exploded... Should we look into that?"

"Sure we will, Firecracker." Willem kissed him on the mouth and set him on the bed. He crawled onto the bed, and cradled Isaac's head on his stomach. "But first, time for nom."

"Nom-nom-nom." Isaac said sleepily, turning his head. Willem did his best not to hiss when the halfling scraped the head of his cock on one of those fangs. "Soh'rhy." It sounded sincere. Or at least as sincere as somebody could sound with a mouthful of dick.

Isaac had only ever gotten tipsy before. But he felt that being poisoned was a lot like being drunk, except without the fun parts.

Willem's cock was perfect. It reminded him of how his used to look, before the day he had grown horns. With every suck and slurp, he felt a little more awake, a little less numb. It wasn't an entirely good thing. His body felt sore in places he didn't even know he could be sore. His ass hurt, and he was so tired.

"Hey..." Willem yawned hugely. "Did you fall asleep?"




Firecracker Ch. 02



The halfling jerked back to a soupy state of consciousness. The older man's cock slid out of his mouth and he turned his head to meet his eyes. "A little." He swiped his mouth with the back of his hand and settled his head on Willem's stomach.

He grunted a little in irritation when Willem forced one eyelid open with his thumb. "Well, at least you wont slip into a coma or anything." He yawned again, this one so wide, Isaac could hear his jaw crackle. "You look good with brown eyes. But promise me that you'll wake me up as soon as you do. You need to—"

Willem smirked. His Firecracker was already asleep. He wanted nothing more than to let his head fall back to the pillow and join him.

Instead, he whispered the words of his covenant with Min.

The Afreet slithered out of his mouth, in a sensation not unlike vomiting. Thankfully tasteless, but hot enough to nearly burn his mouth. Min was invisible in the Earthly Plane, but Willem wasn't limited to that Plane.

Min's scales rippled as she slithered out of her vessel and made a protective circle around the entwined bodies in the bed. It was more of a kidney-shape, really. Each scale was clear as glass, the color of deep freshwater. Each scale was diamond-shaped and flat to her body. When she was angry or scared, the scales would flare up, like hackles on a dog.

She had a dozen pairs of wings down her sleek glassy body, folded shapes that glowed with the heat of embers. Her seven eyes glowed like hot metal.

"I should be within thee. Thou will have terrible indigestion."

Willem put a finger to his lips. When Min was in his stomach, she still spoke 'out loud', but quietly. Reverberating in the bones of his inner ear. When she was without, her voice was sibilant and very low. Not within the human definition of feminine. 

She rolled all seven of her eyes. Small sparks flew, and he had to beat one of them out with the corner of the coverlet. "The little one could sleep through the earthquake of Antioch as he is now."

"I know she's close. It would be just like her to try something while we're weakened. I can digest when we're back home, and others can share the guard duty. I know I've asked a lot of you lately and—"

"Hush. I will watch over thee and thine. As I guard over mine own self."

"Thanks, Min." Surrounded by shimmering azure coils, Willem finally closed his eyes.

--

His hunger woke him.

At least partly. Isaac was a fairly restless sleeper, so he wasn't surprised when he opened his eyes to find himself level with Willem's freckled shoulder blades.

Despite a halfway-to-mindless hunger that resonated through his body, he didn't move. He didn't want to disturb the older man. Right now, the company of his thoughts was enough. He stared into the center of a scar at the back of Willem's neck. Teardrop-shaped, pink as a burned doll, the size of a thumbprint. Light fell through the chink where the curtains didn't quite meet. The thin line of sunlight bisected the burn at the base of Willem's neck, neat as the shadow of a guillotine.

The memories of being in the bathtub were hazy. Like remembering images from a dream. Was it possible to remember pain?

"You warned me." Isaac mouthed the words. He felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You make it sound so safe, hunting demons. Does it comes with experience?"

Willem snuffled in his sleep and sighed. Then his breathing was slow and regular again.

"I'll take that as a definite maybe."

Isaac spent another minute waking up, staring at the dust motes floating in the golden sliver of light. Doing a kind of karmic math in his head. One dead stepfather. Four men drained to within an inch of their lives. Now, four lives saved from an Iblis.

I can do more. Was the phrase that kept running through his head. I can help him, like Min and Enchilada and the others. I'm already feeding off of him. He says that he has too much for me to ever drain completely, but I am draining him. 

His stomach growled. That was a more mundane kind of hunger, but it complemented the deep thirsting ache throughout his body like a minor chord.

Isaac leaned forward and kissed his lover, right on the old burn-scar. It was a perfect kissing-target. He rested his fingertips on Willem's right hip, stroking up and down his side, dipping down to tweak a nipple, to gently cup Willem's soft cock. When Isaac bit gently at the side of Will's neck, his cock gave a hearty twitch.

"Hmm. Is that a gun at my back? Or are ya just happy to see me?" Without turning around, Willem ground his hips back into Isaac's erection. Isaac growled happily.

Hungrily.

Willem lazily crawled for his suitcase. He didn't get up, but only heaved his upper body off the bed, fumbling at the straps of the case. The strip of sunlight had migrated, and with him leaning off the bed, it illuminated the soft pale fuzz on his ass cheeks.

Isaac slapped that perky ass, keeping his hand there to squeeze. Willem let out a little squeak and wiggled his hips. Isaac pushed him off the bed. "Long live the king."

"Hey." Willem grunted. "No fair."

Isaac crept to the edge of the bed and looked down at Willem. "Life isn't fair, and it was gonna take you forever to grab the lube that way. And I'm hungry."

Willem looked up at the younger man on the bed, a serious expression on his face. "All valid points."

Isaac practically squawked with surprise when Willem lunged up at him, pinning him down to the bed. He wiggled, trying to see if he could break free of his lover's grasp, but Will was much stronger than he looked. He was pinned to the bed, his erection pressing into the coverlets. "If you're in such a hurry, I can move things along." Willem whispered into his ear, before biting down on his earlobe.

Isaac gasped when Willem stuck two lubed fingers into his ass. He spread his legs and lifted his tail, panting like an animal in heat. The air around them grew hot.

Willem muttered his protective words, and spread Isaac's sweet round buttocks. "Please!" The younger man whimpered. "Please, Will!" His wings were fluttering against his lover's chest.

At the first stroke, the halfling had to bite down on a pillow to muffle his scream. Willem grinned and started to pound his cock into the half-demon under him. Isaac was so hungry that once he was feeding, he could no longer form words. The sensations of feeding and fucking were so powerful. Willem had figuratively fucked his brains out.

So when he stopped, Isaac swiveled his head so abruptly it was almost funny. His eyes glowed dim and red and he tried to push his hips back onto Willem's cock a few times. "Wi-illl!" He moaned.

"On your back." Willem growled, grabbing Isaac by the horn and kissing him so hard his head clicked back into the bedboard.

Isaac whimpered and turned onto his back, bringing his knees up to his chest, presenting his asshole, only to be thwarted again. Willem was taking his ankles, pulling them, straightening his legs out. His cock was sticking up like an exclamation point.

When Willem broke the kiss, Isaac finally saw that his arm was behind him, doing something with his ass.

"Will... You don't h—" Willem shut him up with another forceful kiss, bruising his lips.

"Well you didn't have to do what you did last night, either." Willem whispered. "Besides, I had a plug in my ass during the entire car ride yesterday, stretching me out. You don't want that to go to waste, do you Iz?"

"No sir." Willem could see the halfling's pupils dilating as he said it. He already had two fingers awkwardly buried in his own asshole, slick with lube. He got more lube and slicked up Isaac's shaft. The softness of the young demon's foreskin was heavenly, slipping through his slick fingers like hot silk. He could feel the tiny prickling points of pubic hair growing through the skin.

"Besides." Willem straddled Isaac. "I try and keep my promises."

Isaac didn't keep his hands idle. As Willem carefully lowered himself onto the tip of the halfling's cock, Isaac was stroking his cock with hands as hot as stones left in the sun. Isaac's tail was beating an excited tattoo against his back.

He whispered his protective words, and took the plunge. It had been a big plug, but the first few inches of Isaac's cock was still enough to bring surprised tears to the corners of his eyes. He took a deep shuddering breath, and thought about what it would have been like to take an Iblis' barbed phallus, even for an Incubus half-breed. He fought to relax, and on top of that, to make it look easy.

Willem grinned at Isaac. The younger man wouldn't have noticed regardless of what faces he was making. Isaac's eyes were shut and his face screwed up in a perfect caricature of ecstasy. Willem adjusted and started bobbing his ass up and down in tiny increments, slowly getting used to the monster in his ass.

"Oh...Oh... mm... hm..." Isaac was noisy, and the walls were thin. Willem liked the idea. He wanted to wake their neighbors in style. He bent down low over his lover's body, slowly moving his hips, and sucked hard at the side of Isaac's neck. Isaac made that strangled little yelp that he always did when he was overstimulated.

"Oh... Oh no you don't." Isaac growled breathlessly. Willem wobbled unsteadily when Isaac spilled him onto his side. He felt absurdly empty when he slipped off of the younger man's cock, but he grinned when Isaac climbed on top of him. He presented his ass, panting like he had run a marathon. Isaac had changed his mind quickly enough from 'you don't have to' to taking charge. Nothing was quite as fucking hot.

Well. Except maybe his come, which always came out boiling.

Willem didn't bother to muffle his voice the way Isaac did. When Isaac grabbed his hips and punched his way in, he cried out loud enough that Jo-Ann, three doors down, paused in watching her soap operas and rolled her eyes.

Isaac paused for a moment, worried, but Willem just pushed his hips back enthusiastically, leaving no doubt that he wanted more. an incredible feeling of fullness and the intoxicating half-friction of Isaac's silky foreskin. He could feel heat building up in his own body, in waves. Isaac's wings were fluttering, battering him with hot air.

"Shit. Oh... I'm co— I'm—" Isaac let out a great shuddering breath and Willem gasped when the cock in his ass seemed to expand even further, and then when Isaac's cock shrunk a little, and there was a lot more lube. Come that was hot enough to feel through his protection. The first time they had fucked like this, he had accidentally released his protection too early, and limped to the bathroom, hissing about douching with icewater.

This time he gritted his teeth and held onto his protection, panting and humping his hips a little. Isaac was fed now. He could see the halfling's eyes, bright as heart's blood in the corner of his eye.

Isaac slid out of him, and pushed Willem onto his back. He went down ravenously on his human lover's cock. Slurping and bobbing like he was still starving. Isaac groaned and used Isaac's horns like handles. Isaac plunged three fingers into his gaping asshole and went to town.

After Willem came, after he was able to think again, he mused that he preferred fucking Isaac when he was already full. There was something sexy about the half-demon being dependent on him. But it was sexier when Isaac was so fucking enthusiastic, even with nothing to gain.

Which brought him around to thinking about those five little words Isaac had whispered in the shower.

Isaac crawled up the bed. Wiping lube and come from his hand onto the hotel bedsheets, and licking his lips. His eyes had bags under them. He moved a little slowly, like he was sore, but he was smiling, and his eyes glowed healthy and red again. That was the important part. Willem had to fight not to fall asleep again. His stomach hurt. The Iblis wasn't agreeing with him. He compromised and set his phone alarm.

Isaac curled up under one arm, resting his head on Willem's chest. "Two hours? You've only been asleep for three. Jo said she would wait."

"It's—" Willem yawned. "—Too important. You can sleep while I work things out with Jo-Ann. I'll go over everything with you when we're home. You can drive for a bit. I'm just going to feel a lot safer when we're home. I have protections built into every cinderblock and timber of that house. Not to mention a lot of... ah..."

"Tenants?" Isaac said dryly.

"Couldn't have said it better myself." Willem looked up at the ceiling. A reflection from somebody's headlights was shining through the sheer curtain and making a white starflash on the rippled plaster ceiling. "I should have said something, earlier."

"S'okay. I wasn't in my right mind." They seemed to be on the same wavelength. Thinking about that moment.

"No. You were. I'm just stupid and stressed. It has been a little hectic for the last two days."

Isaac giggled. "Just a little." Willem could feel the half-demon's tail slowly twitching by his leg. It tickled.

"I'm not sure if I've ever told you, but you've probably noticed it yourself. Humans can... sense us. A little bit."

Isaac seemed nonplussed by the apparent change of topic, but he went with it. "Yeah, I've noticed that. At first I thought it was because I always dress like a shoplifter, hoodies and sunglasses inside. But they always seem..." He thought about it for a moment. "Like they have a gut feeling, but they're ignoring it because the gut feeling is 'silly.' You get that, too?"

Isaac's head rose and fell when Willem's chest hitched with laughter. "Remember what I did to K'taal, you think any Joe Schmoe could do that?" Willem's chest settled into the slow rise and fall of his breath. Isaac could hear his voice, vibrating against his cheek. "For a long time, everyone I slept with, everyone I had any kind of relationship with, they had that gut feeling about me. I slept with people who were used to that gut feeling. I met up with dates I found on craigslist. I went to sleazy bars. Things almost never lasted more than a week. Sometimes, I would have a good night with a guy, and then after I'd see them shiver, like I made their skin crawl."

He sighed. "What I'm trying to say; awkwardly, slowly, painfully... Is that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Which is how I've been loving you for weeks, but I haven't said a goddamn thing."

Willem dared to look down, and Isaac was smiling, and flushed from sex, cuddling into him. "Idiot." When he said it, it was a term of endearment. "And here I thought I was being an idiot. Idiot."

Willem kissed Isaac's forehead. "If I say it to you, will I still be an idiot?"

"Yes. But less of one."

Willem grinned. "Ouch, babe. Well, here goes." He took a deep breath. "I love you, Firecracker."

"Love you, too." Isaac sighed, and was asleep in moments.

"How do you do that?" Willem murmured, a coy smile at the corner of his mouth.

*Yo

Onus 07 will NOT take another year to come out. I promise. It is already almost halfway done, and I'm in a good new environment. No drugs, better sleep schedule, new job, etc. It will be easier for me to write.

Firecracker was in hibernation for a while. I definitely foresee a third chapter, in which the red cunt and Izarys make a more dazzling appearance, but I cannot foresee a release date. Hopefully soon! But no promises there.

I want to thank everyone that has read my stories through thick and thin (and thinner, and nonexistent.) You guys are da real MVP. Onus is probably the story that I've strained my promise the most on, and I wont lie, it's given me some headaches. But it will happen.

Kisses and Spanks, 

-Cruel*



Firecracker Ch. 03



"Are you done with your plate, Keith darlin'?"

"Yeah, Kammie. Thanks." Keith Winslow had pushed his plate away after finishing his bacon and eggs to watch the hummingbirds joust on a rainy August morning. Kammie Smith took the plate over to the sink to wash and rinse it before putting it in the drying rack.

She came back over to the table where the crippled veteran sat, biting her lip. "You're still glum today. What's up?"

He looked up at her. "It's still 'bout my pal Rusty. Poor guy deserves better than gitting stuck in the VA home."

"Mr. Dodge's a nice man. Thought his family would take care of him."

"They did. They stuck him in that damn place. The same damn place I'm likely to git stuck in a few years."

Sitting with her backside against the table overlooking the deck, she looked down at him. Keith was a lean weathered man with naturally dark hair in his late 50's, a disabled Vietnam vet how needed a walker and wheelchair to get around. Kammie was just over 5 feet tall, slender and perfectly proportioned with blonde hair. He was wearing a white t-shirt and green sweatpants; she wore an oversized Arkansas University t-shirt she slept in. She kissed him on the top of his head and murmured: "I'll take care of you."

He reached up and caressed her head. "Thanks, Sweetness. But you just got out of High School, and it's not fair for a young gal like you ta git stuck with an old fart like me. Someday you'll move on, and I'll have to git ready for th' future."

"Well, even if I'm not here thru some dam craziness, ya got Sandy and her kids."

He snorted. "Sandy's always had it in fer me."

"She's looked after ya for years. She cleaned yer place ev'ry week before I got here, and made sure ya had food."

"It goes back ta when she was little. I got home when she was a little over a year and a half, and it took a week ta make friends with her at all. Then when her mom died, she blamed me for not lookin' after her right. Din't want to move to the Lake, din't want to come back when Mike got the job with th' Water Patrol."

"But she's yer daughter. Don't know why she wouldn't take care of ya."

He grimaced. "She'll put me in that damn place first chance. Jest wait and see." Clapping his hand to her thigh, he looked up at her pouting face and came to a conclusion. "Yer missing somethin'."

"What?"

"My big smile. Know how to git it back. Been leavin' ya alone too long. Hop up on this table."

"What?"

"Need a little Sweetness this mornin'. Need to persuade ya t'stay awhile." He lifted her by the waist and sat her down on the solid oak table in front of him. Pulling her shirt bottom up, he took a playful nip at her crotch while she giggled. "There's a little man in there I need ta say hello to."

She leaned back and spread her legs to give him better access, her face smiling broadly. Rain pattered on the roof, drumming faster than her heart as his tongue sought amid her inner curves for her spring of nectar. His hands stroked the outside of her legs from her hips to her knees. A silent blue flash in the distance illuminated her frazzled blonde locks from behind, and her hand reached down to bury itself in his long dark locks unbound from their usual ponytail. His hands invaded her red t-shirt, running up her sides, making her giggle. The rain increased its patter, and another flash in the distance was followed by a low murmur of thunder. 

"Yes, oh yes, Studmuffin. No little boy could do what you do to me," her voice husked as a quivering overtook her. His hands found her nipple tipped handfuls and started to massage them as his tongue focused on burying itself deep inside her while he sucked her bud. A light touch of upper teeth on her clitoris made her gasp and pull him closer, and she laid her legs over his shoulders, draping down his back. "I'll be yer breakfast any day you want."

Her nipples erected and he pinched them lightly. Leaning back, she crossed her legs behind his head and squeezed it in appreciation. The vibrations in her body grew in intensity with the rain, and distant flashes with crashes of thunder grew closer. The winds buffeted the trees next to the house, raking the branches across the shingles. The height of the storm came when she reached her peak, adding power to her howls of delight as she arrived the climax of her Clouds and Rain.

Letting his head go with her legs, she pushed it away, unable to take any more stimulation. He sat back and smiled, seeing the glow of satisfaction on her round face. "Knew you'd like that," he said calmly.

She took him by the ears, and leaned forward to kiss his head. "I'll give ya a few years to quit doin' that." After she regained her breath, she hopped down and knelt under the table. "Kin I repay the favor?"

He traced the outline of her chin. "Not now, Sweetness. Not up fer it. Happens ta old men now and then. Arthur's botherin' me too much t'day; probably need to go soak a while in the jaccuzi when the storm's over."

A brave smile looked up at him. "Sure, Keith. I understand. You take such good care of me."

The phone rang, and Keith picked the receiver up from its spot on the table. "Pawpaw, things are bad," his granddaughter Erin wailed on the other end..

Kammie got up from under the table and pulled her hem down as Keith turned to focus on the phone receiver. "What's up, Erin?"

"It's Momma. She's gone."

"Gone? How?"

"We got up this mornin' to a big crash. Daddy had a note from her, threw their weddin' picture 'gainst th' wall and was pounding his fists on another wall. Said she's left for Canada."

"Canada?"

"Yeah. Left a note fer us and one fer you. I'm scared, Pawpaw."

"Ya don't hafta be scared, Erin honey. What's yer daddy doin'?"

"Called in sick and went ta town. Just got back with a big bunch of beer and he's started drinkin' it. Stacey and I wanna get outta here."

"You kin come over here if ya want."

"That's what we was hopin'. We'll pack a couple bags and get there soon." The phone went dead, and Keith flicked it off.

He turned to face a worried Kammie. "Stacey n' Erin's comin' over here soon. Somethin' up with Sandy; she's gone nuts. Better get cleaned up. It'll take them an hour t'get here, so we kin get showered and changed. May hafta run to th' store later. Be a dear and git the shower started for me. Should be hot by the time I git there."

"Since we're in a hurry, dya wanna share?"

"Yeah, but no funny business. Not upta it." He lifted himself up awkwardly as she danced across the room through the master bedroom into the bath, where the water started running momentarily. Sniffing, he still had a nose full of Kammie's essence, an aroma that had grown as sweet as honey over the past month. A couple of twitches below his waist caught his attention, but the fresh concern over his family quelled them before he could focus on his arousal.

Kammie was unusually somber in the shower as she lathered them and used the shower head to rinse them off. He insisted she give his face a good washing, and her coy smile as she did so almost made him laugh. It seemed she took extraordinary care to bathe, rinse and dry his private parts, and he repaid her with unusual attention to her bubble butt when her turn came. They managed to finish and dress just about ten minutes before the twins arrived.

The rain stopped and the clouds passed off to the East, so when Keith met his granddaughters in the common room alone, Kammie went down to the shore to do some maintenance on the boats. They bustled in carrying overnight bags: Erin wore a blue sweatsuit with her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, Stacey wore a red halter top and white shorts. The girls were identical twins: tall, lean, with brown eyes, Keith's dark hair, graceful hands and feet. Stacey bustled back to the guest room immediately, while Erin dumped her bags and sat down right away to talk with her grandfather. "Hi, Pawpaw. Here's the note Mom left for you."

He took the envelope and ripped it open. It was printed on ordinary paper:

Dear Father,

I am ashamed of you. Taking that poor girl into your house and fucking her silly like a dirty old man is more than creepy. It's been hell going to the grocery store, the beauty shop, the country club. You don't know how much you've hurt me, you horny old tramp. You've made it impossible for me to live here and hold my head up.

I'm going to Canada to be with a man who really loves me. Fuck that moron Mike I had to marry when I got pregnant with Frankie. Don't try to talk me out of it. I don't give a shit if you cut my out of your will, even if you have anything when you die, you old bastard. Forget my dear old Mother who worked her ass off taking care of you when you came home from 'Nam a cripple. Forget your sperm ever made me, you selfish old bastard. You deserve to die.

Sandra

Stoically, Keith put the paper back in the envelope and handed it to his granddaughter. "What did she say to you and your Dad?"

"She was ashamed of us, goin' off to college halfway across th' country. Leavin' her alone with Dad. Said we was stupid sluts who didn't deserve t'find a decent boy."

"What did she say to yer Dad?"

"He tore it up and threw it away."

"Ya said he bought a bunch of beer."

"Yeah. Started drinkin' before breakfast. Stacey and me is scared. Haven't seen Dad like this?"

"He call in sick?"

"Yeah."

Keith rubbed his stubble and Stacey came back into the room. "Yer Dad's done this a coupla times before."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. 'Fore you were born, his brother Nick died ina car accident with his girlfriend. Ran up under a semi. Drank three days before the funeral, then was right as rain."

"He had a brother?" Stacey asked.

"Yeah. They was as close as you two. Then when his Dad died, he went on a three day drunk. Ya musta been real small."

"Yeah. Grandpa Jones died when we was a year old."

"There ya go. Give him a coupla days, and he'll stop. If he don't, we'll do, whadya call it, an innervention."

They sat and thought for a few moments. Stacey spoke up: "Kin we stay here?"

Keith shook his head. "Ya don't hafta ask. You're always welcome here, Stace. No matter what."

"Good." Erin said.

"Got one question fer ya," Keith continued.

"What, Pawpaw?"

"What 'bout Kammie? You two care she's here? I can send her away fer a while, if ya want. She'd unnerstand."

Erin shook her head violently, and Stacey said: "No, Pawpaw. If she's makin' ya happy, that's all that matters. She's okay with us. Ya kin even sleep with her while we're here."

"Well, that's gen'rous of ya."

"Pawpaw, we want ya to be happy," Erin said, coming over to embrace him and give him a kiss on his forehead. Stacey came over to do the same, as Erin continued: "If ya wanna live with Kammie and have more kids, that's all right with us."

He shook his head after they let go of him. "Ya don't hafta go that far, and don'chew go puttin' ideas in her head. She's down at th' dock right now. If ya wanna, take the boat out this afternoon."

"They said it's gonna rain, Pawpaw."

"Well, we'll think of somthin' else ta do."

Stacey went down to talk to Kammie while Erin took her bags to the guest room to get settled. Keith switched on the TV to watch ESPN, and wondered what would happen next.

Kammie and Stacey came up around lunchtime, and the three girls fixed a light meal for them. The clouds returned, so they four played board games all afternoon and into the evening. A game of Monopoly was followed by several rounds of Clue; after supper they played Spades until bedtime. The twins settled into the guest room, and Kammie was in Keith's bed as usual without a hint of tension. 

He clasped her close, spooning with her, her hips digging into his crotch. The presence of his progeny in the next room distracted him, and his usual response to the closeness of her body was diminished. Knowing her longing for him, his hand dub down beneath her oversized t-shirt into her valley of love. She tried to roll over, but he kept her in her place as his fingers sought out her delicate flower. Her legs parted so he could play with her rose petals, which grew damp quickly from his wise manipulation. Laying back, she opened herself to him completely, and his other hand reached over to milk her perfect little breast. Before long, she shuddered in orgasm and fell asleep against him. He cradled her against the flashes of lightning the played through the windowpane and the drumming of rain that lasted most of the night.

The next morning, he awakened alone in broad daylight. The digital clock read 8:00AM, and there were no sounds from the rest of the house. Getting up, he struggled across the room and out into the great room. A plate of French Toast and sausages awaited him in the oven, fresh coffee in the pot, and he ate his breakfast on the deck, watching the hummingbirds zip past him. 

His bones were still aching from yesterday's weather, so he took the cover off the jacuzi and started it up. The girls were playing in the water down below, and he thought he could accomplish his task without their help, so he left them to their fun. With difficulty he stripped off his clothes and got into the soothing waters. The cove below was in his sight, and he saw the three girls splashing in the water, naked with plastered hair, so he sat back and regarded the light white clouds sailing calmly in the wake of yesterday's bluster.

The girls played in the water for half an hour, then laid down on the dock to air dry. Keith watched as they lay close to one another, the twins white skin contrasting the skin kissed hue of his girlfriend. After they were dry, they rubbed sunblock on each other's bodies. As they worked, his trouser snake began to stir briefly, then relaxed as his mind filled with memories.

It was another August morning years ago when he lived on the other side of the Lake. Sandy was desperate enough to leave the kids with him, and they spent the morning washing his car. After bologna sandwiches, the kids laid down for a nap, and he was tired enough to rest next to them. He awakened with a start to find 5 year old Frankie fast asleep next to him, but the girls were missing. He went out to find them splashing in the creek running behind his house. A pair of bare cherubs were exploring the clear trickle, curious about every bug, chasing every pollywog, babbling to each other in their own private twin language, discovering the universe as only 2 year olds can. He sat on his back porch and watched until they tired of their sport, and came running to sit on his lap and tell him about what they found. He bathed their feet and dressed them, but their older brother narced on him, and their mother was so aghast he was never left alone with them again.

His reverie was dispelled by footsteps on the steps. Erin's head came into view followed by her unclad body wrapped in a big pink towel. Innocent as a cherub, she came up the steps and over to rest her backside on the side of the jacuzi. "Hi, Pawpaw," she said.

"Hi, Erin. Have a good time in the cove?"

"Yeah. I'll miss it when I go away to school."

"I kin understand. I missed home when I was in 'Nam. Forgit yer swimsuit?"

"Yeah. No problem here. Ya got the cove to yourself. 'Sides, you've seen us naked since we was babies, and we remember when you took baths with us." She brushed her wet, stringy blonde hair. Her subtle curves reminded him of her grandmother and an afternoon decades at the farm pond where he grew up. "I want ya to know Stace and I don't blame you for Mom's running away."

He nodded, shifting slightly in the water. "How come she left?"

"She's been talkin' to this guy in Canada for over a year. I got into her mailbox online from over here and she's been plannin' it for a long time. All this shit 'bout you and Kammie is just a line. She n'Dad's been sleepin' in separate rooms for two years now. Told us she's ashamed of us too, said we was arrogant sluts who deserve to live in a trailer park with scraggly fat men. Don't know what shit she fed Dad, but he didn't like it."

Erin looked away into the trees, and Keith saw her mother's outline. "Pawpaw, Stace and I don't care 'bout Kammie livin' with ya anymore. She's makin' ya happy, and that's what matters. Even if you have some babies, that's okay with us. If she goes away, don't worry, me and Stace'll take care of ya." 

"Thanks, Erin. Don't think we can make babies; lotsa my buddies from 'Nam couldn't make babies after they got back. We was in some seriously bad shit over there that screwed us up a lotta ways. Anyway, I'm gittin' way too old fer that shit."

Erin toyed with the end of her hair, and looked down. "Thanks for lettin' us stay here, Grandfather."

"Any time, baby. You 'n Stace n' Frankie's always welcome."

She nodded and skipped in the sliding door. Keith sat back in the water as the jets were finishing. The water was the perfect temperature, and he leaned back to enjoy his soak in spite of his wrinkled fingers. The wind tossed the branches a little, and his thoughts wandered back in time again.

It was an August morning twenty years ago when a teenager was learning how to drive. Keith took Sandy to a parking lot and let her practice her parallel parking. 

"Poppa, I don't understand. We got an automatic car for driver's ed, and Uncle Harry said I could use his car for the test. Why do I have to learn this with a stick?"

"Cause our car is a stick, and you'll be drivin' it. I doan want'ya to get into sumthin ya can't handle. Ya may have to take me to the 'mergency room in this car sometime." She quivered a little and sighed, and he put his hand on her shoulder. "That's why we're here in the parkin' lot, Sugar. Take it easy and git the feel of it."

"But Poppa, it don't make sense."

His patience was worn thin after a morning's frustration getting her there in the first place. "Shut up and drive th' damn car, Sandra Jean."

It took her many tries to get used to using the clutch in a forward gear, much less in reverse. Keith sat patiently as she did so, wishing he's taken extra aspirin that morning against the pain in his hips from the old war wound. Sandy was almost in tears before she had a feel for the clutch, and when she got it at last, he had her practice her parking next to a garbage dumpster. 

Time after time she failed, and the last try crunched the fender against the dumpster. Her face was accusation rather than embarrassment. "Poppa, I can't believe you'd do this to me!"

"Doan worry, Sandra Jean. Harry and me'll get the dents ironed out in nothin' flat."

"I don't care. You're embarrassed me!" Streams of tears started leaking from her eyes. "How am I supposed to take that damn test now? I'm useless!"

"Nobody else's here, Sandy. Who th' hell's gonna embarrass ya?"

"Uncle Harry for one. All the old farts at the Legion. All their kids at school. You, you old bastard!"

"Language, Sandra Jean."

"I don't give a shit. You are a mean old bastard. And a damn hypocrite." She left the driver's seat and stood outside crying until he got out and hobbled over to her, but when he touched her shoulder, she stalked away and to the passenger door. They returned home in silence and Sandy didn't get her driver's license until after her children were born.

The memories were dispelled by quick footsteps playing a rising scale up the stairway. Stacey popped into view, wearing a white swim hat and nothing else; a small mole two inches right of her navel distinguishing her from her sister. "Hi, Pawpaw," she enthused.

Keith quickly switched the jets on again and looked back at her nervously. "Hi, Stace. Havin' a good time?"

"Yeah. Kammie 'n me raced out to the point and back. She beat me."

"Oh. Was it close?"

"Nope." She came to lean forward over the edge of the jacuzi on her elbows, looking down, letting her curves bounce and tailing the water with her fingertip. "Ya like Kammie a lot, don't ya?"




Firecracker Ch. 03



"Yup. She's bin nice to me."

"She is nice. I kin see why she likes ya." Leaning over, she smiled as she searched the frothy water for something.

Keith tapped her on the shoulder. "Look Stace, even if I'd let ya git closer, I'm an old fashioned guy. Not gonna take advantage of my daughter's daughter and not gonna cheat on somebody who loves me."

"Really?" she replied, looking up at his face with broad eyes.

"Really, really." They looked each other in the eyes for a few moments: hers questioning and his calm and peaceful. She glanced down again, trying to find something while heglared at her and crossed his arms, waiting her out.

After a few long moments, she looked away and pulled her hand back. "Tell ya what," he conceded at last, "after you girls get cleaned up, I'll take ya over to th' Legion fer a while. Y'all kin dance and drink all the diet Coke ya want."

"Sounds great, Pawpaw," she enthused, clapping her hands and dancing inside. His eyes followed her, and saw a familiar shape from years long past.

It was an August afternoon in his eighteenth year, in the farm country of his birth, when he's seen that ass before, or at least, one like it. Vivian Chetham was his steady girl, and they were enjoying the summer before he expected his draft notice. They were at the pond on his grandfather's farm, and her long lean body excited him despite the modest one piece swimsuit she wore. The nicely appled butt captured his eyes and his imagination stirred.

"Gosh, Viv, you got a nice backside."

"Keith, how dare you!" She complained, smiling.

"Hell, sweetheart, nobody else's out here. I like th' look of your ass."

She looked away and faced him so he couldn't see her backside. "I guess a girl should be greatful for the appreciation, but nice boys don't tell their girls they have a nice butt."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Sorry, Viv. But that's how I feel."

"Keep your hands to yourself."

After a while, they used the rope swing over the deepest part of the pond, taking turns in the freedom of momentary weightlessness, and as she took her sixth turn, he noticed how her little nipples became hard in her swimsuit and the swimsuit pulled into the crack of her ass.

"Damn, you're a looker, Viv," he said as they climbed up the bank for another launch into the blue.

She saw his interest arising in his swimsuit with a surprised look. "Doggone it, Keith. You're bigger than my dad. How big is that pole?"

"Why don't ya find out?"

Stepping up to him in challenge, she touched the outside of his suit and gasped as his affection swelled to full expression. Suddenly, she turned and ran away: "Stop, stop," she said, laughing as she ran toward the hill at half speed.

He was lithe and supple, and he chased her down easily as a wolf tracks down a rabbit despite his handicap. They discovered each other's bodies in the midst of the cornfields that afternoon, making love until the early evening. The new level of their relationship took up all their attention from then on, two young, supple bodies in dialogue every free and private moment at the Drive In, in the fields under the stars, behind the barn during lunch breaks, and at the end of a long dead end road tradition staked out as the lover's parking place. 

Morning sickness and other changes told them the results of their loving, but they lived in denial as along as they could, enjoying the last days of free love as long as they could. Before he left for the Army they had to get married at the country seat to preserve her honor. Five months after he left, Sandra Jean Winslow was born on a day her father was slogging through Vietnamese swamps. When he came back to Vivian and Sandy, he was no longer lithe and supple, and his athletic grace was forever gone.

Keith lifted himself out of the rapidly cooling water, slipped on his bathrobe, and hobbled across the deck using the furniture to support himself until he got to the door and his walker. Just after he reached his bedroom, Kammie bounded through the door after him, wearing her robe, and gave him a long kiss full on the lips. She smiled and slipped out of the robe, her tan a shade darker all over her body. He shook his head and she pouted for a moment before fetching a plaid halter top and jean shorts to wear.

A few hours later, Keith sat at his usual stool at the American Legion bar alongside his old friend Harry Kerns. Keith was a long lean figure in a white t-shirt and jeans over his flip flops: a contrast to his chubby friend in a plaid shirt, brown shorts, hairy legs and white shocks in sandals. Kammie, Erin, and Stacie were dancing on the floor with each other, all the fast numbers and all the slow ones, ogled by a dozen grizzled vets who cowered in groups of two and three and bragged quietly to each other how they would make one of the girls his eternal love slave with one evening's domination. The girls disdained to meet their gazes but smiled to themselves in acknowledgment of their adorers' lustful ambitions. "They're really sumthin' Keith," Harry said, his eyes fixed on a banquet of 18 year old pulchritude.

"Yeah."

"Too much fer one man t'handle."

He punched Harry in the arm with irritation. "Two of them's my grankids, ya damn pervert. Sheeyiyut!"

"Ow. I din't mean nothin', Keith," Harry mewled rubbing his arm. "Jest wanted t'say they was bootiful."

"They are beautiful."

A few 30 something men entered at sat at a table across the way from the dancefloor. Keith kept a close eye on them, but they seemed to be self absorbed. Harry gave him a look and tapped his mug for a refill. Jill Barnes the barmaid served him, and he gulped it down at warp speed. "Ya know, Keith, most folks think Sandy's outta her mind."

"I'd agree."

"They like Mike and think she's doing him wrong. Doing her girls wrong too, not to mention her boy who's in Iraq. How's he gonna feel when he finds out his momma's a slut?"

"Frankie wrote me this mornin'. He's sad but not surprised. Thought his momma was gonna slip the leash while he was gone."

"Well, I'd never known it. Mike's such a good guy, kinda quiet, but dependable."

"Yeah. He deserves better."

"He's the son you never had."

"He's been good ta me." They sipped their beers in the silent communion of drinking buddies that go back decades.

One of Keith's other friends from his old unit stepped up to the jukebox and threw some coins in. A couple of Beatles tunes from the White Album were followed by Meat Loaf's "Two out of Three Ain't Bad," and it took Keith back to an awful night years ago.

The lights were dim in the nursing home at 3:00AM, and Sandy was asleep on the floor by her mother's bed. Vivian Winston was off the machines at last, her scraggly hair trying to cover her scalp, and her skin was blotched and spotted. Keith sat next to her in a chair, holding her hand, his ornate walking stick resting against the wall. Her chest shuddered, and she pressed the call button.

"What's up, honey?" Keith asked softly.

"Heart palpitations. Dangerous, dangerous. Hope the nurses will come."

"I'm sure they will."

She took a deep breath. "You moron. They didn't last time. You had to go to the nurses' station."

"Do ya want me to go now?"

"Yes, of course I do."

Keith walked down the hall, but no one was in sight, either at the circular station or in the break room. Walking around, he got no sense of where they could be, and returned to the room.

"Can't find them," he said simply when he returned.

"Damn bitches must be havin' a smoke." She tried to take a deep breath and partially succeeded. "Ya, now, I don't know how I ended up with you."

"I do. It was a summer's day at the pond out on the old farm."

She shook her head. "My daddy insisted I marry you after I got pregnant. 'Specially since you were goin' to 'Nam. I din't want you; I wanted Junior Fredricks. He made good of his life: with his concrete business and his farm. Never married, kept pinin' away after Brenda Ruth all his life. I coulda made him happy."

"Now, Viv honey, how could you know he. Junior never paid any attention to you and I did."

"Yeah, and what did I git for it? Raisin' a baby alone and my husband comin' home a cripple two years later. Junior didn't go to war."

"Junior ate hisself thirty pounds heavier one summer and flunked his physical."

"You shoulda some somethin' like that. Ya got crippled in a war we lost for no purpose. Ya just made my life hell." She blew out a breath and wheezed as she took another. Her eyes were blazing accusation at him. She tried to talk, but nothing came out. Suddenly, her head fell back on the pillow and the hand Keith was holding went limp. 

"You kept me goin' in those swamps," he whispered softly. "You kept me going through all those months in th' hospital. You, you, you. I passed up every bimbo in Saigon fer you. I did my best fer you when I came home. I loved you then and I love you know. I did fer you better than that fat jackass Junior Fredricks ever could. You've always been my Northern Star."

In thirty minutes when the nurses finally answered the call button, Vivian had been dead for fifteen minutes. Keith held her hand until the undertakers carried her away while his daughter sobbed quietly against the wall, refusing consolation.

A couple of their old friends on the other side of the bar gave a wave and left for their homes. Harry looked at the girls a few moments and asked: "How's Kammie doin'?"

"Okay, I guess," he said shaking his head.

"She gonna stay a while?"

"I guess, but I'm not holdin' my breath." 

The music shifted from Garth Brooks to Tim McGraw. "Th' way she looks at ya is enough t'see. You got her hooked deep, buddy."

Keith snorted and sipped his beer, shaking his head. Harry drained his beer and put the mug down on the counter, nodding to the barmaid for another. Keith shook his head no, and Harry smiled. "Whut?" Keith asked.

"Nothin' Keith, nothin' Ya got it good. Enjoy it while it lasts."

"You bet." The music droned on, and Rosie Brown sidled over. She wore a white low cut blouse, a dark skirt, sandals and heavy makeup. "How's it goin', Rosie?" Harry looked at her with poorly disguised lust, but Keith kept his eyes on hers and not on her cleavage.

"All right, Keith," she said batting her eyes. "You enjoyin' babysittin'?"

He laughed. "Very nice, Rosie, very nice. You enjoyin' th' peace 'n quiet?"

"Oh, I dunno. Thingsa been pickin' up. How's it goin" with you Harry?"

"Not bad, Rosie, not bad. Ya look nice t'night."

"Thanks. It's good t'know there's a man around who can appreciate a nature woman. May pay you back someday. I'll take a Canadian and Seven, Jill."

"Yes, Rosie," said bartender Jill. She was a slender woman in her mid 40's with red hair, wearing a delicately curved tube top and long legs tucked into her jeans shorts and flip flops. Rosie took her drink and moved aside to a nearby table, her eyes fixed on Harry until she sat.

"Well, somethin' may happen there t'night," Harry said smugly into his beer.

"Since when?" Keith giggled. "Rosie's only bin good enough fer a lick and a promise most of her life. I remember stories 'bout her in High School: got dozens of guys into the back seat but never put out. If she din't have those three boys with Stevie Kinder, I'd think she was a virgin." 

Harry moved over conspiratorially. "Fred Turpin said he got to third base with her last month. Nicest head of his life, best in the west. She may be softenin'; she's bin alone for over ten years. Maybe she's got motivation now."

"Well, I kin see your motivation from here. Good think ya din't drink enuf beer to drown yer pecker yet. Go on and try your luck, buddy, and Godspeed t'ya."

Harry sidled over with his beer, sitting down next to Rosie and starting a muted conversation. Jill came back by, putting a fresh mug in front of Keith with a question: "How's Frankie doin'?"

Keith nodded. "Frankie's bin doin' okay. Things're better over there, and he feels good when he's at base. Patrollin' still scares the shit outta him, but I told him that's good. I was scared shitless in 'Nam all th' time and it saved my life a few times. What's left of it."

"Oh, you're doin' pretty well, Keith. Don't let anybody tell ya otherwise. We all have a runaway kid: haven't heard from my Jess for a year now. Damn stupid girl met a boy on the Internet and went t' Cleveland to live with'im. Ya learn ta live with it. Mike's better than a son to ya: he won't let ya down, and it looks like the twins still like ya. I think Kammie's a real good, loyal kid who'll make you happy a long time. Have I ever led ya wrong?"

He lifted his stein in salute. "Nope, Jill. You've always hit the nail on th' head."

She snorted. "If I'm so damn right 'bout everythin', why did I marry three losers inna row?"

"Dunno, Jill, dunno. Thanks."

"Remember me in your tip, big boy." She moved off, and Keith spent the rest of the evening nursing his beer and watching the girls dance. After an hour, Harry and Rosie left together hand in hand, with a persistent horny glow from his eyes lighting their way.

The girls were lost in their dancing the entire evening, gyrating wildly with the upbeat numbers and gliding gracefully during the slow numbers, taking breaks to drink diet Coke. The men in the place kept an eye on them, but when their eyes met Keith's, their interest faded. Shane Harrison started in the door toward the end of the evening, but when he saw Keith, he took a U turn and left. "Why's Shane still here?" Keith asked.

Jill came over. "Not time ta go yet. Word has it he's scared ta go."

"How much time's he got?"

"Dunno. If he don't go soon, they'll give up on 'im."

Closing time arrived and the four made their way home. A half Moon sank in the west as they came down the walk to Keith's lake house. The twins snacked on some day old doughnuts they liberated from the Legion, and bedded down quickly in their room with little fuss. Kammie untied a couple of persistent knots from his shoulders at his request before helping him change for bed. She slipped into her oversized t-shirt and gave him a long kiss before turning off the light and spooning back into him.

He looked at her sleeping head and breathed in her scent. There was a day when Vivian's perfume could send him into a fever, but that magic scent was long lost from his memory. Kammie's scent and warmth worked their magic on his preoccupied glands, and the resolution of many of his worries helping him focus. Reaching over, he started stroking her face with tender touches, one finger at a time, the running back to trace the line of her earlobe. Kammie's earlobes were a key to arousal: she started breathing heavily and trembling at his earnest touch.

She ground her hips back into his crotch and purred as she felt his interest in her swell for the first time in several days. He leaned over and whispered dangerous words in her ear, words he'd never let himself saw for many years: "Sweetness, I love you." Turning over, she kissed him full on the lips, driving her tongue into his mouth to meet his tongue. She sucked his tongue into her mouth like a cock and his pole raised in full salute to her. Sitting up and getting over him, she sighed as his hands found her perfect breasts through her t-shirt, tweaking her erect nipples. Her t-shirt came over her head and she was bare and the dim light, lowering her chest so he could suck her nipple into his mouth and chew it gently. Reaching between her legs, she found his rigid pole and guided it deep inside her, undulating her hips as his rose to meet her. On and on they danced, one inside the other, relishing the tight wet clasp of velvet on solid red pulsing flesh. He leaned back and she leaned forward, keeping him inside her, so his hungry mouth could continue teasing her rubbery nubs. 

Sitting upright with a gasp, her moment of ecstacy took her and thrashed her around wildly, which brought him to his moment of gushing completion that overfilled her eager vagina. She rode him until there was nothing left for either of them, reaching down for the overflow, which she scooped and slipped between her lips as he watched in adoration. 

Finally, she lay on top of him, still fully impaled, and closed her eyes. He stroked her hair and caressed her silken backside as her feathery form captured him. His mind raced with possibilities, looking at many possible futures before he settled back into the present, his manhood claimed by perfect submission, and his rugged, oft-wounded heart beating safely at last in the chest of another.



Firecracker



" 'Cause you're a hero. My grandpa was in 'Nam, too. He told me stories about bein' there, and I was always so proud of 'im. You looked so lonely driving the boat, and I wanted to get laid so bad. So I figured you'd like to fuck as much as I did."

"You're silly," he said, laughing unrestrained for the first time in years. "I don't understand you. But thanks."

"Thank me later after we fuck again."

He paused, embarrassed. "I don't know if I can get it up again tonight."

She looked deep in his eyes: "I don't care. I just wanna make you happy."

They kissed and her hand went to his crotch, finding his cock already stirring in recovery.