Ink Soaked Penumbra
Chapter 4: The Other Shoe
“Well this is a plot twist that even I didn’t see coming . . . There might be some good writers out there in the cosmos after all. I think they favor a little too much on the side of Deus Ex, but well . . . who am I to judge?” Yana’s voice is the first thing my senses help me realize is going on. My whole body won’t stop tingling. My skin tingles. My scalp tingles. Even my eyes are tingling and it’s hard to stay especially still.
At least my mind isn’t consumed with the thought of how delicious it would be to control everyone in my life besides Yana. So, that means that whatever I experienced was real. I can’t waste any time figuring out what that means.
Did her voice sound truly shocked or more wryly amused? It’s hard to remember, I was too fuzzy when she spoke. I’m still a little fuzzy now. My legs don’t resist my attempt to stand and I’m thankful when I actually feel solidly on my feet. My fingertips are tingling and I can only hope that’s not visible. “Well, as a fellow writer, aren’t you one of the few with the right to judge the way this universe is put together?”
“You’re quick on your feet, even if you’re not very good on your feet. Not bad. Of course you must know I can feel that my attempt failed. Obviously it doesn’t bother me too badly. It was a calculated risk.” Slowly I turn to face Yana and when I do her face is twisted in the most . . . dismissive smile.
Even if Aureus was just trying to save me from The Poetess I’m not going to make her mistake and try to take down Yana before seeing if she’s going to monologue anymore. This isn’t at all like when my enemy was The Argentum Project. Yana is a single individual. For all I know, Yana is just a conduit for the ink. Someone else could be in control of her. The last thing I want is to take down another minion without finding out anything more than the bare minimum.
Yana turns away from me towards the wall behind her desk. It isn’t just a wall though; something is hung over the wall. It looks like some sort of curtain, but I can’t see where it attaches to the ceiling. She flicks a fingertip towards it and mumbles something under her breath. The curtain falls to the floor.
Behind it is a gorgeous golden framed mirror. I’ve seen fancy mirrors before, but this one puts them all to shame. At the center of the piece of gold melted across the top is a ruby that must be the size of my fist, and I can see the power inside of it. I can feel it in my bones. Whatever that mirror’s purpose is, it is powerful and I do not want to be going against someone who has it. Since I don’t really have a choice, I might as well just resign myself to the fact that if I were always evenly matched this job really wouldn’t be nearly as rewarding.
“Wondering what this is, sweet little Sa . . . Hmm . . . We’ll see how long that is the name you choose to go by. After all, history has a way of repeating itself.” Yana steps closer to the mirror and slides her hand along one side of the gold. The mirror is so bright! It looks like someone must spend hours a day shining it. “That is actually part of what this pretty mirror helps me see. History.”
“I don’t know how much that cost, but I’m sure that history books would have been cheaper. Unless of course you stole that mirror, and then, well . . . you could steal the books.” There are times when it’s good not to have a partner. Even Olivia would have groaned over that one.
My lovely antagonistic hostess however simply laughs. It feels more or less the same. Friend groaning, enemy laughing, they add up to the same level of frustration/embarrassment. “I wouldn’t exactly call it theft, but you might. Regardless of how I obtained this precious relic it’s purpose remains the same. Any good . . . mystic . . . will tell you that the future is always in motion. Predicting the future, is like trying to guess how a good book will end while you’re writing it. Oh, you can guess it if you storyboard a tale to hell and back, if you perform a gross form of literary bondage, but then it ceases to be a good story.
“There is however, another way to view time.” Yana leans her body into the mirror, and I can see her quivering as her finger tips trace across the reflective surface. Her hands don’t leave any marks but at least she’s visible in it. “The past, is ever constant. If you look to the past, it will always be the same.”
“No wonder you knew me so well!” I can feel my sparks right on the tips of my fingers, but I don’t let them out. The charge is familiar, but I don’t think a handful of sparks is going to be enough. I just have to focus on charging them, giving them more and more of my strength, more of their own energy, and maybe . . . well, maybe when I let them fly they’ll do more than just make her laugh.
The surface of the mirror ripples as she slowly steps to the side, and I do my best to keep my eyes focused on both sights at once.
Inside of the mirror, colors begin to swirl and shift but it doesn’t feel hypnotic. It’s a cliché to think so, but I know that I could pull my eyes away from it at any time. After all, I can still see Yana’s dark lipped and mocking smile. Above the mirror that too big to believe ruby sparkles, and the swirling colors begin to take shape. Inside, flashes a montage of my weakest moments, and they still make me shudder to even imagine, much less see from the outside.
It shows me the first time that I succumbed to Dust inside of Chronos’s elevator, when I found myself suckling on the bare stick of Pink’s lollypop, when I wound up drooling over The Lady’s desk, and then ended up with her using my own glove between my legs . ..
That’s just the beginning. I can tell these images are flashing quicker than they appear to, but somehow it makes me see the entire experience and my body feels tender and sensitive the longer it goes on. It shows me Yanta and the saltshaker, Caress’s hand in front of my face on the rooftop, Aura making me cum my mind away, Glimmer and Whisper making me milk my own brain out . . . The Domina’s spark cage . . . Savor’s treatments . . . The auction . . . Mind Bore . ..
I tear my eyes away and try not to growl under my breath. My knees shudder, and I know it’s affected me again in just the way it shouldn’t. All of those times felt good in the end, even if they were degrading or humiliating, or just not what I want them, they always made it feel good.
Even when Milly . . . Yanuka. Even when Yanuka was sealing me up with her pen she was making me enjoy it. She let me be panicked when she wasn’t at work, but when she was . . .
My knuckles start to hurt but I don’t loosen my fists. The mirror shows Lida cradling me to her sparked nipple and it makes me clench and I need to stiffen to stop the tears. It shifts again, showing Aura twisting my own idea against me, and then Whisper doing the same inside of that club. Just seeing it makes my mouth remember how similar I felt to an ashtray. For a short moment or two the mirror seems to refocus, and I take the chance to shift my full attention to Yana.
She hasn’t moved an inch and she still looks just as delighted as she did when the mirror started. Her eyes don’t shine, but they do glisten. Could Yana and Lida really have a familiar Shame in common . . .?
The mirror refocuses and I turn my main attention back to the images on the screen. It shows The Poetess taking me, but only briefly before it refocuses again though much quicker. This time it shows Aureus and The Pen, dueling, then being melted away, that ink filling her up . . . Mystic, her hands on Aureus’s forehead and then . . . oh god I gave her Mystic . . . Alyssa reading something, ink smearing, and then ink flowing over her as she sleeps . . . Mom!
It shows my mother getting a letter, a really good letter, and then kissing the signature, and the ink melting over her. It’s impossible not to find the sight arousing, but it’s . . . It’s my mother . . .
If only Mind Bore’s fun inside of my head hadn’t made that more delightful to see than it should be, I might be more upset instead of more turned on. Even The Domina used that against me. Though I have to wonder how she knew, but I still don’t know all about those dreams she forced into my head.
Quick as the other shifts, the view is again back to Mystic’s office, but she’s changed. If I hadn’t been so caught up inside of my head I would have noticed how stark the change was. Valerie is there, sweating, and . . . damn it! My breath comes in and out in quick pants as I watch Valerie be programmed with the ink, and it’s impossible not to be upset. I have no clue what effect this might have on my niece . . . if that’s even the proper term.
Then it shows me, kneeled on the floor, covered with ink . . . and then the ink being repulsed, melting away from me, all because of a familiar bright silver light coating my body.
“You see, Silver . . . There is very little that I am not aware of. I knew all about you when I was formulating my plan, and I kept close tabs on you as your ‘adventures’ unfolded. So, yes, I lied to you earlier . . . but you my dear, being the most unreliable narrator of all, chose to ignore all of the signs. I’d hoped that you would pick up on some of how convenient everything was.” She steps in front of the mirror, and the swirling colors return before it returns to just being a normal mirror. “You did at least have the sense to leave, but not the sense to try that very well.”
Note to self: never believe anyone again that you don’t mind fry, or at least that you suspect to be a possible evil or otherwise villainous person. The benefit of the doubt is to be restricted to people who seem genuinely sweet, helpful, and aren’t being cryptic unless you’re already aware of their cryptic nature.
Slowly Yana steps around her desk, and I would step back if it wouldn’t involve me walking right into her minions. “Of course, if you’re thinking about leaving now, which I would hope that you are, I would first like to inform you that my currently absent little sweet heart has filled your gas tank with ink. While you may be able to resist my ink with concentrated effort, I doubt your wheels will feel the same.”
Damn it. That does complicate things more than just a little. “Clever. That really is so sweet of you, but I hardly see the point. After all, I don’t think you’re about to let me out of here very easily, so why go through that trouble? Why go through any of this trouble? Quite the risk, isn’t it?”
She smirks, but doesn’t answer. Instead, she just slowly steps closer to me. She doesn’t get too much closer before she stops, but she gets close enough to make me feel like a cornered animal full of silver sparks and just thrilled at the idea of getting to use them again. She doesn’t look worried at all that her plan hasn’t worked out for the best. There’s not an ounce of shock anywhere in her face. Maybe it would be in her eyes if they were any more expressive than the wet black orbs they are, but as it is, she looks calm.
It’s not fun having enemies that don’t get upset when they fail.
“Calculated risk, Silver. While yes, you have a chance right now to overpower me, you know the risk is greater to you than to me. I don’t need to use logic to know that, I’m using the knowledge of the way your emotions work. I’ve watched your every encounter, Sarah. You might be that daring, but you’re not that stupid. And besides…” She grins, and almost steps closer, but stops herself. “I had two plans.”
Okay, enemies with backup plans are not especially fun either. I guess they fall under the same category as the enemies that don’t get upset, but they’re not always mutually inclusive groups.
“If my first plan were to fail, to have an ally standing beside me, a willing convert whose wishes I could reward as much as mine . . . that plan could always be twisted so the convert was not so willing. Sadly, that failed.” Her lips twist, and she reaches out her hand towards my face, but leaves it halfway between us. “So, I’m left with only one way to turn this twist into a better story. If you won’t join me, then you make the perfect adversary. You don’t easily succumb to my powers, you have experience . . .
“I don’t think I could choose a better nemesis. We have so much in common, and yet we have such directly opposing viewpoints. We both think the other’s way of thinking is ridiculously foolish, yet we respect each other all the same—even if not to the fullest extent of the word respect.” She lets her hand fall but her smile doesn’t even begin to fade. “I won’t make your escape easy, but I doubt that will matter.”
Yana has got to be the most insane, delusional, and twisted mind that I have ever encountered. Maybe she’s the sanest, but only due to seeing and reveling in her own lack thereof. At least she realizes what she is . . . and I do have to admit, I just might respect her.
But that doesn’t mean I like her, or forgive her for anything that she’s done or will do. I will stop her. She’s not going to get away with any of this on my watch . . . Whether I’m Patina, or Silver.
The longer I stay here, the more she can be doing outside of this room using Mystic, Valerie, Alyssa, my mother or . . . Olivia. Olivia was unconscious though, I really hope that means that the reason her gold drew in was to protect her. Otherwise she’s just the same as everyone else is right now, a threat. “Well Yana . . . It really does seem like you’ve thought this out a lot better than I have, and a lot better than you villains usually do . . . You should be proud of yourself.”
“Oh, and I am, but appealing to my vanity will get you nowhere. After all, if I want that, I can simply rewrite Helena to be the adoring fan she was before she found her way into my enthrallment.” Yana grins wider, much wider, and steps that little bit too close. “And there’s one more convention I need to adapt to . . .”
“Just what do you mean . . .?” As soon as she explains this last bit, that’s when I’ll stop holding back. That’s when I’ll get the hell out of here. I hope.
Smirking, Yana leans even closer and whispers into my ear. It takes a lot to stay still, but if I didn’t have at least some self control by now . . . “I’m used to writing tales of fantasy and modern romance, sweet Silver . . . The same conventions do not apply to this genre. If you are to be Patina, Silver, or Silver Girl . . . Or anything similar, then I’ll need my own alter ego . . . And since I owe all of this to my ink . . . To my own careful self revision . . . I think the name Quillspawn is only fitting. . .”
Quillspawn.
I’m sure that Yana had that name in mind for herself for . . . she revised herself?! Okay, she is officially the most dangerous woman I’ve dealt with. None of my previous adversaries were so willing to ruin their own minds.
I’d be tempted to end this right here, right now. Screw the cat and mouse game, just pummel her full of sparks until there’s nothing left . . . but I’m sure she has a backup plan for it. A part of me thinks that the only reason she even came after my friends, or me in the first place, was to make this a better novel with more conflict than her just going place to place and inking over people’s minds with their own desires.
She actually wanted someone to have a halfway decent shot at stopping her. I’ll be sure to thank her for the gift later. For now, I reach up and grasp both sides of her head, and force my sparks into her en masse.
Her whole body seizes and she shudders against me uncontrollably with her lips quivering. “All right, Quillspawn. You wanted a worthy adversary? You have one.”
Quillspawn’s eyelids can’t decide if they want to stay open or closed, and it’s such a thrill to watch. Just the sight of the silver coursing through the wet surface of her eyes makes my nipples sing and the interior of the rather tight suit all the more pleasing. The way her lips shake looks pleading but at the same time passionate, and I mash my lips to hers to send more of my influence as deep inside of her as I can.
Ooh I can taste the inky depths of her mind and it makes my whole body tighten against hers as I try to press myself more into her. She’s taller than me, only a little taller than me, but that only makes it more satisfying – there’s more of her to let my hands trail along.
Mmm there was so much about being full of this energy I never really appreciated before. Back when I had it then, I had grown up with it to an extent and the sensations became too familiar. I can literally taste the way that her entire body is weakening more and more every moment as my energy shudders through her. Taste isn’t the right word, but I feel it along my tongue, and goddess I feel it along hers!
I close my fingers around her breasts and knead them hard through her top, savoring the ethereal feeling of her nipples hardening almost painfully as her wholly body tries to press them harder into my palms. Something about her once smug voice being used for only whimpers and moans makes me even wetter.
Though I keep one hand at her chest, kneading harder and harder as I groan, focusing on not just sending little jolts through her but a continued charge, I slide my other hand down along the length of her body and her hips quiver cravingly towards it. She’s so sensitive, but used to being touched . . . just not touched like this, not touched in a way deeper than her flesh, deeper than her self, right into the core of her hot slutty mind.
Just as if it were my nose nuzzling into her folds instead of my fingers grinding against them through her clothing I can smell her arousal and it makes my own soar. My fingers feel like they’re pressing against bare wet flesh, and I can feel every time she clenches, every time a new surge of desire glows through her . . .
The only thing I’m not feeling is the feeling that lets me know her mind is being lost to it. She’s enjoying it, and not in any real position to think as I twist her nipple and send a charge through all of the connected nerves, but something in her ink soaked mind is stopping my sparks from overloading her to the point of turning her mind off.
That’s fine. We’ll just have our fun, and her body will be too exhausted for her to chase after me. It’s not perfect, but trying for anymore would be risky. Her minions are staying perfectly still when I glance at them, but it doesn’t surprise me . . . she wants this.
She wanted this even before my sparks found her clit, stimulating every small place just the right way to make her body sing and her throat lose the ability to stop the flow of that song. I can feel her gushing against my glove, against my bare hand . . . against my mind. It’s an extension of my mind, and I’m using it to fuck her, sliding that energy over and inside of her clit, and teasing her wet dripping emptiness without giving it any fulfillment.
I can taste the building surge of her release, and it’s the most intense taste I’ve ever felt. I think I always used to use my sparks during sex, even if I didn’t realize it, they were another sensory organ. This reminds me of what sex used to feel like, and I hadn’t even admitted to myself anything was missing!
Her lips feel so weak against mine, but so strong as they quiver. My lips pull away to trace arcs of silver along the tender nerves in her neck and her screams get only louder as her hands try to grasp again and again but just aren’t working like they should. Every time her fingers twitch my pussy clenches tasting the desire inside of her swelling. Oooh I haven’t been alive since I lost this!
When her orgasm hits it’s like the sharp rocks at the bottom of the waterfall, pure pleasure slamming into both of us right along with the unending flow of lust. We scream, and our screams mingle so close that for a second they sound like one unified squeal of delight.
We end up on the floor, with my body on top of hers. Even though I can still see the silver cascading over her eyes, I can already feel her thoughts starting to try and come back as soon as I pull my hands back.
“Well . . . Mmm . . . Looks like if I can’t beat you now, I’d better make a clean get away before you have tweedle ditz and tweedle cum over there charge me and try that ink again . . . But I’m not going to make coming after me easy for you.” I really don’t think anything I have on me, conventional or not, is going to do all that much good at shutting her down . . . but I sure can take away one of her advantages.
I reach a hand down into my belt, and check to see if my skin is shining. It’s not, but I reach my other hand to pull a strand of hair in front of my face and sure enough it’s definitely shining and glistening far more than it ever did black . . . but it’s not quite silver. Inside of the belt, I pull out two of the balls of blue dreams, and launch them at the mirror hard as I can.
There’s a satisfying smashing sound, but I don’t have time to enjoy it, or to hope that the blue dreams will actually affect her. Something in her head stopped my sparks, I don’t think a little drug is going to have any better luck.
I swallow the immunity capsule, and fire a nice good spark into both of her slave’s foreheads. They slump satisfyingly to their knees and the shorter one, Celia I think, is easy enough to pull out of the way of the door so I can slide out of it and pull it tight before letting too much of the mist get out. If I could lock the door and break off the key, I would, but I have to settle for just running like hell to the stairs and riding the railing down.
Some parts of being a super heroine are just indulging your childhood fantasies.
Right before the pole that would really hurt to slam into; I kick off of the railing and land with a well stuck flip onto the floor. The front door is hardly enough to slow me down. Outside, a short ways away from my bike is an unconscious woman with medium length black hair, dressed in clothes that remind me a lot of Yana’s-Quillspawn’s-slaves.
I’m thankful for it, but I don’t have time to question it. Just to check, I hop onto Sylvia and . . . she’s purring like a kitten. Apparently the slave was stopped before she could manage to clog up her gas tank, or I’m taking a really stupid risk here.
Walking all of the way back home doesn’t seem efficient, so I think I’ll chance it.
Feeling her quiver under me as we start to speed off makes me feel a million times better. Home isn’t that far away, and the drive will give me some time to think of what could actually take down Quillspawn and what to do about the reemergence of my sparks. Whether I go through another wardrobe change or not, I’m not going to stay pale with black hair for very much longer. Do I keep the new name or . . .
A shadow passes over me, and I feel arms wrap around me, and a body pressing close. It’s familiar but . . . not . . . I’m about to stop the bike, but an even more familiar voice whispers into my ear, and though I should feel worried, it’s far more comforting than worrying. “Keep driving. We’re going the same direction.”
I could never forget her voice in a million years . . . “Sure thing . . . Silhouette.”