Corrupting Power
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The Devil's Details - Chapter 8
🕑 Added 2023-05-06 01:05:52 +0000 UTCChapter Eight
Although she could’ve just tried to lean forward and invite Emily over, it seemed more polite to go over from their box to her box next door, as if they were keeping a formal meeting appointment, which they were. Just as Veronica was about to knock on the door to the suite, it opened and a familiar face met them with a scowl.
“Well, if it isn’t the prodigal daughter,” Sandalphon said to them. The angel was dressed in a business suit a shade of white bordering on vanilla, the barest hints of yellow toning the fabric. It certainly looked expensive. Her hair was done up in a bun with a pair of chopsticks sticking through it, a little blend of eastern tradition to go with her Asian appearance, contrasting to the very strictly Western cut of suit, the front of which did little to conceal the angel’s ample bosom. Underneath one arm, she had a closed leather portfolio, several papers in the middle of it obscured from view. “You’re a little late on this one, darling, because I’m afraid your chances of success have dropped precipitously since I was allowed to make my presentation first.”
“You’ve got quite the stones on you, little angel,” Tabitha said with a wicked smirk. “Still feeling chafed by your time amid the first for your little transgression? Perhaps the fire singed your wings in a way you aren’t accustomed to? They scorch off more than a few feathers?”
Sandalphon shot her a look that could wither away a thousand dreams, her brow furrowing in clear annoyance. And yet, for as intense as the glare was at first, it withered and died on the vine, leaving only regret in its wake. “All I am seeking is a fair game, Daughter of Lucifer, and you should be seeking the same.”
“I am,” Tabitha replied. “Which is why I held your feet to the fire when you broke them.”
“Broke them?” Sandalphon scoffed. “I did little more than give them a slight bend at the very worst. An inconvenience. A trifle of trouble, at the very worst, and even then, extreme dramatics have been deployed. To call such a minor thing a break would–”
“Would be exactly what the arbitrators have decided,” Tabitha said, shaking her head. This was the sort of thing she’d excelled at in school – finding the holes in someone’s arguments, rifling through them and then widening them up so much that all the light came in. “Look, I get that you’re doing your job and your job is be the opposition–”
“Don’t tell me what my job is, little princess–”
“But all I am asking for is a fair game, a chance to prove what I am capable of, to stand or fall on my own. One set of rules that we both abide by. That’s what the accords are there for; that’s what the arbitrators are there for. We’re not playing for the same team, but let’s just both agree to abide by the rules of the game, and maybe we can set the animosity aside.”
Sandalphon looked at Tabitha with a curious expression for a moment, considering the statement before the appearance of hostility faded again from her visage, leaving something far more complicated behind instead. “Alright, little devil. I will agree to your terms as long as you abide by them yourself.”
Tabitha smiled a little bit, as if there had been a little bit of weight lifted from her shoulders. “I am nothing if not a servant of the law.” She even offered a little mock bow.
“In the spirit of your peace offering, then, let me extend you something in kind,” the angel said, immediately making Tabitha slightly nervous again. Kindness from the enemy should always be looked upon with cautious and suspicion, she thought, and realized it was the kind of lesson her mother would likely approve of. “You may find this Nephilim you are going to speak to now has been disinclined to believe you. There is a specter of impropriety I did not introduce. I assure you that wherever these seeds of malice have come from, they are not from my hand.”
“Where are they from?”
“We’re not the only players with stakes in this game,” Sandalphon said, looking around, as if she expected to see adversaries appearing at any moment. “There are several personages on both sides of the equation would love to see you win, see you fail, or just generally cause trouble for everyone involved in the process. Keep your eyes and ears open and perhaps you will prove to be your mother’s daughter after all, for better or worse. It is not my place to judge.”
The angel moved past the two of them, and for a second, Tabitha glanced at the angel’s back, noting how bulky and thick the suit was along the back. She couldn’t help but wonder if there were actual feathered wings bound down beneath it, and what they might look like should they be opened and extended towards the sky. Tabitha somehow knew it would be both achingly beautiful and yet somehow fear inducing also.
“Do be polite if you happen to bump into Merlin,” Tabitha said, wanting to get one last barb in. “He seemed in a particularly prickly mood.”
Sandalphon turned back to ask a question, but the person running the Queens of Ragetown luxury box closed the door behind them, cutting her off from being able to follow up on Tabitha’s closing statement. There was something fun about that, being able to have the last word when the angel clearly had further questions about what she’d just said. Just because they weren’t openly enemies didn’t mean Tabitha couldn’t get some amusement at the angel’s expense.
“So, you’re the hot shit dragon lady everybody’s talking about?” Emily said with a laugh, looking at her across the room. “You seem more smoke than show to me.”
It was Tabitha’s first chance to get a look at her latest target up close. The girl was certainly as pale as she’d looked at a distance, her skin bordering on albino but obviously just a light shade of pale, which made the blue dye in her hair pop even more contrastingly. But when she got close enough to offer her hand for Emily to shake, Tabitha caught the most surprising thing about the young woman – her eyes were violet, not blue but a genuine shade of lavish purple, so perhaps Emily was partially leaning into albinism, or perhaps it was an offshoot of her being a Nephilim.
“And you were supposed to be smarter than the kind of person who makes hip shot judgements about people she hasn’t even really spoken to,” Tabitha said with a smile, offering her hand. “Tabitha St. Cloud. I understand you’re looking for someone to make your money problems go away.”
Emily looked down at the extended hand, considering it for what felt like far too long to be respectful, but then eventually put her own hand into it and shook. The woman’s hands were soft but not delicate, hard earned callouses on the fingertips just beginning to fade down. “You make it sound so overly dramatic. ‘Money problems.’ Like I’m all of a sudden in ‘Goodfellas’ or something. We need an influx of capital to cover some operating costs and some growth spurts. I don’t need someone trying to buy me out of my own company.”
“And I’m not interested in doing that,” Tabitha replied breezily, trying to come across as easy to work with. “I’m interested in helping you grow your company the way you want to grow it, without you losing control of the thing you’ve spent the last few years building.”
“That’s not what I’ve heard,” Emily said as she released Tabitha’s hand. “Word around town is that you’re quite the mercenary, willing to throw anyone under the bus at the drop of a hat.”
“Not sure where you’ve heard such nonsense, but it couldn’t be from anyone who actually knows me or has any real work with me,” Tabitha said, reaching her fingertips up to flick some dust, real or imaginary it was hard to tell, off her shoulder dismissively. “Who told you this?”
“A friend of a friend of a friend,” Emily said. There were only a couple of other people in the suite – one of the team’s coaches, an alternate to stand-in on the off chance a player could get sick, and someone representing Damedulac Designs, the company that developed and published Immortal Guardians of Avalon. Tabitha wondered if the folks who’d built this game had any idea who they truly worked for. “Said you were a prime example of the snakes over at AOA and that I should steer clear of them and you. Convince me otherwise.”
“That’s their first mistake. I’m not here on behalf of AOA. I’m willing to put my money – not AOA’s money, but my own money – where my mouth is, and buy into your company for a stake. Not a controlling interest, just a piece that’ll pay back over the years as you continue to grow. I want to buy a chance to profit off your inevitable success.”
“And if Queens of Ragetown doesn’t continue to grow? You know a lot of these esports teams, they crash and burn after a few years, and we may look like a solid investment now, but in–”
“Except you don’t look like a solid investment right now,” Tabitha said with a smirk. “You look like a gamble. You have some top eight finishes, a couple of top fours, but never a first place finish at any of the big league events. Nothing like the invitational, the Dota International, the LoL World Championships, the CS:GO Majors. I think it’s predicted your girls are going to top four here, but the oddsmakers don’t seem to think they stand a good chance of going past that.”
Emily shook her head. “They don’t, but odds makers are wrong as much as they are right. I don’t know that we’re good enough to win the tourney, but I won’t be shocked if we end up in the finals. People have always been underestimating us because we’re girls; no reason they’ll stop now, even when we’re regularly kicking their butts.”
“That’s good. That’s how it should be. People constantly underestimating you. Gives you an edge, at least for a while, and it’s no skin off your back, because it’s not like you’re putting up a false front. They’re just following outdated concepts and thoughts. People have underestimated me my whole life. They think I’m just a pair of long legs in a short skirt. That’s the edge people like us have.”
“What’s the catch?”
“No catch. I get a seat at the table, so you get to listen to me ramble on every now and again, but I wouldn’t have even close to a controlling interest, so if you want to dismiss everything I’m saying as useless nonsense gibberish, that’s your right. Of course, I can always sell off my investment into the company if I feel like it’s not working out, but hell, that could even just be you buying it back, if it turns out you’re doing well enough.”
“And if everything’s falling apart?”
“Well then, it was a risk that didn’t pay off, and we’ve both learned a valuable lesson.”
Emily seemed a little more cautious than Tabitha had expected, but she wondered if maybe that was due to whatever disinformation her opponents had spread about her. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Why don’t we go over back to my suite and I can give that question a 100% honest answer?”
The blue-haired social media star looked back and forth then shrugged with a smile. “Sure, how much harm can I get into if I’m just next door?”
They exited from the suite the Queens of Ragetown had been assigned and moved back into the AOA suite, Veronica closing the door behind them with a wry smile, making sure to flick the switch to ‘do not disturb,’ and flicking the door latch to locked.
“What didn’t you want to tell me in front of the rest of my staff, Miss Saint Cloud?” Emily said, moving over towards the glass doorways, looking out to check on the state of the matches.
“Oh, a handful of things, but let’s start with the big ones. I’m the daughter of Lucifer, and I’ve got a little less than a month to live, unless I bring seven Nephilim to heel under my will,” Tabitha said, slowly walking up behind Emily. “And you? You’re one of the Nephilim. So, I’m gonna need you to learn how to heel.” Tabitha reached a hand up and suddenly pressed against the back of Emily’s neck, forcing the woman to smush up against the glass. “You do so love the damn fame and adoration, don’t you? The feeling of those eyes all upon you?”
Emily whimpered a little. “You… you can’t be serious…”
“Listen to them chanting. Listen to them cheering. Listen to the adoration of the crowd. I met a man who feeds off of such things just a little bit ago, but he isn’t the only one, now is he?” Tabitha’s other hand began to smooth over Emily’s ass before sliding around her waist, unbuttoning the top button of the woman’s heavily shredded jean shorts.
“I… I don’t… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Emily stuttered, but the defiance that been in her voice just a few minutes ago had faltered, the confidence had wavered. Nothing was quite as solid and assured as it had seemed when they were in the other room.
“I’ve seen images from your days as a cam girl,” Tabitha purred, one hand still keeping Emily’s form pressed helplessly against the glass door as her other hand moved to push down the front of the cyber athlete’s pants, her fingertips moving down to stroke a couple of fingertips against the folds that she unsurprisingly found damp and flushed with excitement. Everyone had their weakness; Emily’s was attention. “Back when you would give boys and girls a show. To make them feel special. But it was never about them feeling special, was it? It was all about you feeling like the center of their attention, to be the beating heart of their world, even if only for a short while.”
“That’s… that’s not…” Emily tried to deny, but Tabitha made a loud shushing sound.
“You don’t have to deny it with me, Emily,” Tabitha chuckled. “We all have our vices. Mine is to be in control. Yours is to be watched. I can let you have that, assuming you’re willing to submit to me, to bend the knee, to put yourself under my control.” Those two long fingers pinched Emily’s vulva between them, the pale skinned girl whining, trying to push her hips more towards Tabitha’s touch.
“But I… I…”
“All you have to do is give in to my control, and I can let you have the sorts of orgasms you were only dreaming of. I can put you on a stage in front of the sort of people who look upon you with excitement and fascination. I mean, look at us right now…” Tabitha’s hands moved from Emily’s form, grabbing the waist of her jean shorts, along with the fishnet stockings, and yanked them both down to her knees, Emily not moving an inch from the place or position that Tabitha had put her in. “Here I am…” Tabitha’s hand moved back between Emily’s thighs and pushed two fingers up and inside of Emily’s pussy, making the smaller girl whimper, her knees bending. “Fingering you right in front of the glass. And I can’t remember whether or not these windows are see-through on the other side or not.”
Emily’s breathing started to quicken, her muscles tensing up. “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck…”
“The entire crowd might be able to look up and see my fingers buried in your twat, see you pressed up against the glass, your face contorting with ecstasy. Let’s give them a full show, shall we?” Tabitha’s free hand reached up and tugged up on Emily’s shirt, pulling it up, yanking the bra hard enough to make it snap and spring loose, exposing the petite silver-capped swells before pressing Emily’s body hard against the glass once more, mashing that flesh against it. In the harsh lights of the stadium, all of Emily’s tattoos – Ganondorf and Gandalf and Arwyn and Princess Peach and all the rest – they seemed to glow, almost as if the skin itself was capturing the light and pushing it back out as illumination. “I bet you can’t even decide which you’re hoping more, are you? That they can or can’t see you?”
“I… I…”
“If they can see you, then all it’s going to take is someone to glance up from the right angle, and then pretty soon there will be loads of people looking on watching me work you over. If they can’t see you, then your reputation might be spared, but your appetite may not be satiated. Because deep down, you’d rather that entire crowd would be watching you, wouldn’t you?”
Emily’s hips were noticeably griding down onto Tabitha’s hand now, trying to get her to push her fingers even deeper inside of her pussy, practically humping on those digits, her flat palms pressed against the glass. “Fuck, yes! Yes I would! I want people to look on and see me getting finger-fucked! I want to be naked all the fucking time! I fucking love it, okay?”
“Now I did make a promise that I wouldn’t disturb this event, but if you submit to me, I can make sure you can have your cake and eat it too. You can wallow in the fame and glory of being watched nude, being scrutinized constantly while engaging in some of the filthiest sex you’ve ever had, and yet, I can keep it all apart from your little day job. I can help you keep your company growing and excelling. What do you say to that?”
“What do I have to do?”
Tabitha chuckled darkly. Once they were discussing price, the deal was already done; the other person just didn’t know it yet. “You must give in to me, relent to my control. You must willingly give everything to me. I can feel that you want to. You’re so slick,” Tabitha said, her fingertips starting to grind down against Emily’s clit, her coffee-colored skin a stark contrast to Emily’s pale white thighs.
“I… I…”
“Say it.”
“I… I…”
“SAY IT.”
“Fuck, I yield, I yield. Just make me cum and you can call me yours,” Emily pleaded, trying to grind her hips down more onto Tabitha’s hand.
Tabitha’s slender digits started to vibrate quickly against the e-athlete’s bundle of nerves, and Emily lifted one of her legs before stamping her foot down, a low growl turning up in volume as it escalated in a high-pitched shriek of delight. She was trembling so hard in the aftershocks of her orgasm that Tabitha was basically holding her up.
She pulled her hand from between Emily’s thighs, letting the girl slump a little bit, as Tabitha brought her fingertips to lick the taste of the girl from her fingertips. “Good start, but now it’s time for you to worship and prove your submission to me.”
Tabitha strolled across the room, spun around a chair, hiked up her skirt, exposing how she hadn’t bothered to put on panties today, as she sat down, spreading her legs wide.
Emily dropped down to her hands and knees, then put on her best showman’s smile, crawling over towards Tabitha before lifting her head to press her lips up against Tabitha’s pussy, slowly dragging her tongue from the bottom of her slit up to the top, the tip of her pink tongue drawing shapes against Tabitha’s clit.
Tabitha let a soft moan escape her lips as she lifted one of her legs and hooked her calf over one of Emily’s shoulders, her fingertips sifting through Emily’s lustrous blue hair, her other hand curling a finger at Veronica, who smirked and nodded.
As Emily’s tongue worshipped Tabitha’s snatch, Veronica moved to lay down on her back, sliding her head between Emily’s thighs, lifting her face up to press her lips against Emily’s cunt, vibrating her lips like she was playing a trumpet. The former streamer groaned, pressing her face more between Tabitha’s thighs, her breath hot against the exposed skin. Tabitha’s one regret was that she hadn’t set up camera to record all of this. She would know better for next time. It was, like all things, a learning process.
When Veronica began to work upon Emily’s pussy, the blue haired woman took that as a cue to get competitive, and her tongue began to press deeper and faster, working as much as she could, even as Veronica countered, both of her hands on Emily’s ass, her face plugged up against her.
The three of them were locked in a chain of intense sexual energy that seemed to roll on in waves from one to the other to the next, and Tabitha was delighted to see that Emily had fully embraced her role in the challenge, doing her best until just around the point she was cresting with her own orgasm, Veronica’s forked tongue had brought Emily to crest her second. Veronica’s hand was up her own skirt, so Tabitha was certain she was having her own release around the same moment.
Five minutes later, the three of them were getting dressed and composed again, each of them still glowing in the aftermath of their releases. Tabitha reached over and grabbed Emily’s blue hair, yanking her body close to hers as she pressed her lips hard against the e-athlete, tasting the musky flavor of her own cunt upon the woman’s lips.
Tabitha sat down in the chair and patted her lap, making Emily move to sit down on top of her legs, as Tabitha lifted the woman’s shirt and bra up once more. “Veronica, if you would?” While Veronica was getting the jewelry from her purse, Veronica unscrewed a barbell end off of one of Emily’s nipple piercings, sliding it out before threading through the replacement tag that Veronica gave to her, her engram stamped into bronze hanging from the woman’s nipple as Tabitha pushed the ring through it and screwed it closed, sealing it off once more.
“You’re going to enjoy playing with my other girls,” Tabitha said with a wry smile. “I’m sure Charlie’s going to enjoy broadening your horizons.”
“That sounds like there’s a story to be had,” Emily said. “You… you were kidding about the whole ‘daughter of the devil’ thing, weren’t you?”
“Roni, show her your tail while you call the adjudicators,” Tabitha said. On command, Veronica’s tail snaked out from beneath her skirt and moved to wrap around Emily’s thigh, the gamer girl moaning a little bit. There wasn’t fear in her sounds, only excitement and delight.
“Fuck, I bet you can do some hot ass shit with that,” Emily finally said when she found her voice once more. She pulled her clothes back into place, buttoning, buckling and zippering.
“They’ll be here in just a moment, Mistress,” Veronica said, as a loud roar of approval blasted through the auditorium, causing both Emily and Tabitha to turn and look back towards the main event.
“Fuck yeah!” Emily said, pumping her fist into the air as she looked out at the crowds, watching as the Queens of Ragetown team took the stage. “There’s my girls! Give’em hell, bitches!”
“Let’s go out onto the balcony.”
Tabitha and Emily opened the door as they moved out to look out among the crowd, Emily’s breath catching a little bit as she looked down onto the crowd.
“Holy shitballs,” Emily whispered. “I can… I can see energy rising up from all these people now. Was that always there?”
“It was,” Tabitha said, moving to lean against the railing next to Emily. “You just couldn’t see it. There’s been a whole lot of things in the world you just couldn’t see before now. For example, the two people coming to greet us? Not exactly human.”
Emily and Tabitha both looked back over their shoulders as Shango and Zhurong walked through the door, not opening it, simply passing through it, as was their particular style. “Did… what the hell are they?” Emily asked, confusion and disbelief in her voice.
“The judges of the little competition I find myself in,” Tabitha sighed. “Also, gods from a nearly forgotten time of the world.”
“That’s funny,” Emily said, laughing a little before turning to look at Tabitha. “Oh. Oh! Oh shit, you’re serious.”
“Very much so,” Tabitha said before the two gods were close enough to hear them. “Hail adjudicators. How does this fine evening find you?”
Zhurong was almost beaming, his smile from ear to ear. “It seems I’ve developed a handful of new worshippers, which means that it’s possible my star could again be on the rise.”
“He’s been glowing like this since this morning,” Shango bemoaned. “It’s been nearly impossible dealing with him, reminding him that every so often we get blips of interest, but it’s never going to return back to the old days.”
“The old days?” Emily asked them.
“Mmmm,” Shango said. “Back millennia ago, the name Shango would send fear into the hearts of the people, and they would never go so far as to neglect my holy days, or to tithe off a sliver of their harvest to invoke my favor, to inspire my compassion for the next year’s harvest. I had hopes that my people would expand beyond their homes in Africa and bring my gospels to other nations, to other continents, but I was never quite as good at outreach as the damn Christians.” He let out a heavy sigh, a tiny cloud of smoke tinged with crackling fire escaping as his breath.
“I see the Merlin is still riding his success, using every trick in the book to remain within the minds and thoughts of civilized beings all across the globe,” Zhurong said, looking to the screen as a giant LCD screen zoomed in on a fight breaking out in the MOBA, one of the players using Merlin’s ultimate, filling the floor of the area around the heroes with dozens of purple portals, eldritch arms reaching out to claw out at Merlin’s opponents and lifting up his allies. “He always seems to be one step ahead of nearly everyone. Maybe that’s his greatest trick. When the printing press was invented, he made sure the Arthurian myths were published early, written well and spread far and wide. Then cinema. After that, television. Now… all this,” the Chinese god sighed. “I would admire the style of it, if it only he would share those secrets with the rest of us.”
“The Merlin’s greatest secret was that he never claimed to be a god, but was happy to be a myth,” Veronica offered. “That made him much harder to extricate from the world, because myths are simply stories that inspire the retelling. And you have to admit, getting people to chant your name in a stadium for something like this? It’s kind of genius.”
“I need admit no such thing,” Shango snorted dismissively. “You have brought us here to authenticate another capture? Let us dwell on that, and not this white-skinned trickster.”
“He actually didn’t look that light skinned to me,” Tabitha said, and suddenly it was almost as though the entire stadium fell silent, both of the gods turning to look at her intently.
“You’ve… you’ve seen him?” Shango asked.
“He’s here, somewhere,” Tabitha nodded. “He wanted me to promise not to disrupt his event.”
Zhurong looked up at Shango. “Could he have heard your slander?”
Shango sighed and shrugged. “Either he did or he didn’t. Either he’s angry or he isn’t. There is nothing to be done about it now, so let us do our jobs.”
Tabitha turned Emily around and bent her forward. “You can watch the whole crowd as we do this, Emily. But you can’t scream.”
“No worries, I’ll just watch the match…”
Comments
Cynthia Parker
loving this, can't wait for the next chapter
Ronan
Yeah, I get that. The comment was tongue-in-cheek.
Corrupting Power
Well, DD is a commissioned work, so it's guaranteed its one a month post, and is being written from someone else's outline. ;)
Ronan
So, the coolness of Michael Clarke Duncan and James Hong as adjudicating deities aside, I finally found one of your stories I'm not a fan of. Oh the heartbreak. One out of how many? It keeps growing. Keep up the good work, I'll vote for other series though.
Kodenkan
Lol
Corrupting Power
I've always sort of imagined them as Michael Clark Duncan and James Hong, but to each their own.
J.D.
Why do I picture one of the gods looking like Penn Jillette.
