A warm weight pressed on her chest and the pain subsided, retreating even further than before. Coarse fur tickled her naked breasts and hot breath baked her shoulder.
When she opened her eyes, she was confronted with a great blue and black wolf. It was the strangest thing she’d seen; so odd it made her laugh. Then she laughed at her ability to laugh. The Indian woman held Penelope’s hands against the altar, her broad muscles fully tensed to restrain them. Sweat beaded on the warrior’s brow and she seemed to look through Penelope. As did the wolf, now she thought about it.
“What is that?” she asked of the creature.
The Indian’s face flinched but she would not be shifted from whatever she concentrated on. Tattoos throbbed across her skin and the scarred flesh that sprouted beneath them pulsed; this was a warrior, a fighter as well as a magician. Penelope supposed her magic was holding That Which Sins back. That she could achieve this at all was impressive
“The Indians know more than we thought,” she said, just enjoying speaking.
They remained that way for some time, silent and struggling, until the warrior looked up sharply. She moved her mouth as if talking but made no sound. At first, addled as she was, Penelope thought she was casting a silent spell. Then she felt the movement of something happening out of eyeshot, perhaps the Wanted Man fighting the dark man. Penelope simply couldn’t hear it or the warrior’s speech.
“Great,” she whispered. “I’m deaf.”
The warrior did not respond.
Penelope’s hands tried to free themselves, take advantage of the warrior’s distraction. The warrior was quick enough to keep them restrained. She tightened her grip and looked down at Penelope, concentrated on stymieing the god’s advance.
Being tended over made Penelope think of Nanny, a wonderful Dutch woman whose accent had been as heavy as her great bosom. She’d had a great batch of curly red hair and used to sing Dutch nursery rhymes when Penelope was ill. Briefly, she wondered what this Indian would sound like if she sang to her. If Indians even had nursery rhymes; they could just have war chants or day-long poems for all Penelope knew.
The wolf’s blue darkened, becoming the same shade as a deep ocean trench and the warrior’s tattoos pulsed slower and slower; they were losing the fight. This couldn’t be a permanent strategy then, they had to be waiting on something that would pull her from That Which Sins’ influence.
Or maybe she was being optimistic; they might read her last rites then finish her off, the taint being irreversible.
“Please, fight it,” Penelope said. Her voice didn’t feel strong. No part of her did.
The pleasure crept in more and more as woman and wolf struggled, gradually brightening Penelope’s world and grating her with cruel bliss. The warrior’s will was reaching an end; in a battle between a god who had terrorised America for centuries and one person, there was only going to be one winner.
Whatever they were waiting for had better come soon…
The Indian blurred as the pleasure circled Penelope again but she could see the warrior’s mouth move in speech if not her expression. Then someone else stood over the allowed, a tall figure with broad shoulders that slumped slightly. They made no move against the Indian and so were probably with her.
This new figure put his hands on Penelope’s stomach. She could feel them through the pleasure, rough wedges of skin as warm as a fresh meal. The feeling calmed her; if they could overcome That Which Sins, transmit such a wonderful and simple feeling, they knew what they were doing.
It had to be the Wanted Man, her Papa’s savior. Penelope smiled, sure she would be okay.
Heat radiated from his hands and drew the cruel pleasure into them; more feeling returned, the dull ache of flesh wounds and scratches and sinister cold. Then she could feel her hips. She tried tensing her upper thighs and they tightened; she had control of herself as well.
Inevitably, the pleasure fought back just as she enjoyed her freedom. Her hands and feet were crushed by some unseen hand. She screamed in a silent world and could feel her agony vibrating through the altar, a horrible pain unlike anything she had ever felt. Then her ankles and her wrists were smashed, doubling her torture.
But the fightback wasn’t done there; the pleasure grated across her, furious, and sliced her skin with tiny knives before adding to the wounds.
“She is mine!” the oily voice screeched.
“No,” another voice whispered, a strange one with no sex or feeling, “she is her own.”
Two wills clashed, parted oceans that would not be separated again. One was a great white force and the other a dark, roiling mass. They pushed against one another with the strength of Titans, of warring angels. Her body was the battleground; warmth and frantic torture passed up and down her legs as they surged and resurged. With sharp breathing, Penelope copied with the pain, observed this war with the understanding of a puppy seeing gentlemen duel.
But, as she watched, she felt the vagaries and mores of the combat and realised she was not the battleground but the nexus, the door through which the two forces fought. The Wanted Man was the epicenter of the white force this side of the door; his presence was a bright light which illuminated a great… realm, land, sphere, she could not know what, beyond the door.
