[Catharsis]

The Gift
by Catharsis

Part 1 - A House With Character

   "Well?" the real estate agent asked as the couple completed their tour of the upstairs.
   
   "I think she likes it," the man confided.
   
   "We'll take it!" Rowenna announced enthusiastically.
   
   The agent and Rowenna's husband Kyle harmonized in unison, "Really?"
   
   The woman beamed.  "I've dreamed of owning a cute Cape Cod house like this with trees in the yard for so long."  She took a deep breath, as if to draw in as much of her surroundings as she could and capture it inside of her.  Her medium-length, wavy red hair glowed ruby in the light streaming in from the curtainless windows.  "I almost can't wait to get away from crowded city life."
   
   "You're certain this isn't too far out in the countryside?" Kyle confirmed.
   
   "Don't worry.  I won't get bored."
   
   "Well," the real estate agent chimed, "if you're both still okay with the price, I'll call and get the paperwork started."  The couple nodded happily.
   
   The realtor pulled out her cell phone and stepped out the front door.  Once the screen door shut, Rowenna raced to Kyle and whispered, "This is such an incredible steal."
   
   "I know.  Benefits of finding a house that was foreclosed on."
   
   "Who did she say owned this place before?"
   
   "Some guy and his wife that skipped town when the housing market tanked.  Just vanished into thin air."
   
   Rowenna peered through a rear window at the dense wall of trees that lined the edge of the back yard a hundred yards away.  "Oh, this is going to be such a thrill.  I'm getting goose bumps already."

**********
   
   Out at her car, the realtor was ecstatic.  "You heard me right.  I've got buyers for the old house on Ash Creek...  Yes, they're serious.  The husband checked it out last weekend and today he brought his wife.  They both adore it...  No, they didn't ask and there’s no obligation to tell.  And on top of that, nothing spooky happened either time they visited...  I know, I know.  Just get the forms set up and we can finally get this accursed thing off our inventory."
   
**********
   
   A month and a half later, after a long, hectic day, Rowenna and Kyle thanked the movers, watched the big, empty eighteen-wheeler that had hauled their life's possessions pull away, and turned to take in the sight of their new home.  The early August sun illuminated the interior with golden beams as it set.  Cardboard boxes littered the rooms and hallways, but at least all the furniture was in place. 
   
   Kyle gave Rowenna a peck on the cheek and went to find a remote to test out the satellite TV.  Rowenna continued surveying the size of the task she had in front of her to get everything organized, decorated, and feeling cozy.  Her stomach growled, interrupting her train of thought.
   
   "I could go for some Chinese takeout," she said.
   
   Kyle laughed and shook his head.  "Need I remind you that there isn't a restaurant just down the block anymore?  The closest Chinese place would be twenty minutes away in the next town over, if there even is one."
   
   "I know.  I was joking.  I said that moving out here would force me to cook more, and that's what I intend to do."
   
   "Great.  I think the box with the surround speakers ended up in the office upstairs.  I'll be hunting up there for a bit if you need anything."
   
   "Got it," Rowenna answered, and headed into the kitchen.  She reset the elastic band in her hair to lift her copper tresses off her neck.  Many people upon first seeing her sturdy build and cascading red hair got the impression she was a spitfire.  But after noticing the sparkle in her green eyes and the way her ready smile bunched the cheeks up on her round freckled face, they reassessed her as the vibrant, fun-loving and opinionated woman she was.  From a bag marked "Kitchen Linens" Rowenna extracted an apron and covered the t-shirt and jeans she'd worn while carting boxes.  She smoothed it over her heavy chest and set about pulling together the ingredients for a meal.
   
   Humming to herself, she broke up some frozen ground sausage, browned it in a sauté pan, and drained the grease.  To that she added onions, garlic, and canned tomatoes, topping it all off with herbs from her window box, all by eye.  While that was simmering, she fixed up a simple green salad and filled a large pot with water for pasta.  As she leaned back against the counter across from the stove to wait for it to boil, it finally struck her how quiet it was.  No traffic noise.  No sirens in the distance.  No airplanes or helicopters overhead.  Just the squeaking of the floorboards above her as Kyle puttered around, and the occasional bubble from the sauce.
   
   And a strange, muffled puffing sound.  Rowenna barely noticed it at first.  She silenced her breathing and listened carefully.  It was definitely there.  She walked on cat's paws around the kitchen, angling her head to locate the source.  It sounded... close.  It sounded like... Her pulse quickened suddenly.  There was no mistaking what it was.  Someone, no, two people, both female, grunting and groaning with exertion.  Mixed in were thumps, as if they were stumbling or rolling around in a heated wrestling match.  Was Kyle testing out his speakers by watching something dirty up there?
   
   Rowenna's senses corrected her.  The noises weren't coming from the second floor.  What she was hearing was the sound of a vigorous struggle between two women, right in the next room.  The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as she crept toward the entryway to the dining room.  The thud of bodies tussling on hardwood flooring grew louder, punctuated by smacks and growls of pain and fury.  Rowenna's hands shook.  She drew her nerves together but was ready to run if anything jumped out suddenly.
   
   With a shout, Rowenna leaped into the dining room and stomped her foot.  No one was there.  The sound had vanished along with whatever had made it.  The dining table stood silently in the center of the room, obediently bearing the weight of eight boxes of place settings, and guarded closely by six chairs.
   
   "Something wrong?" a voice behind her suddenly burst.
   
   Rowenna spun around and yelped right in her husband's face.  "Oh shit, you scared the devil out of me."
   
   "Giving dinner a piece of your mind?  I heard a yell..."
   
   "It was... nothing.  I thought I heard strange noises."
   
   "Yeah.  We're probably gonna have to get used to some odd creaks and groans from this old woodwork."
   
   Rowenna let out a long exhale to calm her nerves.  "The floor in the office upstairs makes quite a racket.  I've been listening to you moving around up there for the last fifteen minutes."
   
   Kyle gave her a quizzical look.  "I made one trip upstairs to get a box, and then I came back down.  I've been untangling cables out there in the living room this whole time."
   
   "Then who's been walking right above my head?"
   
   Kyle examined the ceiling as if he had x-ray vision.  "That's the master bedroom up above us.  You say you heard something moving around?  There's nothing now.  I'm pretty sure it was just the wind swinging the window I cracked open to clear out the musty smell."
   
   "It didn't sound like wind, or a squeaky hinge."
   
   "Honey," Kyle said gently, putting his arms around Rowenna's waist, "Are you telling me you miss the city already?"
   
   "No," she insisted, pushing him away so she could stir the sauce.  "I said I'd do what it takes to make your transition to a new job successful, and I meant it.  This big change for us, but it's going to work out.  Water's boiling, so dinner's in about twelve minutes."
   
   "Mmm.  Smells fantastic."
   
   "Go clear a place for us to eat.  I've got this covered."
   
   Rowenna concentrated on cooking, but like a mouse gnawing at a baseboard, the back of her mind kept fussing over worries she had about this new chapter in her life.  Doubts had surfaced once it sunk in just how many conveniences she'd no longer have access to.  Leaving behind the group of friends she'd always been able to count on for help and emotional support felt like losing a safety net.  Then there were those mysterious sounds just now she was positive she'd heard...
   
   Everything here was so different.  The tiny town she'd moved near was definitely outside her comfort zone.  Everywhere she looked she saw something old-fashioned or outright historical, with not a single neon sign or glass tower to be found.  Even so, she was determined to conquer her nervousness.  Kyle's promotion brought with it a financial freedom that would give them the means to raise the family they'd always talked about.  This house and these new surroundings were safer than the city, and provided a wide open opportunity to reconnect with the kind of living she'd grown up listening to her late grandmother tell stories about.
   
   She just needed to believe that she was strong enough to handle it.
   
**********
   
   Later that evening, Rowenna had barely gotten the bed made before Kyle picked her 5'9" frame up and tumbled them both atop the soft comforter.  She hadn't expected him to be amorous after all their hard work that day, but she wasn't too surprised.  Kyle's seemingly boundless energy was one of the things she liked best about her husband, something that separated him from everyone she'd ever dated.  He could come home grumpy after an interminable sales meeting, mope through dinner, but one coy look from Rowenna was all it took to turn him into a raging bull.  She'd learned numerous ways to turn him on and keep him going, and he'd met Rowenna's sometimes insatiable need for just one more orgasm without fail.

   She inhaled his musky scent as he pulled her shirt off and ravished her deep cleavage with strong kisses.  She tore at his clothes and moments later they were both naked, rolling as one with their mouths pressed firmly together and their tongues licking hungrily.  Kyle was hard and Rowenna wet and ready when he entered her.  He filled her again and again, speeding up as he went.
   
   "Oh, yes," Rowenna moaned, "Mmm.  Fuck, you handsome hunk, you're going to make me cum already."
   
   Kyle's well-muscled, six-foot tall body screwed her more forcefully.  "Unh, baby, you say the most charming things!" he grunted, then slowed.  "Best thing is... no more thin apartment walls... we can make all the noise we want."
   
   Rowenna shifted, whimpering as Kyle pulled out of her.  She turned over and he was on and inside her immediately.
   
   "The nearest house may be a quarter mile away, my love, but that doesn't mean we still can't annoy the neighbors!" Rowenna said gleefully.  Her eyes were encouraging, her face flush with arousal, and her body gyrating in time with Kyle's.
   
   It was only after she'd reached two screaming orgasms and enjoyed the feeling of Kyle ejaculating powerfully inside of her that she noticed the bedroom window was still open.  She chuckled a bit as her breathing returned to normal.  Right then, Rowenna didn't care who heard them.  They were so madly in love that she knew the two of them were stronger than anything that tried to spoil their fun.
   
**********
   
   The weekend went by quickly, full of shopping trips into town, unpacking boxes in the house, and clearing four years worth of fallen branches and other clutter outside of it.  They'd barely made a dent in the mountain of work required to rehabilitate their new home once Sunday evening rolled around.  Kyle had to drive into the city forty-five minutes away to be part of a presentation to the company board of directors.  He made some last minute changes to his part of the slide deck that Sunday evening, and turned in early.
   
   Rowenna saw him off at sunrise, promising him that she'd be okay all by herself.  She hadn't heard any more strange sounds since they moved in, and in fact had completely forgotten all about the noises in the dining room. 
   
   The sky was cloudless and the air warm.  She opened all the windows and set about scrubbing the accumulated grime from each one in turn.  It was exhausting work and took much longer than she'd anticipated.  By lunchtime, her arms were sore and she still had a few left on the main floor to do in addition to all the ones in the dormers she found so endearing.  She dumped the bucket on the front lawn and went to the kitchen to fix a sandwich.
   
   "That's it... come closer."
   
   The voice, empty as an abandoned well and crackling like an iced-over pond during Spring thaw, paralyzed Rowenna where she stood.  She looked around, but saw nobody.
   
   "You're hungry, aren't you?"
   
   Rowenna swallowed.
   
   "I've been waiting for you for so long, you evil bitch.  Always looking to take what isn't yours.  Just a little closer, and I'll send you back where you came from."
   
   Panic gripped Rowenna.  She couldn't force herself to move, no matter how hard she tried.  She felt a presence somewhere very close, a cold that sucked the life out of the room in spite of the midday heat.
   
   A piercing shriek that began high in pitch and descended rapidly as it faded away into broken laughter rippled through her nerves.  Rowenna experienced it more than heard it.  It had been loud enough that her ears should be ringing, but she realized that nothing the voice said had been audible, as if its source had spoken directly into her brain.  Afterwards, there was only silence.
   
   Rowenna collapsed into a chair.  Her heart thumped uncontrollably in her chest.  What had just happened was too real to be a hallucination.  She sat motionless for nearly ten minutes before fully recovering her wits.  She considered phoning Kyle, but quickly dismissed the idea.  She'd look foolish and incapable of handling even a single day without calling him for help.
   
   With slightly shaky hands, she made her lunch and ate it.  Maybe, she thought, Kyle's suggestion of getting a dog wasn't so bad after all.
   
**********
   
   Rowenna had just finished the last of the downstairs windows when the alarm on her phone told her it was time to start making the bread to go with the evening's meal.  She was anxious of what might happen if she went into the kitchen again, but this time nothing disturbed her.  She kneaded the dough, murmuring the poem her grandmother had always sang when working on her hand-made loaves.  She set it aside to proof, mixed together the ingredients for a small meatloaf, put that in the fridge to firm up, and started chopping vegetables.  Before she knew it, the bread had gone into the oven and come out again.  Its smell had just finished casting a comforting enchantment on the house when Kyle arrived home and pronounced the product of her baking perfect.
   
   His day had gone great and when he asked Rowenna how hers had been, she said "Nothing special" so as not to dampen the mood.  They ate dinner, and Kyle went to set up his computer in the small bedroom they'd designated as an office while Rowenna cleared the table and cleaned the kitchen.  As she rinsed the roasting pan, her aching muscles reminded her of cleaning the windows, which reminded her of the noontime incident.  She frowned.  She wanted to talk to someone about it, but didn't want to bring it up to Kyle, and mentioning it as one of the first things she talked about with her group of girlfriends back where she used to live would be embarrassing.
   
   She finished rinsing dishes, and plopped into the sofa in the living room to watch her usual Monday evening TV shows.  Kyle walked by during a commercial break in the last one.  He kissed her on the cheek, and she smiled back at him.  When she didn't move, Kyle made a display of stretching his well-developed, former football linesman physique and yawning before wandering upstairs.
   
   Forty minutes later, the program she was watching ended.  Rowenna turned off the television and decided to sneak up the stairs to surprise her husband.  As she reached the bottom step, the quiet of the house enveloped her.  Her ears searched for the sounds of creaking floorboards, or anything else.  She was amazed at how keen her senses could be tuned now that the cacophony of the city no longer deafened them.
   
   She caught the noise after ascending halfway up the stairwell.  A rhythmic pounding.  By the top of the stairs, she could also hear heavy breathing mixed in with it.  She padded down the short hall to the master bedroom's open door.
   
   The sight she saw there shocked her to the core of her being.
   
   A nude woman with her back to Rowenna sat astride Kyle on the bed.  He was naked, too, lying on his back, and his stiff shaft was deep inside the woman's pussy.  Kyle wasn't moving, but the woman was, riding his cock expertly and enjoying every inch of him plunging into her with intensely erotic groans.  Rowenna stared, transfixed, as if this was a dream.  The woman, naked except for a black leather choker about her neck, was unbelievably gorgeous.  She had a long, full head of black hair tumbling in waves all the way down her back.  Her figure was voluptuous and curvaceous, with large DD tits bouncing freely on her chest and round ass cheeks to match.  The woman's skin was flawless, her arms and legs were sleek and beautiful.  Rowenna momentarily thought that a porn star had beamed herself through the Internet somehow and seduced her husband.
   
   She snapped out of it.  In two quick steps, she was at the side of the bed and reaching beneath it for the baseball bat they kept there for self-defense.
   
   She stood up and readied a vicious swing.
   
   "Get the FUCK off my husband!" she yelled.
   
   In reply the woman spun her head and hissed, a vile scratching sound somewhere between a cat's warning and a dog's growl.  The whole time she continued fucking Kyle and staring at Rowenna in contempt.
   
   Rowenna closed her eyes and swung for the fences, determined to knock this slut unconscious, if not propel her head out the window.  The bat halted midway.  Rowenna opened her eyes.  The woman had caught the business end of the bat in midair in one palm and was giving her a look of "what are you going to do now?".  Rowenna tugged, but couldn't get the weapon loose.  The woman cackled with laughter, squeezed her thighs tighter and slithered down Kyle's erect penis as if to claim it as her property.  Rowenna yanked hard, but the woman's grip was far too strong.  Despairing, she put her foot on the edge of the bed and pulled.  Her fingers slipped, and she tumbled to the floor.  Determined not to lose, she rose back to her feet.
   
   To find the situation had changed.
   
   From the far end of the room, another woman, a phantom in a white nightgown and with short curly white hair, charged at the woman pleasing herself on Kyle's dick.  To Rowenna, it appeared like the other woman had passed right through the closed closet door.  With a high-pitched scream, the new woman wrapped an arm around the dark-haired one and began trying to choke her.  The pair rocked back and forth, neither seeming to do anything to the other.  During the struggle, the bat fell onto the bed.  Rowenna picked it up and swung it again.  Its impact on the dark-haired woman's shoulder rang through Rowenna's arms like she'd just struck granite.  Before Rowenna could react, the woman grabbed her left wrist and began crushing it painfully.  Tears came to Rowenna's eyes and she cried out in agony.  Through it all, the obscene fucking continued.
   
   The woman in white saw her chance.  She ratcheted her choke hold tighter but her victim only grunted in annoyance.  With a hollow moan the ghostly figure reached out her hand toward Kyle's head.  Tendrils of lightly glowing mist crept out of his mouth and nose.  The woman in white became more solid.  As that happened, Kyle became paler and paler.  To Rowenna's horror, his skin grew sunken onto his bones as the woman in white gained in strength.  A look of worry flashed across the dark-haired woman's face, which started turning red with asphyxiation.
   
   Gaining in power, the woman in white continued drawing energy from Kyle and pouring it into throttling her target.  Rowenna fixed her attention on her.  She swung the bat repeatedly, landing blow after blow on the woman's head and back, each hit feeling like pounding a stack of folded sheets.  Irritated, the woman switched the arm she was choking with and slashed with sharp fingernails at Rowenna.  Rowenna flailed in response, backing away, and the dark-haired woman took advantage.  She threw the other woman off, disengaged herself from Kyle, gathered up a black silk robe from the floor and leaped straight out the open second story window.
   
   The remaining intruder howled in anguish and fury, a harrowing shriek that stabbed right through Rowenna's heart.  The woman in white curled up into a squat on the floor, holding her head in her hands, and abruptly vanished.
   
   Rowenna stood stunned for a few seconds.  She rushed to Kyle's side.  His breathing was raspy.  He looked like he'd lost an unhealthy amount of weight.  Tears streamed down Rowenna's cheeks as she fumbled for her phone and called the emergency number.
   
**********

[Catharsis]

Part 2 - A Town With History

   The next morning, Rowenna woke to find she'd fallen asleep uncomfortably in a chair in Kyle's hospital room.  A nurse saw her stirring, and poked her head out the door to call for a doctor.  Rowenna watched her husband's chest rise and fall as he lay there, tubes and wires attached to various locations on his abnormally thin body.  If this was a nightmare, she wanted it to end NOW.
   
   The doctor shuffled in, and explained everything Rowenna had already heard last night.  They still didn't know what Kyle was suffering from.  They didn't know why intravenous feeding wasn't improving his condition.  He wasn't in danger of dying, and his health wasn't getting any worse.  They said they were doing everything they could.  She was free to stay here, but there really wasn't anything they were able to do at the moment and therefore no decisions for her to make.

   Rowenna had questions, lots of questions, but she realized that the staff here wasn't able to help with the most important ones.  After freshening up the best she could in the bathroom and resigned to continuing to wear the faded t-shirt and tan capri pants she'd worn the day before, she left her number at the nurses' station and headed out, determined to find some answers.
   
   Repeated calls to the real estate office led only to voice mail.  Frustrated, she went to the source for property owner data: town hall.  She kept her irritation in check as the dowdy matron at the records desk quizzed her on what her interest in the history of the house on Ash Creek was.  She spun a story about finding some things that might belong to the former occupants, and that seemed to satisfy her.  That gave Rowenna some names: Julius and Sondra Jackson.  Based on tax payments, they'd been the last people living in the house.
   
   When a web search on her phone turned up nothing, her next stop was two blocks away at the vine-covered brick building that housed the public library.  As the doors closed behind her, Rowenna was struck by the crypt-quiet atmosphere.  The sounds of birds chirping and pickup trucks rolling down the street were shut out utterly.  The interior was illuminated by artificial light because dark tinted windows blocked out most of the sunshine from outside. 
   
   She approached the main desk, and found herself marveling at the woman sitting behind it.  She appeared to be in her mid-thirties, with an elegant, pale, oval face, high cheek bones, piercing cool blue eyes and neatly pursed lips.  Her black hair was short, cut in an antiquated hair line bob that flattered her well.  The deep red, lace-trimmed blouse she wore strained to contain the prodigious breasts that rested on the desk she governed her domain from.
   
   "May I help you?" the woman said slowly, measuring out each word as if time wasn't a concern.
   
   Reading the name plate on the desk, Rowenna said, "Yes, Ms. Karmazyn.  I'm looking for copies of the local newspaper from four years ago."
   
   The librarian studied her for a moment.  In the same manner as before, she intoned, "Wait here."
   
   Rowenna puzzled over the woman's peculiar accent while idly perusing the nearby cork board hawking local notices.  She hadn't reached a conclusion on where it originated when she was startled to find the lady standing right next to her.  In the librarian's hand was a roll of microfiche.  She placed it in Rowenna's palm and directed her to a decaying machine in a back corner.
   
   "When you are through, return the roll to the main desk."
   
   At that, she left Rowenna alone, gliding away as silently as she'd come.  Rowenna felt more than ever like an foreigner in a strange country.  She sat down, flicked on the microfiche reader, and began her search.
   
   What she found only brought more questions to light.  The Jacksons weren't the previous owners, who had in fact skipped town, leaving their mortgage to default.  They had been renters.  They were also both dead.  Sondra had been found unconscious in the house, and declared DOA at the hospital.  Julius had lived for only a few weeks after that, with the obituary reporting that his health had declined continuously, seemingly growing old under the weight of his sadness despite being in his early thirties.
   
   That last detail worried Rowenna.  One person wasting away could be a fluke, but two indicated a pattern.  Problem was, she was clueless how to continue her investigation into its cause.
   
   Rowenna opened her mouth to introduce herself to the librarian upon returning the microfiche roll, but reconsidered.  The cold, authoritarian aura emanating from the woman made Rowenna guess that she wasn't interested in making a new friend.  Her eyes ran over the notices on the cork board on her way out and settled on a faded one at the bottom.
   
   "Looking for something out of the ordinary?  The Autumn Willow Curio Shop is the place for antiques, consignments, and esoteric knowledge!" it announced above a hand drawing of a thatched-roof house.  Below that was the happy pronouncement: "Palms read.  Fortunes told."
   
   Rowenna chuckled.  Only in a town like this would you find something so quaint and silly.
   
**********

   Four hours later, she wasn't chuckling.  Everywhere she'd turned, she'd encountered "who are you?" glares and barely an ounce of help.  Her hands rested on the steering wheel of her car.  She glanced at her phone.  Still no word from the hospital.  She stared out again at the dilapidated building in front of her that sat at the far end of an interminable dirt road.  "Autumn Willow Curio Shop" said the sign next to the door.
   
   "What the heck," she shrugged.
   
   Her shoes crunched the pebbled driveway.  The chattering of chickens from the backyard served as yet another reminder to Rowenna that she was far from her usual environment.  She reached the door, and was about to knock only to find it was already slightly open.  Inside, the main room she entered was filled to the ceiling with clutter.  Everything from antique hat stands to copper cookware to crystal pendant necklaces to books with occult symbols on them were all piled next to or on top of each other.  If there was any order to the mess, Rowenna couldn't find it.  She almost turned right around and left, but a voice smooth as honeyed tea made her stop.
   
   "Hello there.  Anything in particular you're looking for?"  The proprietor, an aging lady with a wild nest of gray hair and wearing a faded floral print dress stepped out from behind a thin, sun-bleached red curtain.  Rowenna stood there with her mouth open.  There was something immediately familiar about this lady, but she knew she'd never seen her before.  The two stood motionless for a few seconds, then the shop owner laughed.  "Well, if the cat's got your tongue, why don't you sit down with me and have a nice cup of herbal tea.  Then you can tell Auntie Willow what the matter is."
   
   It wasn't the words she'd said.  It was the way she'd said them.  The cadence, the kindness in them that drew from a limitless well of caring, the pure-hearted honesty -- Rowenna recognized her as kin to her grandmother, not by blood, but by personality.  Suddenly, the untidy shop seemed like home.  Her feeling of lonesomeness and isolation evaporated.  Tears streamed down her face, followed by sobs, and tumbling all out after that came the whole story from the day she and Kyle moved in to the present moment.
   
   She finished her long tale halfway through her second cup of tea.  She couldn't tell if it was the herbal infusion or the fact that she'd finally gotten all her troubles off her chest that she finally felt calm and together again.  Through it all, Auntie Willow (as she insisted on being called) sat placidly and listened intently, never giving an indication that she didn't believe Rowenna's account.
   
   "I dare say," Auntie Willow said at last, "you've come to precisely the right place.  And perhaps in more ways than one."  Rowenna wiped her eyes, her face begging for more information.  "You stood up to two fearsome and very deadly creatures last night.  An ordinary woman would have soiled herself in your situation.  Tell me, would you mind letting me see your hands?"
   
   Rowenna's heart fell, fearing she'd stumbled onto nothing more than a kind-faced charlatan.  "You're going to read my palms?"
   
   "No, not as such."  Auntie Willow's rough fingers grasped Rowenna's.  "I do that when I have to, but right now I'm just checking to see..."  Her voice trailed off.  She looked up at Rowenna.  "I understand now," she said, and let go of her hands.  "My apologies for being so inquisitive.  Rest assured that I will keep your secrets very safe.  May crows snatch my tongue and peck out my eyes if I betray your trust."
   
   "Um, that's not my biggest concern right now," Rowenna said.  "What can you tell me about what happened, and what can I do to make Kyle better?"
   
   "Well, there's a lot I can tell you.  I've been around these parts my whole life, and I take a keen interest in every unusual bit of news that comes along.  Where should I start?"
   
   "Start with that slut that seduced my husband.  Where in Hell did she come from?"
   
   "You've got the location correct, but I prefer to call that creature 'it', not 'she'.  They may take the female form, but those beasts disgrace all women with their behavior.  That thing was a succubus, a demon spawn of Hell, created as the perfect temptation for men.  See, the Devil takes the soul of someone who was consumed with lust during their earthly life, gives them the body of an X-rated actress, and sets them loose to feed on men with strong sexual desires.  Their appetite is insatiable, and they'll prey on the same men again and again until their victims' minds are warped and lose interest in anything other than sex.  They're terribly strong, as you discovered, and never get tired no matter how many partners they have during a night."
   
   "That actually sounds like a good deal for the person who gets turned into a succubus."
   
   "You underestimate the deviousness of the Great Tormentor.  True, those demons are capable of acting on their sexual impulses whenever they like, but... the Devil ensures that they can never fully enjoy what they're doing.  You see, a succubus cannot achieve orgasm.  They can never attain the one thing they most truly desire.  They're trapped forever with happiness permanently out of their reach."
   
   "That's... diabolical."
   
   "They don't call Satan the Evil One for nothing!"  Auntie Willow spat on the ground.  "Curse his name."  Rowenna laughed nervously.  This conversation felt unreal.  "But, back to your husband."
   
   "Kyle."
   
   "Kyle, yes.  Poor guy.  Darling, don't blame him for what happened.  He probably didn't even have a chance.  That creature dazzled him, and the rest probably felt like a dream to him.  And you needn't worry about it happening again.  It sounds like that revenant gave it a good scare.  It'll probably look for easier prey after that experience."
   
   "Revenant?"
   
   "Vengeful spirit.  Ghost, if you want to be plain about it.  Here."  Auntie Willow pulled a giant scrapbook off a nearby cherry cabinet and flipped through several pages.  She laid it out in front of Rowenna.  "See anyone you recognize?"
   
   A third of the way down one side, Rowenna saw a picture of a couple standing side by side and smiling happily.  The woman's face and hair were unmistakable.  "That's her!  The ghost.  She was wearing a white nightgown when I saw her."
   
   "Well now.  So that's what became of poor Sondra Jackson.  Thank you for clearing up that mystery for me."  She removed the photo from the album and began writing on the back of it.  "That noise you heard, the scuffle in the dining room, that leads me to believe that her tale went something like this: Julius got seduced by the succubus.  Sondra found out, or suspected something funny.  She confronted the demon, they had a terrible fight, and Sondra lost.  Problem is, the girl was so full of anger and vengeance that her soul got bound to the house, repeatedly reliving the humiliation of her defeat, leading to all manner of strange noises that frightened off everyone who was interested in buying until you came along.  The succubus likely kept paying visits to Julius, but Sondra's ghost couldn't do anything about it because she was just a bodiless spirit."
   
   "But she did do something last night."
   
   "Yes, I think she found a way to gain the ability to influence things here in the material world, but as you saw, she needed to draw life energy out of someone to do that."
   
   "That means...  she was the one..."  Rowenna shuddered, figuring out the implications of what she'd just heard.  "She drained the life out of her own husband in an attempt to be strong enough to get revenge?"
   
   "Tragically, that sounds like what happened."
   
   "Damn.  And of course she had no hesitation in..."  Rowenna choked back a sob as her memory replayed the events of last night in her head.  "...hurting Kyle."
   
   "She has only one thing on her mind.  At this point, she doesn't care who has to suffer for her to achieve retribution."
   
   "Oh, I'll make HER suffer."  Rowenna clenched her fists.  "I'll force her to give back every last drop of life she stole from my husband!"
   
   "Careful with that temper, now.  It'll lead you to do something rash, and you'll end up as another entry in my dark history of this town."
   
   Rowenna calmed herself.  "What can I do?  How do I make Kyle better again?"
   
   "Well, if it were just the succubus, I'd be more than able to help you.  That demon's been stalking around this area for quite some time.  Every now and again I get some desperate wife or girlfriend looking for a solution, and I give them a talisman to ward the beast off."  Auntie Willow sighed.  "For Sondra's spirit, I know a way to get it to come out of hiding to talk to it, but I'm not sure what you could do to force it to restore your husband's health."
   
   "Oh."  Rowenna and the shop owner fell silent for a time.
   
   "But, I have faith in you.  You're young and strong.  You'll find some way."  At that, Auntie Willow got up to clear the tea cups.
   
   Rowenna's mind was empty.  She'd been avoiding going back to the house, but it seemed like the only direction she could head now.  She stared absently at the bookshelf behind Auntie Willow.  The old woman followed her gaze and asked, "Is there a book you're interested in?"
   
   "Not really.  I keep noticing that black recipe book on the second shelf, the one with the red stripes on the binding."
   
   Auntie Willow pulled it out and handed it to her.  "This one?"
   
   "Yes."  She examined it, but its cover didn't have any title, or any words on its outside for that matter.  "What's it called?"
   
   "You tell me," Auntie Willow said.  Rowenna detected a hint of admiration in her voice.  "You're the one who knew what it contained without even opening it."
   
   "Just a lucky guess, really," Rowenna said self-consciously.
   
**********

[Catharsis]

Part 3 - An Uninvited Ghost

   It was nearly 5 p.m. when Rowenna returned to her waiting house.  Nothing was out of place, and nothing jumped out at her when she opened the front door.  She felt more like an interloper than a homeowner as she disturbed its quiet by making the floorboards creak on her way to the kitchen.  She put the book from Auntie Willow's shop down on the counter.  Rowenna wasn't fully convinced by the old lady's insistence that she and the book were "connected", but she figured buying it was the least she could do to repay her hospitality and thank her for all the information and advice.
   
   What she was sure of was the fact that saving Kyle was up to her.  Auntie Willow had a store to mind, and her arthritis prevented her from helping anyway.  Nobody else, neither the police nor the neighbors nor the rest of the town was going to believe her story.  But she had returned home with something she didn't have that morning: a clearer idea of what was going on, and a half-baked plan of how to fix things.
   
   The first step was getting the house's extra resident to appear without needing to use the dangerous succubus to lure her out.  For that, Rowenna grabbed the roast pan from the drying rack in one hand and the soup ladle from its drawer in the other.  With them, she stomped through the ground floor banging one into the other, making an unholy racket.  When ten minutes of that did nothing, she moved on to the upstairs.
   
   Room by room she went, the relentless deafening clanging echoing off the walls.  "Sondra!" she shouted once back in the upper hallway again.  "Sondra Jackson!  I summon you by name.  I will make you materialize if I have to make noise all night!"
   
   Rowenna paused, listening.  No response.  With renewed vigor, she slammed the metal bowl of the ladle again and again into the bottom of the pan.  "If you don't find this annoying, believe me, dammit, I'm just getting started!"
   
   "sssstttooooppppp".  The sound chilled Rowenna's entire back as if the room she'd just left had filled with a sudden frost.  "Stop.  STOP!"  Her senses told her the voice was coming from behind her, but her muscles balked at turning her around to face its source.  She overcame the overwhelming urge to flee in abject terror and spun quickly on one foot, ready to lash out or leap down the stairs, whichever proved necessary.
   
   Filling the doorway to the master bedroom was Sondra's ghost, nothing more than a transparent misty outline glowing in the late afternoon sunlight.  Her white nightgown was swirling at her ankles, buffeted by some invisible wind.  Though her figure and skin was as pretty as Rowenna remembered from the photograph, her face was currently twisted into a mask of open-mouthed hatred, all sharp lines and harsh shadows.
   
   "Leeeaaave" groaned the spirit, its voice rising to a thunderous shriek.  "Leave this place.  Forever!"
   
   "Sondra," Rowenna swallowed her fear.  "I feel sorry for what happened to you,  I..."
   
   She halted her rehearsed speech, for the ghost lunged forward.  Rowenna tensed, but the apparition faded into nothingness as it passed right through her.
   
   "Sondra!  I want to help you!  Sondra!"  Rowenna banged the roasting pan a few times, then beat it hard for over a minute.  "Dammit!  Come out and talk!"
   
   The house remained silent.  Rowenna collapsed to the floor, exhausted after her long day of running around.  She sat there for several minutes, then picked herself up and trudged to the bathroom.
   
   The hot shower she took worked wonders, rinsing off the dust from her travels and relaxing her muscles.  Rowenna put on some sleepwear, a simple navy blue spaghetti strap top and shorts ensemble, and flopped on the bed.
   
**********

   The moon was out when Rowenna awoke sometime just past midnight.  She sat up, cleared the grogginess out of her head, and went to the kitchen to get something to soothe her parched throat.  She drank some water, felt the cool, pure liquid wake her body up, and leaned against the refrigerator to relax.
   
   She shut her eyelids, then quickly reopened them.  Instead of darkness, her vision filled with the memory of the succubus mounting and riding Kyle.  Her skin prickled with alarm, as if the beast itself was close by.  Her muscles tensed, ready to fight.  She took a few deep breaths to slow her suddenly rapid heart rate.  Her pulse pounded in her ears.  She looked around quickly to reassure herself that there wasn't any danger.
   
   Sondra was in the dining room.  She was lying on her back on the hardwood floor and much more solid than she'd been the previous afternoon.  As Rowenna watched in fascinated disbelief, Sondra's body writhed.  The front of her nightgown was pushed up all the way to her chin, exposing her shapely legs, smooth skin, and firm C cup breasts.  The woman's face alternated between anger and sexual enjoyment.  Her hands gripped and tore at an unseen foe that was pinning her down.
   
   The ghost shut her eyes and threw her head back as a swift orgasm rushed through her spasming figure.  Unable to help herself, Rowenna took a few steps closer out of curiosity.  The sight of a beautiful, half-transparent woman silently ravished with sexual pleasure seized her attention.  Arousal built in her, tingling her groin and exciting her nipples.
   
   "...i will fight you..." Sondra growled, her voice barely above a whisper, "...to my very last breath."  Her legs gripped her invisible attacker.  She let out a long groan. 
   
   And opened her eyes, to stare directly at Rowenna.
   
   "You!" the now fully solid ghost roared.
   
   Rowenna stumbled backwards.  In a flash, Sondra was standing, and right in Rowenna's face.
   
   "You helped her escape!"
   
   Rowenna threw her arms up defensively, and caught Sondra's wrists, preventing the creature's long-nailed fingers from scratching her cheeks.
   
   "I waited years," the apparition thundered.  "She returned, and I held her moments from victory."  Sondra's features became stark and angular in fury.  "You stopped me, and now you will share her fate!"
   
   Sondra drove Rowenna back.  The edge of the counter dug into the redhead's hip.  Rowenna resisted, twisting herself to force off the female body pressed against her.  The two women struggled for a few seconds, then Rowenna swung both of Sondra's arms to one side and downwards.
   
   "You were hurting my husband!" Rowenna spat, her temper flaring.  She shouldered Sondra into the middle of the kitchen floor.
   
   "He means nothing."  Sondra liberated her left arm from Rowenna's grip.  "You mean nothing."  The now-free hand clutched Rowenna's hair and pushed her head toward the floor.  "The death of that bitch is all that matters!"
   
   Rowenna lost her balance.  She caught her fall with her right palm as Sondra's weight collapsed on top of her.  She tumbled to the ground and spun to her left, tearing at the elbow connected to the pain in her scalp.  Her legs wrapped around one of Sondra's and squeezed.  Locked tightly together, the two women slowly grappled until Rowenna gained a slight advantage.  The redhead let go of Sondra's elbow and launched a trio of right hooks into the ghost's face.
   
   Sondra released Rowenna's hair and captured her pummeling arm.  "You cannot damage me," she hissed, and pinned Rowenna's fist to the floor.  She slithered her body up onto Rowenna, who fought her every inch of the way.  "But I can damage you."  Sondra rose up, then crushed Rowenna's tits by flopping her own heavy pair straight down atop of them.  "And I will very much enjoy doing just that.  You will suffer exactly what the demon you aided did to me."
   
   Rowenna felt her legs being parted by Sondra's strong thighs.  With a shock, she realized that Sondra's pussy was sliding directly against her own, having passed right through her clothing like it wasn't even there.  Rowenna's body was on fire from the stimulation, despite the fact that it was another female who was grinding against her boobs, her stomach, and her crotch.  She endured several seconds of gloriously erotic assault before managing to collect her wits.  She arched her back, then bucked her hips.  This disengaged Sondra's hold enough that Rowenna could roll the two of them over.
   
   "It takes an extraordinary man to satisfy me.  You can't even come close," Rowenna said.
   
   Sondra snorted and planted both palms on Rowenna's heavy orbs.  Rowenna yelped in surprise and abrupt pleasure.  She reared her torso up and answered her opponent's move by massaging Sondra's supple mammaries through her nightgown.  To this she added a lascivious rotating of her hips, rubbing her pubic mound against the woman beneath her.  The battle sped up gradually, each female ramping up the intensity and vigor with which they assailed the other's erogenous zones.  Rowenna was unsure if what she was doing would even work, but she was fully committed to matching Sondra blow for blow, no matter how dirty the tactic.
   
   After two minutes, Rowenna was panting hard and needed to slow down.  Sondra immediately counter-attacked, rolling Rowenna off of her.  The ghostly figure pounced quickly, holding Rowenna still with one hand on her chest just below her neck and pinning her with the full weight of her body as she scissored the redhead pussy to pussy.
   
   "You took away my chance, slut.  Now pay the consequence!"
   
   Rowenna moaned loudly, head swimming from the impending ecstasy racing through her nerves.  It'd been days since she'd last reached orgasm, and she desperately wanted to feel that thrill rumble through her again.  Still, she fought on, meeting Sondra's oncoming cxnt with thrusts of her own back.  The vengeful spirit's mouth hung open, and her eyes seemed to glow with increasing desire.  Rowenna took heart that she'd be able to beat this bitch at some point, but not right now, because...
   
   Rowenna went stiff and came in a series of lusty shouts.  Fuck, did it feel so good.  She rode it as she felt herself connect with the very source of energy that supplied all living beings.  A burst of power spread from her core to every cell within her, snapping her mind back into focus.  Sondra stared down at her with a sneer on her lips.  Rowenna kicked it with her shin.
   
   Sondra fell backwards and Rowenna sat up as the women traded positions.  It was the redhead's turn to glower at her opponent.  "That the best you've got?"
   
   "Enjoyed that, did you, whore?"  With a quick jerk, Sondra pulled Rowenna down by her long, wavy hair.  She soon wrestled her way to the top position and hissed in Rowenna's ear, "I'll make you beg me to stop."
   
   Rowenna threw her elbow into Sondra's chin and pushed.  With a tortured groan, the pair rolled over.  "I'll force you to give back what you took from Kyle long before that".
   
   Sondra clambered back atop Rowenna, but the redhead drew the two of them into a tight ball, blunting her dominance.  Rocking back and forth, their bodies tussled in a compact war of straining muscles and willpower.  "You can't make me give it up," Sondra hissed as their rolling knot of rage slammed them against the stove.
   
   "Oh, I will," Rowenna countered.
   
   The ghost cackled.  "Stupid bitch.  It's impossible."
   
   Rowenna paused, then attacked in a mad frenzy.  She rammed Sondra's forehead into the floor and bent one of the woman's arms behind her back.  "Say what?" she demanded.  The wicked laughter only continued.  Like an ancient ancestral memory, words boiled up from deep inside of Rowenna.  "Sondra Lee Jackson, I bind you by your true name and compel you to speak!"
   
   "His energy is bound to my vengeance!" Sondra uttered abruptly.  With a sinking feeling, Rowenna remembered the ghost stories she'd heard growing up.  The dead do not lie.  She paused, holding Sondra firmly.  The ghost snarled viciously.  "I will tear you into pieces for ordering me around like that."
   
   Rowenna flattened Sondra face-down onto the floor, pinned her other arm and sat atop her lower back.  "I'll kill you first!"
   
   "You can punish this body, but never destroy it.  I can always rebuild it.  I will exist as long as my revenge is unfulfilled, as long as that she-beast lives."
   
   Rowenna took this new information in.  She remembered being completely ineffective against the succubus and puzzled how to defeat something so impervious to injury.  "What if I brought it here so you could finish it off?"
   
   "You are human.  You cannot be trusted.  This is a trick so you can try and escape my wrath."
   
   "Answer my question!  What happens if you defeat that succubus?"
   
   Sondra grew quiet.  "I will be free.  I will no longer have need for this body or anything I've filled it with.  But you still seek to trick me, using words to promise something you cannot deliver."
   
   "You are fixated on her.  You must be able to sense her movements.  Tell me where she is."  Sondra grumbled.  "I'll hold you here until morning when you'll have to vanish again.  Believe me, I will."
   
   Sondra cursed.  "She is feasting at the motel near the highway right now.  She will return to her lair just before dawn to hide.  You will not be able to find it once the sun rises."
   
   "How close is it?"
   
   "Half a mile away.  Take the path at the back of the yard to the creek, then follow it upstream to a large moss-covered oak."
   
   Rowenna developed a plan.  She asked Sondra, "Still going to tear me into pieces?"
   
   The ghost wheezed, then relaxed.  "No.  I can tell that you're actually dead-set on confronting that she-devil.  In your condition, she'll make quick work of you."
   
   Tentatively, Rowenna loosened her hold.  "I only need to make her chase me to the house."  She stood up.  "But you make a good point.  I can't do this on an empty stomach."
   
   Sondra drew herself upright.  "If the bitch comes here, I'll obliterate her.  And if she catches you before that, she'll wreck you.  Either way, I'll gain some satisfaction tonight!"  At that, Sondra disappeared, laughing wickedly.
   
**********

   Rowenna examined the glass before her containing something resembling a spinach smoothie with some displeasure.  She'd followed the recipe from the book from Auntie Willow's shop as best as she could.  She'd even found the rhythm of the poem that accompanied it and sang along as she searched for the mushrooms and herbs it called for in her stash of dehydrated ingredients and combined them with a mortar and pestle.  Now was the moment of truth.  She'd opened the book out of curiosity while deciding what to eat, and ended up right on a recipe for strength and vigor.  Her grandmother had told her to trust in coincidences like that.
   
   It tasted like grass clippings floating in silt-laden river water.  Rowenna gagged, but swallowed.  Throwing caution to the wind, she downed the rest of the concoction and dropped the glass into the sink.  Her face screwed up into a pained expression that refused to unstiffen.  Squinting through it, she gathered up a flashlight, her baseball bat, and tied on hiking boots over a pair of thick socks. 
   
   She reflected that what she was doing was stacking one stupid risk on top of another and hoping it didn't all crash down upon her.  She was beyond the point of caring.  How much of that feeling was due to her lack of alternative plans and how much was due to the mixture sloshing in her stomach, Rowenna didn't know.  There was a sex demon somewhere out in those woods.  She was going to bring it back so the ghost that haunted her new home could get revenge and thus return her husband back to health.
   
   Simple.

**********

   It was nearly 4 a.m. by the time Rowenna went down the narrow animal track that led from her back yard to a shallow, twenty foot wide creek, beyond which lay a muddy plain filled with broad-leaved plants she knew as dracontium.  The path split there, hugging the bank as it twisted and turned into the darkness.  She dodged low branches and stumbled on exposed tree roots for some time, wondering whether she'd recognize the oak Sondra spoke of or not if she found it.
   
   She needn't have worried.  The oak was magnificent, ancient, and decorated with long, dangling clumps of fuzzy green hair-like moss.  It stood next to a small clearing about thirty feet across.  Rowenna quickly scanned the area but didn't find anybody.  She picked a nearby bush to hide behind, and settled down to wait.
   
   Ten minutes passed, then fifteen.  She'd just begun doubting she was at the right place when human footsteps approached from the opposite side of the clearing.  Still dressed in its black silk robe and wearing its collar-like choker, the voluptuous demon strode confidently out of the woods and walked towards the large oak.
   
   Rowenna rose, then held her breath, immediately regretting her decision.  The succubus turned its head.  Its cool blue eyes stared right into Rowenna's.  A hungry smile slithered onto its ruby red lips.  In the depths of her heart, Rowenna knew she'd made a terrible mistake.
   
   Fuck, this woman was so devastatingly beautiful.  She was physical perfection, the ideal embodiment of sexual temptation.
   
   The robe parted to expose the creature's flawless figure.  Supple skin glowed in the pale moonlight.  Lightly tousled black tresses cascaded around a gorgeous face and off half-covered shoulders.  Peerless breasts jutted proudly above a smooth stomach and thin waist that widened into full, curvy hips.  Tall, shapely legs strutted seductively, wantonly displaying a hairless pussy where they joined together.  The beast's carnal hunger streamed out into the warm night air, arriving like a breeze that tickled on Rowenna's bare arms and legs.
   
   "I smell arousal," the succubus purred.  Its voice was creamy and soothing.  "The juice of your lust is the sweetest ambrosia, my dear.  Won't you share some with me?"
   
   Some small part of Rowenna's brain reminded her that she was supposed to be doing something other than just standing there.  It faded into the background as the naked demon's flawlessness filled her vision.
   
   The succubus caressed Rowenna's chin gently.  "How delicious you are.  So kind of you to join me for dessert."
   
   Perfume danced into Rowenna's nostrils.  Her mind reeled in sudden confusion.  'Where is the bat?  Where is my flashlight?  I need to... I need... I...  I want...'
   
   Lips juicy and full kissed Rowenna's.  Unable to resist any longer, she answered back hungrily.  The succubus' chest pressed firmly against her own heaving breasts through the thin material of her top.  Her hands gripped the other woman's sides, increasing the force that mashed their bodies together.  A tortured moan rumbled in her throat.
   
   The succubus stroked Rowenna's left calf with her foot.  Her pelvis slid along the redhead's thigh in a slow grind.  Her torso gyrated, sending the two women's large tits in a rough tango.  Her tongue probed Rowenna's mouth, licking and penetrating it lustily.
   
   Rowenna was doing all she could just to hold on.  The assault had been so overwhelming, so powerful, that her entire being had simply reacted, eagerly accepting such an expert ravishing.  Her fingers were clawing at the other woman's strong back.  Her lips thirstily sucked the taste of her attacker onto her tongue.  Her legs parted, begging for more contact, more fervent rubbing, more, more, more pleasure...
   
   "Nnnhh.  Fuck," she moaned, temporarily disengaging her mouth.  "You bitch."
   
   "No need to be so shy, my lovely.  Relax," the succubus cooed.  "I know what you desire.  Allow me to show you the true depths that purest lust can reach."  At this, she ran a strong knuckle against Rowenna's crotch, parting her nether walls and driving the fabric of her shorts and panties inside.  Rowenna curled against the buxom beauty's body unable to deny her aching need any longer.
   
   The woman stroked upwards, briskly raking her finger along Rowenna's clitoris.  The redhead exploded, cumming uncontrollably.  Her knees wobbled.  She remained upright only through the clutch she had on the demon's shoulders.  "Nnngg.  Fuck!"
   
   The energy that filled her body cleared the clouds from her brain.  Rowenna detached herself, spun and ran with a single thought in her mind: escape.  This creature had taken her so easily.  If she didn't get away now, she never would.
   
   The forest path zig-zagged this way and that.  Rowenna hurtled wildly along it through the moonlight night.  Saplings grabbed at her, scratching her legs and arms.  Branches caught her hair, yanking it painfully.  She ignored her body's complaints.  Her goal was the large rock she remembered on the bank of the creek where the track split for home.  Her feet crashed through underbrush, and her ears warned her that something behind her was making similar sounds.
   
   The succubus was pursuing her, gliding like a panther between the trees.  Rowenna found the turn, and in the distance caught sight of the shining beacon that was the back porch light on her house.  'Almost there,' she urged herself.  Her lungs ached.  She dodged around a wide trunk, and stumbled, one toe of her shoe stuck under an unseen root.
   
   She hit the ground, but only for a second, quickly lifting herself off the dirt.  Before she could draw her feet underneath her, though, the succubus grabbed her ankles and dragged her backwards.  Rowenna howled in fear as she felt herself being raised upside down by two powerful arms.  She pushed her palms against the ground to keep her face and head from sliding along the debris that littered the forest floor.  Impossibly strong fingers grasped her waistband and tore her shorts and underwear right off her body.
   
   Inverted and helpless, she yelled as the naked she-devil opened her legs, secured an imprisoning grip, and plunged a long tongue deep into her wet pussy.  After resisting for several seconds, Rowenna's cries soon turned to passionate gasps and groans.  What this beast was doing to her cxnt was beyond anything she could have imagined.
   
   There were countless nerve endings in and around her vagina, and the succubus' tongue expertly found and lavished delirious pleasure on every one of them.  Even as one area was satisfied, it moved on to the exact next section that most ached for attention.  Her labia, her inner folds, every interior region.  Tormentingly last was her clit.  Soft but firmly at first, then fast and tenderly.
   
   Rowenna roared with delight, reaching ecstasy once again.  She desperately awaited the warm feeling of energy that always replenished her during an orgasm, but it arrived weaker than normal.  With a frightening realization, she felt it being drained by the creature that was still intent on licking her dry with the most incredible cunnilingus it was possible to experience.  Fighting her body's impulse to remain where it was in sexual paradise, she twisted suddenly and slid out of the succubus' hold.
   
   The mad dash that followed, clawing her way half-naked through branches and small bushes, hotly pursued by the sound of the demon's heavy breathing close behind her, was a nightmare made real.  Rowenna ran pell-mell into her yard, expecting to be hauled down from behind at any second.  Her head scanned quickly for signs of Sondra, but the spirit was nowhere to be found.  Twenty-five feet from the back door, a hard blow from the chasing succubus swatted her to the grass.  Tears stained her vision.  She'd failed.  She couldn't win against such a terrifyingly strong woman who could do with her as she pleased.  A growl from above her paralyzed her in terror, and she prepared for the worst.
   
   Nothing happened for a few moments.  Rowenna lifted her head and saw Sondra floating on the porch, arms outstretched but unable to move any closer.  The redhead spun onto her back.  The succubus was retreating.  'No,' she thought, 'That's not what's supposed to happen.'  "Sondra, get her!"
   
   The ghost only shrieked in futility.  The succubus answered with a raspy snarl, then bounded off into the woods.  Rowenna turned to Sondra.  In the corner of her eyes she saw the warm light of dawn creeping onto the clouds.
   
   "I... I did what I said.  I brought her here!"
   
   "Not close enough.  NOT CLOSE ENOUGH!" Sondra thundered.  The tormented spirit let out a final wail, and then vanished.
   
   In her head, Rowenna heard the revenant's icy voice.  'You have until sundown.'
   
   "For what?" Rowenna asked aloud.
   
   'Your reckoning.'
   
**********

[Catharsis]

Part 4 - An Unnatural Talent

   The phone woke Rowenna up just after nine o'clock that morning.  It was the hospital, reporting no change to Kyle's condition and asking her if she could come in to sign some paperwork.  Rowenna mumbled a promise to be there in an hour.  She wasn't sure if it was the lack of sleep, the memories of her failed attempt to lure the succubus into Sondra's grasp, or the exhilarating but humiliating violation she'd suffered at the hands of that beast, but her mood was dark, and her temper short.
   
   When she arrived at the hospital, the sight of Kyle struggling to breathe was the final straw.  A few minutes later, she was valiantly trying to remain calm in the doctor's office as the female physician sat a stack of paper in front of her and listed each one's purpose.  Midway through, Rowenna lost it.
   
   "I'm not signing THAT!"
   
   "Excuse me?"
   
   "The Medical Power of Attorney one, and the Dietary whatever form, sure... but not that End-Of-Life one!"
   
   Accustomed to such outbursts, the doctor politely explained, "The Advance Directive form is a standard..."
   
   "Shut up!" Rowenna commanded.
   
   She did.
   
   "I do not need to sign that, because Kyle will not need it.  He is not going to die.  Do you hear me?"
   
   The doctor remained silent, and nodded meekly.  Rowenna stood, fists clenched.
   
   "You are all clueless as to what's wrong with him, and would be incapable of helping even if you did!  Mark my words: I will save my husband's life if I have to suffer Hell to do it!"
   
   A burly security guard filled the doorway, drawn by the sounds of shouting.  "Is everything all right in here?"
   
   Rowenna fired a sharp glare at him.  "Get out of my way," she ordered.
   
   He did.
   
   Rowenna stormed down the hallway.  People practically leaped out of her path as she passed, hair streaming behind her head like flames.  She paid them no mind.  Reaching the parking lot, she fired up her car and aimed it homeward.  Determination of a ferocity she'd never felt before fueled her in a single-minded intensity.

**********
   
   Back in her kitchen, she glanced at the clock.  She had hours until the sun set, more than enough time to put her new plan into action.  The book from Auntie Willow's shop sat open where she'd left it the night before.  A nagging thought forced her to examine the recipe she'd made.  Towards the end of the list of ingredients, her eyes widened in confusion.  She didn't remember using any of those final elements in the mixture.  One glance at the opposite page revealed her error.
   
   "Fucking sloppy, Rowenna," she chided herself.  "Of course nothing's going to happen if you randomly combine two different recipes."
   
   She was missing one of the components she'd skipped and made a note to pick some the next time she was out.  Flipping through the book, she searched for a healing remedy for Kyle.  Most were useless for his condition: salves for poison ivy, cures for constipation, and the like.  She reached the end and jumped back to the middle.  There, she encountered a most peculiar recipe.  She snorted at its purpose initially, but it gave her a daring idea.
   
   She wrote up a grocery list and headed out.  Only two of the items ended up being procured at the town supermarket.  Most of the others were found at the gardening center, except one that Rowenna swore she'd seen on her trip to dig into the history of her house.  It finally struck her where she'd seen the plant she needed.
   
   Parking near the library, she stepped over the chain that guarded its small row of shrubs and bent down next to one to pick some of the best petals from its blossoms.  She'd just finished when the click-clack of heels behind her caught her attention.  She rose, acting as if nothing was wrong.
   
   "Psst," an older woman with a scowl on her face whispered to her in warning, "You don't want to be messing with anything of that librarian's.  Bad things happen to people who do!"
   
   Rowenna didn't have the time for that kind of nonsense.  "Does it look like I'm frightened of some silly superstition?"
   
   The woman had no answer for that, and left, muttering to herself.
   
   Once home, Rowenna unpacked her gatherings and arranged everything she required to try out the old-time recipe for strength and vigor once more.  She needed any edge she could to withstand Sondra's wrath.  The vengeful spirit wasn't likely to be in a helpful mood, and Rowenna was resolved to get her in one, no matter what it took.
   
   An hour and one false start later, she had something that looked promising.  It was smoother than last time, and had a pungent herbal aroma.  Rowenna sipped it and waited.  Two minutes later, she knew she'd succeeded.  She craved swallowing it all immediately, but reminded herself that she didn't know how long its effects would last.  She stashed it in the fridge and made herself a sandwich instead.
   
   She sat and ate at the kitchen table, watching clouds pass by through the window.  'Mom always told me I shouldn't play around with things science can't explain,' she thought as the afternoon sun dipped lower in the sky.  'And she constantly reminded me never to act in anger.  But this -- brewing unknown concoctions, confronting ghosts and demons, mixing it up with them no matter how intimate and nasty they get -- feels so natural, so true to who I really am.  She'd disapprove, but those evil women attacked me and my husband, and I'm going to enjoy going to war with them, as hot and heavy as they want.'
   
   She could hardly wait for the darkness to fall.
   
**********

   Sondra appeared in the dining room a few minutes after sundown.  Rowenna watched the nightgown-clad spirit materialize out of thin air and search her surroundings slowly.  The creature's face grimaced upon seeing her standing in the living room, empty glass next to her on the end table.  Rowenna kept herself calm, hands cocked on her hips in challenge as Sondra glided towards her.

   "Tonight, you will suffer," Sondra hissed.
   
   "I thought we'd chat instead," Rowenna replied cattily.  Upon getting no reaction, she added, "Well, suit yourself.  You still intent upon settling this woman to woman?"  She raised her hands out to the side, showing off her body and the see-through yellow baby doll top and matching panties she wore.  "I dressed for the occasion."
   
   "As I was humiliated, so shall I punish every slut who has wronged me!"  Sondra strode menacingly nearer and nearer.
   
   "You know, you really need to watch out who you're calling names, Sondra."
   
   "Silence, whore!" Sondra spat, drawing herself up to full height, just slightly taller than Rowenna.
   
   "That does it!"  Rowenna attacked, smacking her palms hard into the ghosts' shoulders and shoving hard.  The angry spirit was forced back a few inches, but that served only to infuriate it even more.  It lashed out, raking both sets of long nails at Rowenna's face. 
   
   Rowenna caught Sondra's arms in mid-air.  The ghost paused, tried to push her fingers closer to Rowenna's cheeks, and when that failed, wrenched her arms in an attempt to free them.  Rowenna held fast, strength like a combined second and third wind coursing through her blood and feeding her muscles.
   
   "I warned you," Rowenna said.
   
   In response, Sondra spread her arms wide.  The two tussling women rushed together, and Sondra aimed her firm boobs right at Rowenna's large mounds.  With a clap and a grunt, the two pairs of tits collided as if neither woman was wearing anything to cover them and rebounded away from each other.  Rowenna let go, and stepped back warily.
   
   "I will wreck that body of yours," the ghost growled.
   
   "You can try.  I've got a better idea."
   
   "I will not listen to your poisoned words!"
   
   Rowenna ignored her and continued, "Come at me, then.  No tricks, I promise.  Show me what you were going to do to me last night.  If you can't make me beg you to stop, you have to answer one question."
   
   "As if that will ever happen, you weak floozy!"
   
   Rowenna's voice rose to a shout.  "Dammit, I said to stop calling me names!"
   
   At that, the two women rushed together.  Hands grabbed at wrists, but missed.  Momentum carried them into a breast-to-breast collision.  There, they wrapped their arms around each other and thrashed violently.  Tits mushroomed outward from the tight squeeze.  Legs stumbled this way and that.  The pair spun wildly, flopped onto the couch and bounced off onto the floor.  They tangled into a knot of limbs and rolled furiously across the rug.  Though both wore sheer clothing, their bodies united in a fiery coupling of flesh against flesh.  Tumbling like lovers, they gripped each other firmly and struggled from one end of the room to the other.
   
   Rowenna fought hard to wrestle Sondra beneath her, but the ghostly female countered her every move tirelessly.  The redhead had been in dust-ups before, and had enjoyed pinning other girls helpless by straddling their chests.  She sensed that this time was different.  Sondra wasn't going to be trapped so easily, and both she and Rowenna were intent on making this into a different kind of contest.
   
   The tenor of their battle shifted almost in an instant.  Sondra swiveled her hips, propelling the two of them into the side of the couch.  She ended up atop Rowenna, face to face, forcing her elbows to the ground.  Rowenna's cheeks were flush and her mouth panting from exertion.  Sondra's head descended and the ghost's lips attacked Rowenna's hungrily.  Their kiss was hot and fierce but short.  Sondra pulled back, her eyes warning that that was just the beginning.
   
   "Bring it on, you bitch," Rowenna snarled.  She freed one arm, latched onto the short curly hair behind the other woman's head, and drew their mouths close once more.  As their passionate embrace was renewed, Rowenna pushed off, sending them rolling back the way they came.  Writhing and wrangling about the room, they beset each other with torrid assaults using their lips.  Sondra kissed Rowenna's neck and shoulder, and moved onto her cleavage before the redhead scissored her about the waist and threw her off.  Rowenna slid her fingers down Sondra's back, eliciting an icy moan.  She kissed Sondra hard, probing with her tongue as her hands molested the woman's full breasts.  In response, Sondra grabbed Rowenna's rear, digging her nails into tender skin.
   
   Rowenna gained the top position, seized Sondra's wrists and pinned them to either side of the prone woman's head.  "Nice ass, isn't it?"
   
   "You'd like to think so."
   
   Rowenna raised her torso up and shook stray strands of hair away from her forehead.  Her tits dangled right in front of Sondra's dismissive face.  "Can't deny that I'm better in this department, though, can you?"
   
   "Those out-sized udders make you look ridiculous."
   
   "As if yours are anything worth mentioning."
   
   "Jealous of my perfect proportions, huh, fat cow?"
   
   Rowenna grimaced in anger.  "They're no good if you don't know how to use them."  Rowenna plunged, flopping her boobs heavily onto Sondra's.  Both women grunted at the impact.  Sondra squirmed, grinding her orbs against Rowenna's pair.  The redhead reared up and slammed their sensitive chests together again.
   
   "Disgusting sleaze," Sondra hissed.
   
   "Thieving freak."
   
   Over and over, Rowenna pounded Sondra with her breasts.  The two women stared daggers at each other at close range, hiding just how much this mashing battle was costing them.  For nearly four minutes, their feminine flesh bumped and battered.  Rowenna groaned with each smack.  Tit met tit in a continuous, thunderous barrage.  Sweat began to glisten on her exposed skin.  Her stiff nipples ached as they stabbed again and again into Sondra's firm globes.  Finally, she sighed, and rested atop her foe, pressing the weight of her chest down solidly.  Her chin touched Sondra's shoulder, and her cheek brushed the other woman's lightly.
   
   With a low growl, Sondra attacked, bucking Rowenna off of her and clambering atop her panting body.  "Worn out already, you horny slut?" she teased.
   
   "Hell no, bitch.  You haven't even come close to getting me off yet.  You tiring out, or just bad at this?"
   
   "You cannot last against me.  My desire for revenge is limitless."
   
   "True," grunted Rowenna, struggling to dislodge Sondra, "but your ability to take physical form isn't."  With a great heave, the redhead knocked Sondra off balance.  She switched places with the ghostly woman, only to have her hair tugged mercilessly, forcing her onto one side.  From there, the battle descended into an arduous war of endurance.  Their bodies coiled tightly, legs, arms and fingers wrapped taut in an attempt to squeeze the strength and will out of the other woman.  Rowenna and Sondra rocked back and forth on the rug, muscles straining, crushing each other viciously.  A moan rumbled in their throats.  Still, neither showed any sign of weakening her resolve.  For several minutes, the lingerie-clad women clasped together in violent copulation.
   
   Livid at their inability to win the stalemate, they rolled swiftly once, then repeatedly.  Speeding up, they hit a pile of boxes, Sondra's shoulder taking the brunt of the impact.  The ghost howled and kicked them away.  Steadfast in their determination not to give in, the pair spun over and over until crashing into the entryway to the dining room.  The edge stung Rowenna's back.  She rolled atop Sondra, but the other woman slammed her right back into the painful obstacle.  Rowenna moaned, and Sondra loosened her grip enough to slither into a dominant position.
   
   The vengeful spirit looked down on her opponent with disdain.  "Not so haughty now, are you?"
   
   Rowenna replied between panted breaths, "Still think you can beat me?"
   
   "You can't even imagine how completely I'm going to fuck you up."
   
   Rowenna shook her head.  "Never happen.  And if you can't defeat me, you don't stand a chance against that she-demon."
   
   Sondra leaned her face slowly towards Rowenna's.  "You both will suffer my wrath."
   
   "How are you gonna do that?"
   
   "Excruciatingly."  Sondra sat up and wedged Rowenna's legs apart.  The redhead glared back in hostility, but allowed herself to be mounted.  Sondra eased her pussy onto Rowenna's and grinned.  "Satisfaction will be mine!"
   
   "Go fuck yourself."
   
   With a cold hiss, Sondra began humping Rowenna's pussy, first dragging her inner thigh up and down prone woman's labia, then settling the moist folds of her vagina onto Rowenna's mound and rubbing forcefully.  Rowenna welcomed the challenge, fucking back, meeting every thrust of Sondra's hips with one of her own.  cxnt to cxnt, the two women dueled, Sondra sighing and Rowenna breathing hard in time with their intimate conflict.  Sondra ramped up her assault, tribbing more briskly.  Smacks and grunts erupted from the grinding females.  Rowenna's head swam with lust.  Her body tingled with passion.  She kept it all in check, focusing on delivering as much pleasure back at Sondra as she could muster.
   
   "Best you got, bitch?" Rowenna taunted.
   
   "Cum like the whore you are," rang the reply.
   
   Feverishly, the clashing femmes continued their lewd skirmish.  The friction rose to a crescendo.  The twin rods of the women's clitorises brushed roughly, then danced in their own erotic fencing match.  Rowenna's mouth was wide open, bellowing her arousal.  One hand was on Sondra's left breast, tugging anxiously.  Sondra's face remained intense, pushing her foe to its limits...
   
   A sudden, high-pitched wail tore through the darkened house.  Sondra lost her composure, her physical form unable to hold back the tide of ecstasy any longer.  She steadied herself against the nearby wall, and ceased her attack, cumming hard.  With remarkable ease, Rowenna pushed her off and created some distance between her and Sondra.  The ghost, for her part, seemed less solid than a few moments ago.
   
   Rowenna caught her breath.  "I was right.  You do have a limit to how long you can materialize."
   
   "This isn't over."
   
   "But you know you can't beat me now.  I'm strong enough to hold you off."
   
   "I will haunt you forever, if that's what it takes."
   
   "You're not listening.  You're never going to win.  Look: Kyle won't come home from the hospital until he's well, and he won't get well until you release his life energy.  That won't happen until the succubus is defeated.  But it won't come here for you to fight because Kyle's not here to attract it."  Sondra's ghost said nothing.  "You're never going to get the chance for revenge.  Someone else has to destroy that hell-spawned bitch for your soul to be freed."  Rowenna rose up to her full height and peeled sweat-covered strands of hair from her neck and forehead.  "Tell me how to do it."
   
   "You're mortal.  You don't have a prayer of..."
   
   "Answer this question: 'How were you going to beat the demon?'  Were you going to choke it to death?"
   
   Sondra, slowly fading into the darkness, shook her head.  "No.  I needed to knock her out so I could tie her up.  After that, I was going to find a way to stimulate her, endlessly if necessary, until she reached orgasm.  That's the only way to defeat her."
   
   "Hate to break it to you, but a succubus can't achieve orgasm."
   
   Sondra snorted.  "I don't know where you learned that.  It IS true that no MAN can satisfy one of her kind..."
   
   Rowenna got the drift.  "Then hear me out.  You can't achieve your goal because your target is out of your reach.  Use me to get to her.  Make me into a weapon that can beat her."

   "You are talking straight-up nonsense.  Why should I believe you?"
   
   "You don't think I'm capable?  Fine, then.  Fight me, once an evening.  I'll show you I can be ready to take her on."
   
   The ghost cackled.  "Don't think I won't!  Besides, if you do manage to conquer the succubus, my vengeance will be fulfilled.  And if I should conquer you, at least I'll have gained some retribution for my failure."
   
   "Do we have a deal?"
   
   "Deal."  More cackling, a sound like icicles dashing themselves on concrete.  "Girl, you best prepare that pussy of yours."
   
**********

   Preparation was exactly what Rowenna had scheduled the next day after waking up.  She'd slept like a log for over ten hours.  Though her body still felt a little tired, her mind was fully refreshed.  She made up another batch of the strength and vigor concoction and stashed a portion of it in a small container that she could sneak into Kyle's hospital room.  It may not cure him, she thought, but at least it would help him stay strong.
   
   After cleaning up the kitchen from that, Rowenna turned her attention to the other recipe she'd encountered.  It was complicated, involving multiple stages, only produced a small dose, and was footnoted with warnings that overuse caused side-effects like heavy menstruation.  Rowenna dismissed them as far less painful than never having her husband healthy again.  "Sexual Potency (Female ONLY)" read the title.  She teased out the rhythm of the accompanying poem, committed it to memory, and sat about brewing the first of three component mixtures.
   
   It was nearly dark by the time she finished.  The hours had flown by, and her house reeked of powerful floral scents.  The output of her handiwork was a translucent crimson elixir that glinted in its distillation vial like a deep cherry liqueur.  Its smell alone gave Rowenna pause.  Even if she hadn't read the book's warnings, her instincts told her this was dangerously robust stuff.  Rowenna reminded herself of what the succubus was capable of.  That made the decision easy.
   
   She took a sip and waited.
   
   The last rays of the afternoon sun sent golden shafts piercing through the air.  In them, dust motes and curls of vapor frolicked, languidly carrying out brief liaisons with careless abandon.  Rowenna touched finger tips to her cheek, then brushed them across her pouting lips.  A warming caress like a thick towel fresh out of the dryer enveloped her.  Her breasts tingled.  Her vagina grew extra sensitive.  Colors appeared more vibrant than she could ever remember.  She knew precisely what her body wanted to do.
   
   And she was going to let it have its way, just as soon as that persistent phantom decided to show up.  Rowenna went upstairs to make final preparations.

**********
   
   Evening blanketed the sky.  When Sondra materialized in the dining room, all the lights in the house were off.  The ghost cursed, initially thinking that the redhead had foolishly chosen to run away.  But her senses told her that a living being was somewhere nearby.  She located it, and drifted swiftly up through the ceiling towards the master bedroom.
   
   The flickering light from two small tea candles illuminated the scene.  Rowenna lay on the bed wearing nothing but a thin blue robe, her wavy hair cascading around her head like muted flames.  She watched Sondra's spirit pass through the floor and stand at the foot of the bed, becoming fully solid as it came to a stop.  Almost casually, Rowenna sat up and rose to her knees on the soft mattress.
   
   Sondra snarled.  "Made yourself all ready, did you, skank?"
   
   Unperturbed, Rowenna untied the cloth belt around her waist and shrugged the robe off her shoulders.  Her completely nude body glowed in the dim light.  Her large breasts jutted high and firm above her toned stomach and shaved crotch.  "More than you know."
   
   "When I visit my revenge upon you for letting that slut get away, you'll beg for mercy, but none will be given!"
   
   Rowenna stayed motionless, nonplussed.  "Did you come here to shoot the breeze, or are we gonna fuck?"
   
   Furious, the revenant tore its nightgown in half right down the front and cast the remains aside.  "I will make you suffer humiliation the likes of which you can't even dream of!" it shrieked.
   
   "My pussy's all ready for you to try.  C'mon, girl.  Bring that nasty body of yours over here and we'll see if it can handle what I've got."
   
   Sondra launched herself through the air at Rowenna.  The two naked women collided tit-first and wrapped their arms around each other in a tight bear hug.  They hissed and seethed at each other face to face on their knees.  Their warring bodies rocked side to side, attempting to wrestle the other down beneath her to pin and dominate and conquer.  Unable to succeed, Sondra growled, then planted a torrid kiss on Rowenna's full, pouting lips.  Sparks flew through the redhead's nervous system.  She returned the embrace with equal passion, feeding her hungry lust with probes of her tongue, caresses of Sondra's smooth skin, and lewd grinding of chest against chest and thigh against thigh.
   
   "Oh, fuck yes, you bitch," Rowenna panted between delirious attacks on her foe's mouth.
   
   "Slutty freak!" Sondra spat back.  She rose a few inches, maintaining their intimate contact, and poured a wanton erotic assault down upon the voluptuous beauty she was determined to defeat.
   
   Rowenna took it all: hot kisses, breasts rubbing and sliding up and down against each other, fingers teasing nipples and clawing at her luscious ass, and one of Sondra's legs inserted in between hers, its muscles stroking her wet, aching pussy.  Despite everything, she remained in control of her emotions.  She writhed in primal sensual combat with Sondra, matching every tactic, answering every thrust with one of her own, and none of it came close to fulfilling her desires.  She needed more, much more, before she'd reach the point of ecstasy, and she was determined to find that limit.
   
   She waited until Sondra paused, looking concerned as if the ghost realized its current strategy was having little effect.  Rowenna grabbed the spirit's short, curly hair and pulled her head backwards.  Sondra's back arched, presenting her flawless tits right in Rowenna's face.
   
   "My turn," she purred.  Her lips encircled one of Sondra's areolas.  Her tongue lashed the trapped nipple mercilessly.  Sondra yelped, then moaned loudly.  Rowenna felt something building inside of her, like a reservoir of power.  Her body tingled with sensations emanating from the woman she was ravishing.  The ghost bucked and twisted as Rowenna continued her onslaught, but found herself unable to escape the other female's seductive cage.  Rowenna's mouth kissed and sucked upwards, past Sondra's neck, up over her chin, and enveloping her lips.  Rowenna's heavy orbs pressed onto Sondra's slightly smaller pair.  Rowenna's fingers massaged Sondra's rear end, drawing their fully aroused cxnts into closer union.  All the time, Rowenna held that well of energy back, even as it demanded more fervently to be unleashed.
   
   Finally, it was time.  Sondra, now visibly annoyed at Rowenna's strong dominance, pulled back a bit to ready a different attack.  Rowenna didn't give her the chance.  She allowed the force that had built inside her to run free.  Her skin glistened.  Her breasts swelled.  Her muscles felt refreshed and eager.  The rush in her brain was intoxicating.
   
   Rowenna gave Sondra a long, hard look deep into her eyes.  Its alluring effect froze the vengeful spirit.  This time, when Rowenna kissed her, the ghost's resolve buckled, her body falling backwards onto the bed.  Rowenna pursued her, tongue and hands caressing ravenously.  Sondra fought back meekly, palms groping the pendulous boobs dangling above her.  Rowenna mounted the other woman, spreading her legs apart and slithering her hot pussy against her prone foe's.
   
   "Fuck you, you whore!" Sondra cursed, then whimpered as her most intimate region made contact with Rowenna's.
   
   "Won't happen," Rowenna said, smiling as she towered over the scissored female.  She swiveled her hips, grinding into Sondra's crotch, eliciting a high-pitched grunt.  "I'm going to wipe that angry snarl right off your pretty face."
   
   "I will destroy you!"  Sondra attempted to rise, but Rowenna's left arm easily kept her pinned.  Rowenna's right arm lifted Sondra's left leg allowing her freedom to attack Sondra's womanhood at will.  She did, and the ghost squirmed and battled back.
   
   In a lusty dance, their fiery cxnts slid and tussled.  Rowenna's clit was stiff and greedy for action.  She aimed it along Sondra's slick folds until its found its rival, equally keen to enter the fray.  Rowenna's inhibitions were completely gone, her ardor in full bloom, her erotic power given free rein.  She roared in lustful moans.  Her sweaty body rocked and swayed as it fucked Sondra's ceaselessly for five, then ten minutes.  The ghostly body underneath her was racked by one, then two, then a third orgasm before she ever got close to reaching her own climax.
   
   With a triumphant shout, Rowenna came.  She welcomed the vitality that flowed into her as it always did at those moments.  This time, her core refilled to an ever greater extent than usual.  She was good to go for another round, if not two more.
   
   Rowenna loomed over Sondra's ravished form.  "Ready for more?" she smiled cattily.
   
   Though Sondra was beginning to fade away, her anger had scarcely diminished.  "You're not playing fair."
   
   Rowenna stole a guilty glance at the nearly-empty vial on the side table.  "So what?  I'm playing to win."  She tossed her head, swinging loose locks of hair back behind her head.  "Gonna tell me where that succubus is?"
   
   "Only if you earn it," the ghost snorted.  "Tomorrow night... maybe."  At that, Sondra disappeared from sight.
   
   "Bitch, you know I'll be waiting."
   
**********

[Catharsis]

Part 5 - A Hard-Earned Mastery

   An unexpected problem confronted Rowenna the next morning.  Not only did none of her bras fit any longer, as if she'd grown a full cup size overnight, but she couldn't manage to pull her favorite pair of jeans up past her ass.  Wearing nothing but her panties, she sauntered over to pick up the mixture that was at fault, intending to stash it away where she couldn't sip any more of it, but halted at the sight of her naked body in the mirror above the dresser.  She watched her reflection as she and it touched her gorgeous breasts to make sure they were real.  Rowenna spun to check out the rest of her suddenly more curvaceous body.
   
   'Damn,' she thought, 'Kyle is really not going to be able to keep his hands off of me.'  The thought of her husband snapped her back to reality.  She threw on a white sun dress and sandals and went out to her car to tackle her responsibilities for the day.
   
   As she drove, she called Kyle's boss and filled him in on the lack of change in Kyle's sudden, dire illness.  Once she arrived at the hospital, the chill of the interior tickled her arms and stiffened her nipples.  Ignoring the side-long glances of the staff at her prominent, wobbling headlights, she strode purposefully down the hall to Kyle's room.  The security guard conspicuously tailed her, and stood watching in the doorway after Rowenna had entered.  Unable to give Kyle the dose as she'd originally planned, she despaired at coming up with a solution that wouldn't give herself away.
   
   She turned away from the open door, clutching her purse to her stomach.  Her shoulders shook once, then repeatedly.  Her head drooped.  With a valiant sniff, she drew upright and tossed her head back.  Tears glistening in her eyes, she spun and planted a long, heartfelt kiss on Kyle's lips.  Slowly, dribble by dribble, she let the liquid she'd secretly poured into her mouth fall into Kyle's.  She felt him swallow.
   
   'There, baby.  That's the best I can do for you for now.'
   
   Composing herself, she walked undeterred past the guard's looming bulk out the door.  Sometimes home-grown recipes are the best medicine.
   
   The rest of the morning was spent in the kitchen.  The concoctions took less time to make today, and the rhythm of the accompanying poems rang clearly from her throat.  She finished with a late lunch and settled down for a nap, her alarm set for sundown.
   
**********

   As the final rays of daylight crept up the walls, Rowenna stirred.  It was still a few minutes until her phone was primed to wake her, but the redhead's eyes fluttered open, her senses warning her of another presence in the house: another female, hungry for sex.  She carefully poured the entire dose of dark ruby liquid she'd made down her throat and glided down the stairs in bare feet to the living room.  Sondra stood next to the dining table, nude and defiant.  Without a word, Rowenna lifted her sun dress over her head and tossed it onto the back of the couch.  She approached the misty-outlined spirit, stuck her hands on her hips, and gave her a look completely devoid of fear.
   
   "I'm surprised you decided to appear," Rowenna said.
   
   "I hate you," Sondra began.  "I hate what you were able to do to me so easily last night.  I hate you weakening me bit by bit with each fight we have.  Most of all, I hate that you might be the one to destroy that she-devil instead of me!"
   
   "Tell me where she is, then."
   
   "Oh no," Sondra chuckled wickedly, "I meant what I said before we parted.  You need to earn it, you bitch."
   
   "I'm not afraid of you any more, Sondra.  You've got a pretty hot body, but mine can out-fuck it any day of the week."
   
   "That's why it's time for me to take it!"
   
   Rowenna braced herself for Sondra's charge.  Her enhanced muscles moved quickly.  Her fingers grasped at Sondra's approaching outstretched arms...
   
   To connect with nothing but vapor.
   
   The ghost passed right through Rowenna's defenses, and continued head-first into her torso.  Rowenna spun around, expecting Sondra to reappear behind her.  A voice from inside her brain frightened her motionless.
   
   "Such strength, such power.  With this body, my revenge can succeed!"
   
   "Get... get out!" Rowenna screamed in panic.  In horror, she felt her head shaking 'no' outside her control.
   
   "I need this now.  It's time for your spirit to take my place in the house so I can..."
   
   "Nnnnooo!" Rowenna growled.  She concentrated, feeling Sondra's ghost grabbing control of her arms, legs, and brain.  She pushed, driving the intruder back, but not for long.  Sondra, curious, ran Rowenna's palms up her nipples against her will.  Rowenna's focus wavered. 
   
   "Ooh, that distracts you, does it?" Sondra teased.
   
   Rowenna's fingers dipped into her panties.  The desire Sondra was waking in her body was utterly disrupting Rowenna's efforts at forcing the spirit out of it.
   
   "That's it, slut.  You're doomed by your own lust."
   
   Rowenna's nearly naked form swayed and moaned in the waning sunlight.  It pleasured itself, caressing her breasts and finger-fucking her pussy until it collapsed on the couch writhing in delirious arousal.  From there, it rose and straddled one arm of the couch and began grinding her crotch against it.  Faster and faster Rowenna's well-built figure humped, panties wedging deeper into the crack in her ass, friction drawing more and more erotic groans from her lips.  It bucked like riding a wild bull, crazy with impending ecstasy.  All the while, Rowenna's grip on her own body grew more and more tenuous.  With glee, Sondra pounded Rowenna's womanhood into the padded sofa arm until it could take no more.  It came in a shaking, undulating dance.
   
   "Hah!" Sondra shouted in Rowenna's head.  "Enjoy that orgasm.  It'll be the last one YOU'll experience... huh?"
   
   "Not so fast, you fucking cxnt."
   
   "What... where is this energy coming from?"
   
   With a tortured grunt, Rowenna drew power into herself and took back control of her body, pushing Sondra out.  The ghost fell to the floor beside her, bewildered.
   
   "You never figured out who you're dealing with," Rowenna panted.  "Too blinded by anger to notice, hmm?"
   
   "You... you're a..."
   
   Rowenna removed her panties and lowered herself atop Sondra's body.  Pussy met pussy.  "Yeah, I am.  And sex is where I get my power from.  I hide that because people are scared of things they don't understand, and they especially hate things that so boldly break their taboos about women enjoying pleasure.  They shouldn't, though, because I don't use what I have for evil like that fucking demon does."
   
   "... You could have used it to banish me from the house whenever you wanted, but you didn't."
   
   Rowenna shook her head.  "Then you'd be stuck with your anger for eternity.  I want to free you from it."
   
   "I gave up being redeemed long ago.  You'll get no satisfaction from me."
   
   "Think so?"  Rowenna swiveled her hips.
   
   "Fuck you!"
   
   "Still hate me?"  cxnt against slippery cxnt, the women restarted their lewd war.
   
   "Fuck yes."
   
   "Gonna do something about it?"  The speed of their slapping pelvises increased.
   
   "Nnh.  Fuck."
   
   "What's that, you hussy?"
   
   "Fuck.  You.  Whore."
   
   Rowenna tossed her frizzled hair away from her face.  She pumped harder and harder.  Everything felt so alive.  The animosity emanating from Sondra mixed intoxicatingly with the passion of their violent love-making.  Where had this been all her life?
   
   Lost in their private battle, the naked women hate-fucked for almost half an hour through orgasm after orgasm.  Rowenna most often was on top as their struggle raged from the living room on into the dining room.  There, Sondra put up one last stand, wrapping herself fully around Rowenna's body, rolling the two of them from wall to wall in a tightly bound duel of tongues, hands, nipples and clits before succumbing to a final bout of ecstasy.
   
   Sweat-soaked and breathing heavily, Rowenna lifted herself off the fading ghost.  "Have I earned what I asked for?"
   
   Sondra nodded.  "Promise me one thing...  fuck that bitch good."
   
   "Don't worry, I'm looking forward to destroying her like you wouldn't believe."
   
**********

   2:45 a.m.  The motel just off the highway exit ramp was dimly lit by a few aging street lamps.  The woods behind it were full of scratchy brambles, but Rowenna figured it would be the best place for the succubus to approach unseen.
   
   She was right.  Just after 3:00, she watched the demon creep quietly out of the shadows, black robe flapping behind her, open one of the sliding glass doors, and slip past the drawn dark brown curtain and inside.  Slowly, mindful of making as little noise as possible, Rowenna crawled step by step until she reached that door.  The sounds of vigorous sex were barely muffled by the heavy curtain.
   
   Rowenna put her back to the wall just outside, pulled Kyle's over-sized trench coat around her, sat down, and waited.
   
   For thirty-five minutes.  The succubus had certainly found a stud alright.  Poor guy probably thought he was having a greatest wet dream ever, but was instead hurtling down the path to his doom.  Rowenna's main concern, though, was whether that heated session had diminished the demon's abilities or not.  She heard a male groan, drowsy and exhausted.  Time to strike.  She swigged her strength tonic and rose to her feet.
   
   She threw aside the curtain, muscles tense and blood pumped full of energy.  The darkened room, lit only by the glow of the red digits on the clock radio, reeked of sex.  Beneath her coat, Rowenna's nipples hardened.  To one side, a tanned, naked man in his twenties lay sprawled out soundly asleep on a queen-sized bed with its sheets crumpled at its foot.  In the center of the room stood her target.  It was sucking its fingers one by one.  Nude and voluptuous, the succubus regarded its unexpected intruder with cautious interest.
   
   Rowenna shuffled out of her sandals and undid the belt of the trench coat.  She opened it wide and cast it off behind her, exposing every inch of her bare skin.  The she-devil paused, its tongue licking its lips repeatedly.  A twinkle gleamed in its eyes.
   
   The two well-built women studied each other's naked bodies.  Unlike a few nights before, Rowenna now felt hers to be an equal match to the succubus.  From her toned arms and legs, round ass, flat stomach and large breasts, the pair sported nearly the same measurements.  Anger burned in Rowenna's vision.
   
   "Hey, bitch.  Heard you were having a party in here."
   
   "Well, well.  The little rabbit who ran, ran away from me has poked its head out of hiding," the demon cooed.
   
   "No running this time."
   
   "That's good to hear."
   
   "I meant for you."
   
   Ignoring Rowenna's threat, the succubus padded seductively closer.  It stared intently at the redhead, face glowing with desire.
   
   Rowenna glared back coolly.  "That's not going to work on me this time.  My lust has already been sated."  She stuck her chest out defiantly.  "I'm here for payback, bitch."
   
   The demon laughed in a mocking titter.  "Whatever do you think you can possibly do to me?"
   
   "Bring that slutty body over here, and I'll show you one that's better."
   
   "Mmm.  A challenge?  Is that what I hear?"  The succubus paused a foot away from Rowenna and rested its forearms on the redhead's shoulders.  "I'm so often disappointed by them.  They are far too short.  Even luscious hussies like yourself seldom last past simple foreplay."
   
   Rowenna's palms grabbed hold of the other woman's waist just above her hips.  "I'm going to take you all the way.  You're going down, you man-stealing cxnt."
   
   The succubus leaned her head towards Rowenna's, mouth open.  Rowenna's lips parted, but contact never came.  The demon teased, approaching then retreating, chuckling at her opponent's building frustration.  Below their chins, the embracing females' tits bounced and wiggled.  Aroused nipples thrust and parried, sending electric arcs of pleasure through them both.  Their torsos gyrated, aiming ever stronger attacks on their foe's breasts.  Stiffened nubs prodded and poked deeper into supple flesh.  Claps resounded in the air as their heavy orbs slammed together again and again.
   
   "Think you're the best, huh?" Rowenna panted.
   
   The succubus chuckled. "No.  Simply better than you."
   
   Ramming together harder each time, the battling women battered each other with their full, pendulous tits without let up for several minutes.  Pain started lancing through Rowenna's tender nerves, but her resolve never slackened.  Annoyed by the lack of effect her assault was having, the succubus wrapped her arms around Rowenna's back and pulled the two of them into a rough hug.  Rowenna quickly answered the move, and shot daggers into the sex fiend's eyes as they raged at each other face to face.
   
   "I will crush those pathetic boobs of yours, you sleazy whore," she snarled.
   
   For agonizing seconds, the warring females tightened their constricting holds.  Firmly compressed breast flesh mushroomed outward as both strained and struggled to the limits of their strength.  Side to side they swayed, bodies staggering like drunken slow dancers.  The back of the succubus's legs hit the side of the bed, and she stopped, loosening the power behind her squeeze.
   
   "Had enough?" Rowenna asked.
   
   "Your attempts at seduction have scarcely gotten me warm."
   
   "Show me how it's done, then, you disgusting tramp."
   
   With a lascivious grin, the demon sunk her fingers into Rowenna's rear end and lifted her half an inch off the floor.  Rowenna chirped in alarm, then was silenced as the succubus' lips met her own.  Succulent and sweet, their juices mingled in their mouths as their tongues licked thirstily.  They twirled in a mad waltz, kissing passionately and fondling each other's smooth skin as they spun.  Out of control, the duo hit the wall.  Rowenna pressed the succubus into it, caressing her hair with her fingers, sucking on her lips, and driving one thigh hard into the beast's crotch.  Her dominance lasted a brief moment before she was thrown against the wall herself and assaulted in a similar manner.  Back and forth they fought, alternately pinning the other upright and lavishing delicious erotic onslaughts on their trapped foe.  Tit for tat, each ramped their behavior up ever filthier and nastier.  Saliva dripped down off Rowenna's chin, mixing with the sweat that beaded on her hot chest.
   
   During one spin, Rowenna's knee hit the dresser.  She backed up involuntarily in pain, and the demon went on the attack.  One hand grabbed Rowenna's right breast and the other dove into her groin.  Strong fingers flicked and teased at the redhead's labia.  She tried to counterattack, but every attempt to get past the she-devil's defenses failed.  She was forced backwards.  Her legs hit the bed and she fell onto the mattress next to the sleeping man.  The succubus wasted to time mounting the bed, holding her down, and penetrating her with multiple fingers, deeply and briskly.  Rowenna locked her ankles at the small of the other woman's back and held on for the inevitable, which she'd been holding back for some time.
   
   Rowenna came, her gasps matching the rhythm of the expert finger fucking she was receiving.  She let it happen, and opened herself for the flow of energy that orgasm always brought her.  The succubus showed no indication of stopping, plowing her hand again and again between Rowenna's thighs.  Her stamina replenished, the copper-haired beauty planted her heels on the beast's stomach and kicked.
   
   The demon looked temporarily surprised as it flew three feet in the air backwards.  It landed on its feet, though, and set at Rowenna as if nothing had happened.  Rowenna had scarcely sat up on the mattress when she was tackled by the other nude female and smothered beneath its bare flesh.  She bucked, tossing the two of them away from the center of the bed.  Rowenna landed atop the succubus in the narrow aisle between the bed and a wall.  The two began grappling furiously, one to escape and the other to contain her cornered foe.
   
   The tussle only lasted a dozen seconds before the succubus' superior strength won out.  Rowenna backed off, only to have her foot yanked from under her.  Her rear end hit the carpet and the other woman was on her in an instant.  Tumbling and wrestling, the clashing females rolled in a naked ball from one end of the room to the other.  Hands clutched at tits, ass, hair, and skin.  Mouths kissed and nibbled at ears, cheeks and necks.  Legs tangled and grape-vined together in strenuous knots.
   
   After several minutes of fierce, carnal combat, the succubus had Rowenna flat on her back, one leg pointed straight up and captured between its prodigious breasts, and its pussy mashed solidly onto her own.
   
   Rowenna snarled defiantly.  "Show me what you've got, bitch."
   
   "Patience, my love.  In a hurry to be drained dry, hmm?"
   
   "You just try."
   
   "I accept the invitation."
   
   The succubus's body undulated, slowly at first.  Its nether lips teased and taunted Rowenna's womanhood.  The demon sped up, and Rowenna matched its rhythm.  On and on, the women humped and gyrated, tribbing harder and faster as one minute and then two slid by.  Rowenna felt her body ready to achieve orgasm again, but she held it in check, biting her lower lip and answering back every thrust she received.  When it became obvious that her foe wasn't any closer to its own ecstasy, she tried to wrench her off and gain a better position.  Fire burning in its tiger-shaped eyes, the succubus waggled its head 'no' and redoubled its attack.
   
   Wet cxnt against wet cxnt, the two naked females fought earnestly for minute after minute.  Sweat glistened on their bodies.  Pants, seductive moans, and desperate groans filled the air, mingling with the pungent scent of sex.  Rowenna grabbed the demon's wobbling orbs, harshly massaging them and bending their stiffened nipples.  The succubus's mouth hung open, hungry.  Rowenna could read the creature's agonizing ache to feel pleasure on its face.  She tried as hard as she could, drawing the succubus' head down, tasting its lips, bucking and fucking and rocking and...
   
   An intense orgasm hit Rowenna out of nowhere.  The back of her head hit the thin carpet.  She cried out uncontrollably.  She could feel the demon sucking sexual energy out of her through their conjoined vaginas.  The thing was practically drinking it.  Rowenna clung on, channeling as much as her nerves could take, striving to give the bitch more than she could handle.  After nearly half a minute of constant ecstasy, Rowenna couldn't take any more.  She began to worry that it wouldn't stop.  It felt like her body was going to shake itself apart.  Even still, the she-devil kept absorbing more and more from her.
   
   In a final frantic move, Rowenna mashed her palm into the succubus's nose and hurriedly disentangled herself.  She scrambled away, back hitting the glass door.  Her legs had no more strength in them, and refused to allow her onto her feet to run.  She quieted her fear, and studied the nude woman that sat a few feet from her.  The succubus wore a delighted smile.  Its cheeks were rosy, its skin lathered with sweat and cum.  It ran a finger across one thigh, picking up the juices it found there, and licked it clean.
   
   "Ooh," she said.  "I LIKED that."  Terror gripped Rowenna's heart.  "More!"
   
   Rowenna fumbled for the trench coat, searched the outside pockets, and snatched the vial she found there.
   
   "More!" repeated the succubus, getting to its knees.
   
   Rowenna unstoppered the small bottle of cherry liquid, threw its contents into her mouth, and swallowed.
   
   The concoction hit her empty system like a sudden flush of arousal.  She sought its power, and opened herself up completely to its influence.  Rowenna inhaled, feeling sensuality pour over her like warm syrup.  When she exhaled, her vision was sharp, her skin prickling with desire, and her resolve renewed.
   
   In unison, the two naked women got to their feet, gazes locked on one another.  The succubus' long tongue unfurled from its mouth in a promise of carnal delight.  Rowenna rested a knee on the bed.  The other woman mirrored her motion.  The low groan rumbled from the throat of the drowsy man that separated them on the mattress.  Neither female paid him any attention.

   "I am going to defeat you or die trying," Rowenna said with firm determination.
   
   "Aw," the succubus cooed, "But you are such an entertaining plaything..."
   
   "Your playtime will be over soon.  Permanently."
   
   Rowenna mounted the bed on her knees.  The demon did the same.
   
**********

   Carlos peered through half-open eyelids.  He was still dreaming.  He had to be.  To his right was the woman that haunted his recurring fantasies, her perfect body coated with a shiny glaze of sweat in the dim light.  To his left was a new woman, a seeming equal in proportions, but with fiery red hair.  Both glared at each other with vicious, sexually heated grins on their beautiful faces.  He froze, holding his breath, not wanting to interrupt the impending collision he could sense was coming between these two ferociously hot females.  As they closed on each other, his legs like the halfway line dividing the opposing sides of an arena, his cock rose inexorably to full staff.
   
**********

   The impact was jarring, a headlong smack of bare flesh, massive breasts wrangling in a rough scrum between a pair of voluptuous feminine figures.  Magnetic lust snapped their lips together in a torrid kiss.  Fingers darted and flicked within flexing thighs, seeking and striking at moistened vaginal folds.  They pressed against one another like that for nearly a minute, teetering wildly with the force of their desire.  The mouths broke contact.  Angry eyes shot daggers of hate and passion.
   
   "Fuck you, bitch.  Fuck you," panted Rowenna.  She had two digits rammed inside the succubus' pussy, and her thumb was feeling for the beast's clitoris.
   
   "Keep trying, my love, keep trying."
   
   "Unh.  Shit."  Rowenna's brain was swimming from the other woman's assault.  Her tits were mashed and compressed, but holding their own.  Her legs stood strong, preventing her from being flattened beneath her foe's onslaught for now.  The arousal rushing in giddy waves from her expertly teased labia was manageable at the moment.  The potion had made her body so sensitive, but the reservoir of sexual power it had given her against Sondra was nowhere to be found.  She needed it, not because she craved the rush of dominance she'd felt (although she certainly did), but some intuition warned her that she wasn't going to last long without it.
   
   Rowenna and the succubus nestled their heads on each other's shoulders.  They weaved in a debauched slow dance on the tousled bed, matching strength against strength and finger fucking furiously, their aching pussies hovering mere inches above the knees of the man who had a front row seat to their climactic contest.
   
   With a loud whine, Rowenna begged for a reprieve from the torturous battle.  Emboldened, the succubus shoved her backwards, testing her ability to remain upright.  Lashing out in fury, Rowenna charged, slamming her upper body forward.  The other woman caught her, pulling her off balance and face-first onto the mattress between her legs.  Rowenna spun onto her back to see her foe's eager face beaming upside down at her.  Before she could react, the demon dove atop her body, crushing it and the legs of the man she lay upon.  Strong hands parted her thighs.  The other female's breath was hot on her stomach.
   
   "You are so very ready, my dear," the succubus purred.  "I simply can't wait to help myself."
   
   Rowenna's reply was muffled by the woman's pelvis.  She felt her cxnt being ravished deliriously, and decided to fight fire with fire.  In moments, the two women settled into a tight sixty-nine position and started jerking and writhing, clasping their thighs tighter and tighter around their opponent's head.  So intent were they on tonguing each other that they scarcely noticed it when their entwined bodies rolled once, then again, tumbling off the end of the bed and continuing their intimate war back and forth across the floor.
   
   Carlos watched in awe.  Minute after minute the sexual combat went on unabated.  The red-haired one reached orgasm twice before the pair let go with their legs and caught their breath.  The pause was short.  Almost immediately, they went at each other's pussies with their fingers, eventually targeting their breasts and lips in addition.
   
   Rowenna was propped up on one elbow.  Her other arm was wrapped around the succubus' right leg, trapping it between her tits.  She'd scissored the woman and was tribbing her with all her might.  She'd cum a few times, barely able to maintain her stamina each time.  Her muscles were exhausted.  Her mind clung to sanity by the thinnest of threads after such a continuous flood of pleasure.  Through it all, the evil bitch's hunger remained ravenous.  Rowenna wanted to rest.  She needed a break, but the insatiable beast kept pounding, kept pumping, kept fucking so damn hard...
   
   She could feel it.  Another orgasm.  There was no stopping it.  She knew deep down inside that it was the last one.  After that, she'd be broken.  Helpless.  A rag doll for the demon to toy with until it was nothing but pieces of scrap.
   
   'Fuck it all.  Make it count,' she thought.
   
   Rowenna surrendered to ecstasy, sending every bit of power she could muster at the succubus, who hungrily lapped it up.  With a sudden rush, the mixture she'd downed in haste finally kicked in.  She let it all go, aiming the energy from a sexual climax the likes of which she'd never experienced before at her hated foe.  She felt the beast's grip on her slacken.  Rowenna tightened her own hold, focusing on driving as much pleasure as she could into the demon.
   
   "Oh!" it cried.
   
   "Yes!"
   
   "Fuck me!"
   
   "Yes, you fucking bitch."
   
   "Fuck me!  Fuck MEEEEEeeeeee.....   !"  The succubus' mouth opened in a rigid 'O'.  Its body was wracked by a series of violent shudders.  She let out a long, deep, animal groan, and then lay still.  The choker about her neck unsnapped and fell to the carpet.
   
   Rowenna's head was a balloon about to burst.  She crawled over to the bed and wearily climbed onto the mattress.  She struggled not to pass out.  She gazed down at the woman she'd just fought so long and so hard.  To her horror, the demonic slut arose, moving without a hint of exhaustion.  Rowenna despaired.  'At least,' she thought, resigning herself to whatever abuse the she-devil had in store for her, 'I gave it everything.'
   
   But the succubus stopped, kneeling submissively with its head bowed in front of Rowenna.
   
   "My mistress has given proof of her dominance, and thus assumed ownership of my contract of submission.  Her new slave awaits her command."
   
   Rowenna sat dumb-struck.
   
   She finally found her voice.  "Y- you mean if I tell you to do something, you'll obey me?"
   
   The succubus nodded once, keeping its eyes on the ground.
   
   "Anything?"
   
   The succubus smiled.  "Whatever would be my new mistress' greatest pleasure."
   
   Rowenna's mind raced.  The things she could do with this creature.  What amazing power she now had control over.
   
   Then she recalled what the thing before her truly was.  And the tales Auntie Willow had told of its past.  And most importantly to Rowenna...
   
   "You," she addressed the demon, "broke into my home."  Rowenna stood up tall with her shoulders back and chest thrust forward.  "You," she spat, "seduced and fucked my husband."  The other woman said nothing in reply.  "You..." she seethed.
   
   Rowenna towered imperiously over her vanquished foe, and with every ounce of wrath within her, issued her order.
   
   "Go to Hell!"
   
   It did.
   
   The succubus looked up at her.  For the first time Rowenna had ever seen, its confident demeanor cracked.  Its eyes pleaded a terrified 'No!'.  Its mouth opened, but no sound issued forth.
   
   As Rowenna watched, dozens of shadowy arms reached up through the floor.  Their hands grasped the succubus' limbs, fingers sinking deep into her flesh.  A hollow, distant wail echoed throughout the room.  A dark pit opened for a brief second beneath the succubus, during which it was dragged down, down into swirling darkness.  Then, the bottomless hole disappeared and all was silent.
   
   Rowenna's heart pounded.  Her knees reached their limit, and she collapsed onto the bed, her mind reeling from what she'd just witnessed.  Her body ached for rest.
   
   "Hey," a voice behind her began, ineptly trying to be coy and inviting, "That was the hottest thing I've ever seen.  You up for..."
   
   Rowenna cut Carlos off by flashing her left hand in his face, wedding ring right at eye level.
   
   "This show wasn't for you, buddy.  I'm happily taken."  Eager to leave, she staggered over, grabbed the trench coat and covered up.
   
   "C'mon, baby, you're a dream come true.  Let me show you-"
   
   Rowenna's hard, annoyed face stopped him mid-sentence.  "Mister, your best bet is to make yourself worthy of a woman like me, and then go find someone else to try that line you were about to hit me with.  Don't push me when I'm angry."
   
   He didn't.
   
**********

   Rowenna didn't know how she managed the drive home.  She stumbled through the door bleary-eyed and exhausted.
   
   "Sondra!" she called out, her voice a whispered croak.  There was no answer.  "Sondra!  I did... it."
   
   Her body hit the couch.  A deep sleep took her moments later.
   
**********

   The sun was low in the late afternoon sky when she awoke that Friday.  Her energy level was minimal.  She had barely enough willpower to force herself into the kitchen, barely enough wrist strength to butter a slice of bread, and barely enough concentration to heat up and eat the last portion of leftover meatloaf.  But she got her body to do it.  The voice message on her phone from the hospital had lifted her spirits high enough to accomplish anything.
   
   Kyle's condition had improved greatly.  He had regained enough strength to walk, and was returning to normal rapidly.  The doctors had no explanation for his sudden and mysterious recovery.
   
   Rowenna knew why.  She smiled, thanking a certain ghost for keeping its promise in her thoughts, wishing she could do so in person.
   
   After eating, Rowenna hauled her tired body up the stairs and slept peacefully until morning.
   
**********

   The knock on the front door at sunrise was loud and insistent.
   
   "Who is it?" Rowenna yelled upon reaching the foyer, having thrown on her blue robe.  With a start, she realized who it just might be...  Her heart leaped in her chest.
   
   "Sheriff's office!" came the response.
   
   Rowenna flung open the door, confused and disappointed.  "What... what is it?"
   
   "We're looking for Kyle Hunter.  Are you Mrs. Hunter?"
   
   "Um, yes.  Yes, I am.  But, Kyle's at the hospital."  At the deputy sheriff's disapproving look, she added, "He's been there all week!"
   
   "He's not there now, Mrs. Hunter.  He checked out of the hospital just before midnight last night."
   
   "I don't understand.  He would have come right back here if he had."
   
   "And you haven't seen him at all in the last twelve hours?"
   
   "No!" Rowenna practically shouted, becoming visibly distraught.  "Wh- what's this about?"
   
   "We'd like to ask him a few questions.  We have reason to believe he knows something concerning the attempted murder of Autumn Willow."
   
**********

[Catharsis]

Part 6 - The Gift

   Rowenna felt numb.  She stood and listened to the words the officers were saying in a daze. 
   
   "Ms Willow was attacked in her shop sometime last night and beaten pretty badly, but she managed to come to a few hours later and set off her medical alert pendant.  Right now she's in ICU at the hospital.  One of the few things the paramedics heard her say when they reached her was the name 'Kyle'.  That's not a common one around here."

   They handed some pictures to her.  The sight of Auntie Willow's bruised and bandaged face made her shriek.
   
   "Mrs. Hunter, the person that did this was rather strong.  We have evidence that the victim was picked up and thrown multiple times into the furniture.  Your husband... he played football for State a while back didn't he?"
   
   "Yes, but... No!  Kyle would never do something like this.  Especially to someone as sweet as Auntie Willow..."
   
   "You're familiar with the victim?"
   
   "I met her once, yes, but Kyle wasn't with me."
   
   "Did you ever mention her to your husband?"
   
   "No.  This... this is all too crazy."
   
   The deputy handed her a card.  "Well, if you see your husband, please have him give us a call.  Sorry to disturb you."
   
   Rowenna watched the officers leave her front porch.  Two others came around from the back yard and joined them.  She overheard one of them mumble, "She didn't look that dangerous" as they got in their cars and set off.
   
   The comment puzzled her until she got to the kitchen.  Thinking back on her tantrum in the hospital a few days earlier, she cursed herself for losing control of her temper.  Her mother, if she'd still been on speaking terms with her, would have been all over her with admonishments of "I told you so".
   
   'Shit,' she thought.  'In addition to Kyle going missing I'm also getting a bad reputation around town.'
   
   Midway through eating breakfast, her phone rang.  She answered it, only noticing "Unknown Caller" as the ID at the last second.
   
   "Hello?" she said anyway.
   
   "Hi, Rowenna.  How have you been?"
   
   "Kyle!  Where are you?"
   
   "Do not worry.  Everything is going to be all right."
   
   "What happened?  You sound a little funny."
   
   "I said do not worry.  Listen, I am okay and I can come home soon, but there is something I need you to do first."
   
   Warning sirens went off in Rowenna's mind.  The voice was Kyle's but the words didn't sound like his.  "What's that, honey?"
   
   "I heard that you took possession of something the night before last, something that did not belong to you."  Rowenna's heart pounded hard in her chest.  There was only one thing he could possibly be referring to. 
   
   "You need to give it back," Kyle said with a note of finality.
   
   Rowenna felt dizzy, as if gravity had gone haywire and the world was spinning madly around her.  'Consequences,' her mother had berated her repeatedly, 'There will be consequences if you don't listen to me.'  She steadied herself.
   
   "Kyle."  Rowenna swallowed.  "Dear, I can't."
   
   "Why not?"
   
   "I...  I sent it back to where it came from."
   
   "Where it came from?  I don't underst-"
   
   Suddenly, there was fumbling at Kyle's end of the line.  After a short pause, a woman's voice replaced his.
   
   "You did what?"
   
   "Who is this?"  Upon receiving no reply, Rowenna continued, anger washing away her fear.  "I told that slut in the black robe to go to Hell, and she did.  That clear enough?  Now tell me who-"
   
   "I do not believe this!  You are either inconceivably naive, colossally careless, or hopelessly stupid!  What a reckless, ignorant moron you turned out to be!"
   
   Rowenna calmed herself in the face of the other woman's tirade.  "You really need to watch out who you're calling names."
   
   "No.  I am not the one who needs to watch out.  You have made a mistake you will regret for the rest of your pitiful life."
   
   "You're going to start regretting things if you don't bring Kyle to me, right now."
   
   "Oh, no, my silly upstart thief.  That is not the way that bargains work.  I was prepared to trade your husband for my slave as part of an agreement, one that set boundaries on places and things you needed to leave alone.  But now that I can no longer have what I want, I will simply make do with what I already have.  I see no reason to EVER return your husband!"
   
   Before Rowenna could speak, the line went dead.
   
   Rowenna wanted to scream.  She wanted to rage.  She wanted to conjure a blazing inferno to burn whoever that was to ash.  She settled for seething furiously, her sight tinted red with anger, for several minutes.
   
   She glanced at the sheriff's card.  'I wouldn't even get half way through my story before they'd send me to a psychiatrist.  Think, Rowenna, think.  It's up to you.'
   
   Rowenna paced the kitchen.  She glanced into the dining room.  No Sondra.  She thought of Auntie Willow, but even she was unavailable to help her work out clues.  She concentrated, pouring over the woman's strange pattern of speech, searching for anything that might help get her husband returned...
   
   'Return.'
   
   Rowenna had it.  The way woman had said 'return'.  The 'r' had been rolled slightly and the 'e' pronounced like 'uh'.  She'd heard only one person in town say that word in precisely that accent.
   
   Ignoring breakfast, she grabbed the special recipe book.  The woman who had Kyle sounded like someone who didn't change her mind unless forced to.  Rowenna felt more than willing to present a strong and very personal appeal.
   
   Hours passed.  Rowenna worked hard, repeatedly making the kitchen into a frightful mess and cleaning up before tackling yet another recipe.  At nightfall, Rowenna left the house weary but eager for confrontation.
   
**********

   The plan had been risky, but her carelessness in pushing herself too hard nearly steered it into disaster.
   
   Rowenna awoke, groggy and very, very cold.  She wiped the crust out of one eye slowly, then snapped alert.  'Shit, oh shit,' she thought.  She took stock of her surroundings.  A janitor's closet, illuminated only by the light of an emergency exit sign leaking under the door.  She calmed her racing heartbeat, congratulating herself on successfully sneaking undetected into the town library just before closing and hiding out without being discovered.  'What time is it?' she wondered.
   
   Her phone read 5:36 a.m.  'I dozed off all night!  Fuck.'  She held her breath and listened.  Only the whir of the air conditioning system.  She rubbed her bare arms, wishing that her sun dress covered more skin, and checked that her duffel bag was still nearby.  She shivered.  'Do they have to chill this place like a frickin' mausoleum?'  She peered through the gap at the bottom of the door, turned the flashlight on her phone on, and slipped out of her shoes.  Rowenna stretched, then drank the contents of a water bottle she'd refilled with strength mixture.  Adrenaline shot through her veins.  'Here's hoping my guesswork was right.'
   
   To her relief, nothing but darkness greeted her when she poked her head out into the main room of the library.  Cautious not to make a sound, she eased the duffel bag ahead of her and stole into the stacks on sock-padded feet.  One row later, she peered out slowly to check for signs of life, but heard and saw none.  On tip toes, she sneaked down an aisle toward the back wall near the microfiche machine.  There, she approached the short flight of stairs downward that she remembered from her first trip here.  Rowenna stepped gingerly over the chain on which an Authorized Personnel Only sign hung, and began her descent.
   
   The basement area was equally cold and dark, with a musty smell thrown in.  Tall gray metal shelves stuffed with decaying volumes and raggedy boxes filled the underground space.  Chill from the concrete floor penetrated her socks.  Rowenna didn't tarry.  She kept to one wall, looking for a hidden room, and keeping an ear out for any noise.
   
   A dim, wavering light a few yards further on made her pause, then continue, curious.  She almost forgot to extinguish her own light as she drew nearer.  It came from an old, flickering fluorescent bulb mounted on a wall just inside a small storage room.  The scene it illuminated made Rowenna's heart leap.
   
   Bound and gagged on a narrow cot in one corner lay Kyle, sleeping.  He was naked, his body radiating a healthy pallor and his muscles fully recovered.  She stifled a cry of joy, and ran to him.  It only took a few touches for him to awaken.  He let out a muffled shout of surprise, then quieted quickly as Rowenna put a finger to her lips.  She yanked the gag off his mouth and kissed him ardently, disengaging when he shook his head to the side.
   
   "That woman... she's still here, I think," Kyle warned.
   
   Rowenna sniffed proudly.  "Yeah, well, she'll have her hands full with me if she shows up."
   
   "Oh, I will, will I?"
   
   Rowenna spun.  Filling the entryway stood the librarian, clothed in a black night dress that flattered her hourglass curves.  Thin straps held it upon her shoulders.  Lace trimmed the V-shaped plunge that exposed her ample cleavage and the hem that flared at her knees.  Her legs and arms were well toned, something the woman's conservative attire had kept hidden.  The woman's pale skin glowed eerily in the light of the half-dead bulb.
   
   The librarian looked past Rowenna.  "Bad boy," she said to Kyle, her lips pursed in disapproval.  "You obey me."
   
   Kyle's eyes glazed over.  "Yes, Mistress Antanasia."
   
   Rowenna's face twisted in anger.  "You stop that!" she thundered.
   
   Antanasia shook her head disdainfully.  "I don't know how you got in here, Miss Reckless Idiot, but as you seem intent on repeatedly sticking your nose where it does not belong, I am going have to make sure you are never able to do it again."
   
   "Sticking my nose in?  You kidnapped my husband!"
   
   The librarian addressed Kyle, "Is that what happened, slave?"  She then began silently mouthing words.
   
   Kyle's voice spoke them in monotone.  "No, it is not.  I have decided to leave my overbearing wife and have found a new, better lover."
   
   Rowenna roared at Antanasia furiously, "You let go of his mind right now, or so help me..."
   
   "No.  You have been here one week and the amount of disruption you have caused is obscene.  This is fair compensation, you common vandal."
   
   "Huh?  All this because I sent one of the Devil's temptresses back where it belonged?"
   
   "You had no right to steal Sylvia from me," Antanasia said indignantly.
   
   "Oh, so you gave your pet a name, did you?  Well maybe if you'd kept your bitch on a tighter leash I wouldn't have had to put it down."
   
   An icy regard was all she earned for her barbed insult.  "Frankly, I am surprised that you were able to dominate her at all.  Difficult, was it?"
   
   Rowenna snorted.  "We went a few rounds."
   
   The voluptuous librarian smirked in satisfaction.  "I found it very simple to get her to heel."  Her bare feet took a step towards Rowenna.  She scanned the redhead's figure up and down.  "This is the difference between you and I.  You have the weapons, true, but you're an amateur, overconfident and ignorant of your inadequate ability."
   
   Rowenna's pulse quickened as the sexy female approached, eyes locked on hers.  Her fists clenched.  Her nipples poked at the thin cloth of her sun dress in arousal.  "You think you're better?  This body fucked two tough women into submission in one night recently.  If you think I'm a pushover, you've got quite the humiliation coming your way."
   
   Antanasia's slinky sauntering halted a yard away from Rowenna.  She put her hands on her hips and confidently thrust her chest out.  "So you say.  Tell me, do those lips do anything other than flap uselessly?"
   
   Rowenna scowled, studying the other woman's deep red mouth.  "Bring yours over here, bitch... if you dare... and I'll show you."
   
   Pressing her large breasts into Rowenna's heaving pair, Antanasia purred, "Careful who you invite over your doorstep."  Her face filled Rowenna's vision.
   
   Rowenna's hands sought out the librarian's waist.  She tugged the attractive lady closer.  Their stomachs and thighs touched.  Her voice dropped to a whisper.  "I'm going to fuck you up so bad you'll wish you'd never come near my husband."
   
   Antanasia placed her forearms on Rowenna's shoulders and began gyrating.  Her hips ground against Rowenna's.  Her bosom slid roughly, teasing Rowenna's nipples.  "You may want to, little skank, but it is you who will get fucked."
   
   Swaying seductively, the two tested each other, probing for any weakness in flesh or determination.  Heat built up within them as mutual arousal sparked across their conjoined bodies like lightning between colliding storm fronts.  Rowenna wanted this, to fight Antanasia woman to woman, with all her being.  She craved the sensual conflict, the heady thrill of hurling herself totally into intimate battle with another female, and the orgasmic exhilaration of victory.  This amazon was the perfect opponent: sexy, willing, and utterly deserving of being defeated.
   
   Rowenna called over Antanasia's shoulder, "Watch me, Kyle.  Watch how your wife takes care of someone who tries to steal her man away."
   
   "Shut up," the librarian spat.  "He is not yours to address anymore."
   
   "You shut up," Rowenna said, and kissed Antanasia hard.  The embrace that came back was equally strong and hungry.  Rowenna's lips tingled with erotic fire.  With a start, she tasted the other woman's thirst.  It yawned like a bottomless chasm, eagerly swallowing all the passion Rowenna threw into it.  She broke off contact with the woman's mouth, perplexed by what she'd just felt.
   
   Antanasia tsked.  Her lips pursued Rowenna's, latching on and kissing them with mesmerizing ardor.  The librarian's body gyrated against the target of her lust in a languid, tempting slither.  Rowenna's eyes snapped open in alarm at the warm rush of arousal that poured through her veins.  Her foe was giving her the strangest of contradictory sensations.  On one hand, the cloying caress of her cool fingers, the close press of her soft flesh, the feverish reaction Rowenna had to the touch of her tender, full lips and elegant legs all spoke of well-practiced expertise in the art of seduction.  At the same time, Rowenna could not help but be taken aback at a gnawing need emanating from her, as if her life had been completely devoid of sexual intimacy and her parched craving for it had grown desperate.  Rowenna shook her unease off.  Bizarre vibes or not, this bitch was going to learn that she'd crossed the wrong woman.
   
   Rowenna attacked, locking lips with Antanasia and running her palms up the back of the woman's thin, satiny dress.  She pushed her chest forcefully into the librarian's large orbs, bending her opponent backwards.  Antanasia swung one leg around Rowenna's and grabbed hold of the redhead's clothing to keep from falling over.  Weaving in a slow rhythm, the pair writhed, licking at each other's mouths and fanning the mounting flames of mutual desire with their hands.  The heat between their tightly joined breasts grew stifling.  Saliva coated their hungry, teasing lips.
   
   Antanasia regained her footing, broke off the duo's torrid make-out session, and glared spitefully into Rowenna's emerald eyes.  "You think you are so hot?" she said, swinging one shoulder at Rowenna which made her left tit collide harshly with her rival's right.
   
   "Damn straight."  Rowenna shoved back.  Chest met chest head-on.  Feminine flesh mushroomed from the vigorous pressure each woman applied to their growing breast contest.
   
   "You are barely worth my time.  I can crush you like the annoying insect you are any time I want."
   
   Rowenna grunted at the effort of maintaining her position in the battle between her boobs and Antanasia's.  "Hah!  You haven't done shit yet, you stuck-up slut."  She wrapped her arms around the other woman and began a constricting bear hug.  "And you haven't even seen what this body can do yet."
   
   Antanasia snorted.  "Nothing I need to be worried about, I am sure."  She duplicated Rowenna's maneuver, ramping up the force mashing their breasts to a painful level.  Rowenna moaned but stood tough.  The woman possessed a wiry strength and Rowenna knew she'd be in much greater trouble if she hadn't drunk something to bolster her own muscles.
   
   "Take this, you bitch."  Rowenna's left hand grabbed Antanasia's ass and the other tugged at the woman's short black hair.  Her left thigh thrust between the librarian's legs while her right leg wrapped around Antanasia's left, stroking the back of it.  Rowenna felt heat of the other woman's crotch as the hems of both of their dresses rose upwards onto their waists.
   
   "Nnnn, fuck.  You little slut."
   
   "Like that, huh?" Rowenna panted.
   
   "Do your worst.  I am not afraid of you, stupid whore."
   
   Rowenna thrust with her hips, eliciting a grunt from Antanasia.  "You should be."  She thrust again.  Their eyes locked.  Their faces were harsh angles of hatred even as their color was rosy from sexual arousal.
   
   A resounding clap echoed off the bare walls as Antanasia thrust back.  "Why?  Do you think your pussy is superior to mine?"
   
   Rowenna nodded.  Two more impacts rang throughout the room.  "You'll be begging for mercy when I'm done with your nasty cxnt."
   
   Antanasia growled.  With her legs still tangled in Rowenna's she lifted her nightgown over her head and tossed it aside.  Before Rowenna could get much of a look at her rival's naked torso, her own sun dress was torn from her body and discarded.  Hot flesh pressed together as two pairs of tits slammed into each other once again.
   
   "Bring it, you hussy," Antanasia snarled.  "I can handle anything your pathetic body can dish out."  The woman slithered like a snake, sliding her smooth skin brusquely against Rowenna's.

   Passion blossomed.  The scorching grinding together of the two women's bodies generated enough heat to make them oblivious to the surrounding basement's chill.  They spun a half-turn, wobbling like amorous lovers in the midst of a gale.  Antanasia's mouth sucked at Rowenna's lips.  Her fingers caressed and tugged at naked flesh.  Her right thigh plunged deep between Rowenna's legs.  Rowenna humped it harder and faster, eager to draw energy she could use against her opponent and hungry for another orgasm of the kind she'd been enjoying over the past few days in her erotic battles with other women.  She felt her back become pressed against the cinder block wall.  Relentless, the lustful librarian ravished her, seeking to conquer her physically and intimately.  The duo weaved and bucked, violently fucking each other, clutching one another closely, and riding the rising wave of desire.
   
   Rowenna's thighs squeezed tightly.  She yelped as a strong climax ripped through her system.  Ecstasy overtook her quivering body.  She moaned again and again, acutely feeling every luscious sensation being slathered upon her by the naked women she was entwined with.  Power surged through her.  Her mind felt suddenly refreshed but her lust not yet sated.  She planted her palms on her foe's shoulders and pushed.  Antanasia stumbled a few steps backwards.
   
   Detaching herself confidently from the wall, Rowenna regarded the other female coolly.  "You're going to wish you hadn't done that."
   
   "Oh, really?"
   
   With a sudden and all-encompassing anger, Rowenna ordered, "Give me back my husband!"
   
   Antanasia didn't.
   
   The dark-haired woman chuckled instead.  "You are so clueless.  You still do not realize why that technique does not work on me, do you, you dumb hussy?"
   
   In fury, Rowenna swung at Antanasia's head.  Her fist struck home, rocking it sideways but only for a fraction of a second.  Scowling, Antanasia grabbed Rowenna, lifted her easily over her head, and threw her six feet through the air where she collided with the opposite wall.  Rowenna howled in pain.
   
   The librarian paced slowly towards her prone victim.  "I knew what you were the first time I laid eyes on you.  But I did not know whether you did not recognize what I am or whether you simply hid it well.  Did nobody tell you that your kind is the ideal prey for mine?"  Rowenna scampered backwards on the floor away from the approaching, menacing lady.  "Right now, I can smell you.  You are full, like a ripe fruit.  Oh, so ready to be bitten into... to have your juices sucked..."
   
   At that, Antanasia grinned wide.  An icy river of terror ran down Rowenna's spine as she saw the sexy, naked woman's mouth open fully, revealing two long, pearly canines descending to sharp points from her upper set of teeth.
   
   "Oh, shit..."
   
   "My dear, it has been decades since I have dined on someone like you.  Thank you for reaching orgasm so quickly.  I am so very, very thirsty."
   
   Rowenna dodged Antanasia's lunging hands.  She scrabbled to her feet.  The two women faced off, Antanasia blocking the sole exit and bearing a predatory gaze.
   
   "Antanasia Karmazyn, I bind you by your true name!" Rowenna commanded angrily.  The back-handed smack she received in response spun her head violently and launched her into the wall.
   
   "My true name?  You ignorant fool.  Do you honestly think I would be so careless with something as important as that?  I am not some ingénue who fails to conceal my family lineage.  Unlike you, Rowenna, descendant of the McKeogh clan."  Rowenna's eyes snapped wide in shock.  "Ah, so now you finally understand the value of learning who your new neighbors are.  Maybe if you had done that before upsetting the normal order in this town, all this unpleasantness could have been avoided.  And you'd stop uselessly shouting orders at someone with no living blood for you to control."  She stalked around Rowenna, arms hanging loosely on either side of her full-figured torso.  "As you see, your power is as lacking as your knowledge.  You did better fighting back against me sexually."

   An idea dawned in Rowenna's mind.  She dashed to her duffel bag, reached into a side pocket, and brought out the cherry-red potion stashed there.  Before she could pull out the stopper, Antanasia had grasped her wrist, torn it from her fingers, and tossed her aside like a rag doll.  Her head impacted the wall sending stars shooting through her vision.
   
   When she recovered, she saw Antanasia examining the opened vial.  The woman's eyes grew huge.
   
   "...not blessed water.  This... I have not smelled this for nearly a century.  And it is fresh.  Utterly."  She looked at Rowenna in astonishment.  "YOU made this!  Unbelievable."  Antanasia smiled greedily.  "Oh, my dear.  I was going to drain you and discard your lifeless husk, but I underestimated you.  Someone capable of producing such a rare elixir... you are worth your weight in GOLD!"  She bared her fangs once more.  "A more than adequate replacement for Sylvia."
   
   "I'll never serve you."
   
   Rowenna ducked, barely avoiding Antanasia's grab.  With all her might, she rammed her shoulder into the other female's side and knocked her off balance.  That gave her just enough time to escape out the door.  She raced down the rows of shelving as fast as her legs could carry her.  Reaching the stairs, she looked back but saw nothing but darkness.  Her panicked brain could barely hold a thought, let alone think of what to do next.  She had to find something, some weapon to use, but nothing came to mind.
   
   She tore up the steps, nearly tripped on the security chain at the top, and had just emerged from the stacks into the open area at the front desk when it struck her that she was dressed in nothing but panties and socks and in no condition to show up at the police station to report a crime.  She paused for a second, confused as to whether to continue or not.  A loud rustling noise froze her in her tracks.
   
   The cacophony of a hundred flying bats filled the air.  Dozens of spinning shards of shadow fluttered like falling, blackened leaves, and coalesced into a solid mass between Rowenna and the exit, which promptly took on the shapely form of the librarian.  Still nude, still voluptuous, and still seductive.  Antanasia shook her head like a disappointed schoolteacher.
   
   "Running?  Really?  To where?  To whom?"  Antanasia stood tall, hands on her hips, toned legs spread wide, pendulous breasts thrust proudly from her chest.  "You are new in these parts, while I have been here for years."  A wicked smirk, half-grin and half-snarl, curled on her dark red lips.  "I control everyone important in this town."
   
   With a jolt of horror, Rowenna knew it must be true.  Just how deep a lake of trouble she'd dove into sunk in like a punch to the gut.
   
   "Ah, I recognize that face," the ageless vampire purred.  "The look that prey gives you when it understands it has lost and has no way to escape.  The despair that immediately precedes surrender."
   
   Rowenna's face flushed with anger.  Her hands balled into fists.  "I haven't given up yet.  And I never will!"  She stabbed a finger at Antanasia, who remained unmoving twenty feet away.  "I can hurt you, you evil bitch.  I can and will make you suffer before I let you take control of me!"
   
   Amused, Antanasia said, "Honestly, if you had any other talents, you would have used them against me already."  She dropped her arms to her sides and began sauntering towards Rowenna.  "I am not one to toy with my catch before delivering the killing blow, so if you have any surprises left, you are almost out of time."  She took two more steps.  Rowenna tensed.
   
   In the blink of an eye, Antanasia teleported from where she'd been to a mere inch away from Rowenna.  She secured Rowenna's arms, planted her weighty tits onto Rowenna's bosom, and said dismissively, "Pitiful."
   
   A strong heel kicked the back of Rowenna's knees followed by a rough push that sent her sprawling on the thin green carpet.  Antanasia flopped atop her without breaking her fall.  The wind rushed out of Rowenna, who curled up, gasping for air.  Antanasia took advantage of her distress by pinning both of Rowenna's wrists above her head with one hand and using the other to grab her by the hair.  She tugged Rowenna's head to the side, exposing the full length of her neck to her view.  Her mouth drew closer and closer to the blood-filled artery that would give her direct access to the power flowing through her helpless victim.
   
   Rowenna struggled, throwing every bit of strength she could muster into freeing her right arm.  It came loose just in time for her to halt Antanasia by ramming her hand on the woman's forehead and anchoring her elbow on the floor.  The vampire grunted in annoyance and pushed back.  The two writhing females were locked together now.  Legs wrapped around each other in a tight grapevine.  Breasts and stomachs and hot, aroused crotches rubbed roughly in a test of endurance and will.
   
   Slowly, inexorably, Antanasia's fangs grew nearer to their target.  Rowenna's palm had become sweaty and slippery in the heated battle.  Tears formed in the redhead's eyes.  She couldn't stop this woman.  It was only a matter to time before her fate was sealed.  And with it, Kyle's and Auntie Willow's and...
   
   'Everyone in this town' she thought.  She cried out in sudden agony.  Antanasia's head was driving harder and harder into her hand, and her wrist felt ready to shatter.  'Oh, God, please make this stop!' her mind pleaded in anguish.

   'Be at peace,' a voice inside her head said.  A tingling sensation bolstered her arm, stiffening it.  Rowenna felt a familiar presence merging with her body.

   'S- Sondra?'

   A warm calm spread through Rowenna.  Her muscles became refreshed, and even stronger than before.  'You risked your life to release me from my torment.  Allow me to give you a gift in return.'

   'This blood-sucking freak is the source of all our problems.'

   'I know.  But we can beat her, together.'

   Antanasia hissed in frustration.  "Give in, already!"

   Rowenna drew in a deep breath.  As she exhaled, her body rippled, throwing Antanasia to one side.  With surprising ease, she forced the woman's head away from her neck and rolled the two of them over to take the dominant position.

   Antanasia's amazement at Rowenna's sudden strength was brief.  "I smell another spirit here," she spat.  "Whose ghost dares interrupt me?"

   Sondra spoke through Rowenna's mouth.  "Four years late, but I'm here for payback, you bitch!"

   "You," Antanasia snarled in disgust.  "The wife of that real estate developer, the one who wanted to drain one of the few untouched demonic swamps left in this mortal-infested land.  You should be a rotten corpse by now."
   
   Sondra replied, "Not when there's stuck-up whores like you who need to get a smack down laid on them."  Rowenna added, "We both suffered humiliation from your succubus.  Now we're going to give you a taste of your own medicine."
   
   "Are you?"  Rage lit the vampire's face with pale fire.  Antanasia bucked.  Her arms tossed Rowenna up into the air.  She sailed several feet and landed on her rump.  The librarian zipped to her feet with unbelievable speed.
   
   Rowenna rose to confront her.  The bare-chested women huffed at each other, tense and ready wage war.
   
   Antanasia's irritation was plain on her face.  "I see that I will have to subdue you first before I can drink my fill.  No matter.  You will come to understand that awakening my wrath is a terrible mistake."
   
   Rowenna shook her head.  "I'm no longer afraid of you."
   
   "You should be.  I am eminently capable of destroying you sexually, and you have stupidly chosen that as the manner in which your fate will be sealed."
   
   Sondra said, "So says the hussy that sends someone else to do her dirty work.  Getting lazy in your old age?"
   
   "Hah," dismissed Antanasia. "Conquering your body was beneath me, ghost."  Her eyes narrowed at Rowenna.  "This well-built redhead, though much more worthy, will still not present any difficulty."
   
   "You think so?" Rowenna said.  She reached down and slid her panties down her legs.  Kicking them aside, she removed her socks one by one.  Now fully nude, she displayed her gorgeous curves wantonly. 
   
   Sondra's voice joined Rowenna's in unison, "Bring that cxnt over here, bitch, and we'll see."
   
   Antanasia stepped confidently toward Rowenna until the two were an arm's length apart.  "Challenge accepted.  I will wreck that pathetic pussy of yours, and the rest of your inferior body.  You will wish you had never thought to cross me."
   
   Rowenna grinned cattily.  "Tell me, do those lips do anything other than flap uselessly?"
   
   "Fuck you."
   
   "My pleasure."
   
   The naked women strode together like long-separated lovers in the center of the library's foyer.  Tits collided.  Arms wrapped tightly.  Lips met passionately.  Hands tugged at hair, clutched at bare skin, and grabbed ass cheeks to drive their aroused and lust-filled bodies into a firmer embrace.  Their bodies staggered wildly, crashing into a nearby magazine rack, mashing hard into the wall next to the notice board, and spinning towards the front desk.
   
   Two stacks of books and a pile of loose paper were swept from the desk as the nude, amorous females crashed atop it, writhing in ever-building desire.  Their legs entwined.  Their tongues probed each other's mouths ardently.  Their tight hug deepened.  As one, they tumbled off, hit the floor, and rolled vigorously across the thin carpet, kissing and caressing exposed flesh as they went.  They paused, pelvises grinding, chests rubbing roughly for a brief moment, then descended into debauched writhing once more.  The pair of female bodies flopped over and over, attacking one another in lust-driven passion for minute after minute.
   
   Rowenna buried her head in Antanasia's shoulder and let out a long, deep erotic groan.  The seductive sensations this woman was hitting her with were overwhelming.  Her head swam, drunk on sexual arousal.  Sweet fuck, what she was doing felt incredible, like every nerve in her body was being fucked simultaneously.  She poured on her counter-attack, groping an ass cheek with one palm and fondling a firm breast with the other as the pair rolled onto their sides.
   
   Antanasia plowed both hands into Rowenna's heavy boobs, massaging and teasing them with masterful zest.  The vampire's mouth closed on Rowenna's neck, but the redhead jerked backwards.  Antanasia's head dove instead onto the fully aroused nipples pointing straight at her.  Her lips sucked them each in turn, before her strong tongue bent them back and forth mercilessly.  Rowenna tore at the woman's wrists, but couldn't muster the strength to disengage the powerful fingers clawing hard into her sensitive globes.
   
   Instead, she eased the constriction her legs had on Antanasia's and forced the dark-haired woman's thighs open with her knee.  Rowenna's hand brushed past Antanasia's stomach and across the bristly pubic hair below it.  A growl rumbled in the woman's throat as Rowenna's fingers found and parted the moistened folds of her vagina.  Caressing the slick flesh within, she inserted one, then two digits, penetrating and probing ever deeper.  With a start, she felt Antanasia duplicate her maneuver, sending tingles arcing through her spine.
   
   "You think you can dominate me this way?" Antanasia taunted.  The wet sounds of their mutual assault echoed in the deathly quiet air.
   
   Rowenna panted, controlling her arousal.  "Sure do, bitch."  Her palm began smacking roughly against Antanasia's cxnt.  Sondra added, "End of the road, you ancient hag.  We'll make you beg us to stop."
   
   Antanasia snorted.  She thrust three fingers firmly into Rowenna's aching pussy, causing the redhead to shout and moan in surprise. "My need is bottomless.  You will exhaust that mortal body of yours long before you satisfy me."
   
   "We'll see," breathed Rowenna, regaining her composure.  She dragged her hand upward.  Finding Antanasia's stiffened clitoris, she pinched it between her index and middle fingers.  Antanasia twisted involuntarily, then glared hatefully.
   
   Her response was a ruthless bombardment of pleasure on Rowenna's clit.  The redhead's body curled.  Her head nestled against Antanasia's collarbone.  Rowenna lost her concentration and let up on finger-fucking Antanasia until Sondra's spirit stepped in, receiving all of the intense sensations in her stead.  'Thank you,' she thought, ramped up her attack on Antanasia's sex and added in a passionate ravishing of the woman's engorged nipples.
   
   Over three minutes passed with both females delivering whithering onslaughts on their throbbing clits, but to Rowenna it felt much longer.  Antanasia barely seemed bothered, but Rowenna couldn't take it any longer. 
   
   'Sondra, I need to...'
   
   'I know,' the ghost replied and backed off, letting sensation through.
   
   The climax that flooded through Rowenna at that moment wracked her body with convulsive shudders.  "Oh, FUCK!" she screamed.  "Fuck, yes fuck!"  Power surged in her veins.  Antanasia sensed it, and went in for the kill.
   
   'Rowenna,' Sondra's disembodied voice warned, 'hurry, snap out of it, you've got to...'  There was no time.  Sondra took control of Rowenna's free arm, grabbed Antanasia by her short, bobbed hair and yanked hard.  The vampire's sharpened incisors missed by half an inch.
   
   "Meddlesome poltergeist!" Antanasia thundered.  Her head tried to shake the hand buried in her hair as she reset her mouth for another strike.
   
   Rowenna interrupted her, wrapping her legs around Antanasia's hips and spinning the two of them.  Kneeling astride her opponent, she angrily unleashed a furious burst of energy, giving her muscles enough strength to drive the woman's arms to the floor and trap the nude female in a schoolgirl pin.  Antanasia thrashed for a few seconds, then relaxed.
   
   Grinning, Rowenna enjoyed the feeling of Antanasia's pillowy breasts cushioning her big, round ass.  She leaned over her trapped foe and said, "Now that I have your attention, you know what the last words I said to your demon were?"
   
   "I... don't... CARE!"  Antanasia bucked mightily, tossing Rowenna back on her heels.  Both sets of the evil librarian's nails stabbed harshly into Rowenna's sides just above her hip bones.  A freezing cold emanated from where they distended her skin.  Rowenna heard Sondra's spirit shriek in alarm.  Abruptly, the ghost's presence vanished from her mind and her body.
   
   Rowenna howled, "No!"  Her limbs suddenly felt tired, a testament to the help the departed revenant had been supporting her with.
   
   Antanasia wasted no time.  She flung Rowenna onto her back on the chilly tiles, wrenched her legs wide and mounted her, scissored pussy to pussy.  Looming over her prey, she sneered.  "I could feast on you now, but I would rather suck you dry when you are full.  Once I enchant your mind I cannot risk letting you gather any power, so you get to enjoy one last orgasm, my dear.  Make it a good one.  Fill yourself up, for my thirst is ravenous."
   
   Rowenna struggled, but Antanasia's weight and her own fatigue conspired to make escape impossible.  With a sinking dread, she noticed the effects of the strength potion fade away.  The unwearied vampire smiled, baring her fangs, and started tribbing her defenseless pussy.  Grinding and sliding their slick labia together, then adding thrusts, softly at first, but followed by more and more vigorous smacks as seconds ticked into minutes. 
   
   Rowenna held onto her self-control with all her might, trying to think of anything but the quickening slapping of her vulva against Antanasia's in order to stave off the inevitable.  Harder and harder their cxnts fought.  Antanasia's pounding became relentless.  Rowenna twisted her hips to protect her aching clit, but her foe pursued it ferociously.  Moans whimpered in her throat, soon turning into loud, tortured groans.
   
   "Fuck," Rowenna spat in frustration.  "Fuck you!"
   
   "Yes, good.  Cum for me, you little slut.  It will all be over soon."
   
   "N..  No.  Never!"  Something was breaking in Rowenna's mind.  She couldn't... she HAD to...  "I'll nev- OH!  Oh, fuck!  Oh, n..."  Tears welled in Rowenna's eyes.
   
   She surrendered her will to onrushing ecstasy.
   
   It felt like an out-of-body experience.  Like she was an observer watching someone else's naked form wriggle and shake in the throes of an all-encompassing orgasm.  She reached out for something solid, for anything to hold onto as that familiar energy flowing from the source of all life replenished her.  She saw the hungry vampire ride the waves of that current, power pouring into her through the union of her pussy with Rowenna's.
   
   Sondra appeared, floating beside her in the astral space they drifted in.  The ghost took her hand and smiled gently.  'Had to make her think she'd gotten rid of me,' Sondra said into Rowenna's mind.
   
   With a start, Rowenna felt her connection to that great power source she enjoyed during orgasm grow.  Understanding enlightened her in a flash.  The overwhelming energy surging through her came from a truly limitless well.  It was all possible emotions at once, it was all generations through time, it was unstoppable.  All she needed to do was let IT take control.
   
   Rowenna's heart nearly burst with joy.  Sondra nodded.  'It's time,' she said.
   
   Rowenna slid back into full control of her body.  Antanasia was still fucking her.  The vampire's mouth was open now, and beginning to breathe heavily.
   
   "You like sucking people's life force, huh, you nasty cxnt?" Rowenna asked.
   
   Antanasia's massive chest heaved with exertion.  Her face grew confused at how Rowenna could possibly be talking with so little effort.
   
   "Suck on this."
   
   Pure pleasure ripped through both gyrating women in a torrent.  Rowenna came once, then again soon afterwards.  She sensed Antanasia hungrily swallowing every bit of ecstasy Rowenna was giving her.  Undaunted, she raised herself onto her elbows and thrust her pelvis to meet Antanasia's oncoming one.  Sexual gratification erupted in a searing intensity.  Again and again, their dueling cxnts warred with unrelenting vigor.
   
   "That's it," Rowenna panted, "Fuck you.  Fuck your fucking cxnt, you bitch!"
   
   "Low-born whelp!" Antanasia snarled.  "Your inferior cxnt will be mine.  As will everything else you hold dear."
   
   Another climax hit Rowenna's body.  When that concluded, a cascade of three more followed close behind.  And still the lewd sexfight went on.
   
   Rowenna was exhilarated.  She was in a rhythm, matching thrust for thrust and driving unbelievable amounts of pleasure into the other woman.  The thrill of their intimate combat was unlike anything Rowenna had ever dreamed of.  Before now, she'd only drawn enough power to satisfy herself each time she'd hit ecstasy.  It finally dawned on her that directing that energy at who she was fucking gave her access to so much more of it.  Enough to keep her going beyond any limits she thought she had.  So much so that she was tribbing with greater lustiness than Antanasia now, whose pace was flagging.  Rowenna gripped the vampire's thigh to keep her from retreating, and unleashed everything she had.
   
   "I'm going to ruin you, you kidnapping whore!"
   
   "Nnff.  You... you will break f- f- first... Unh!  Nooo!"
   
   Antanasia fell onto her back.  Rowenna didn't let up for a moment.  Wet smacks filled the library as the women's obscene struggle reached a fever peak.
   
   "Yes, take it, you fucking... you fuckkkk...OH!" Rowenna screamed.  An orgasm she hadn't even felt coming sent her dizzy.  At the edge of her hearing, she heard Antanasia's delirious shouts as her pussy also succumbed to the passion their fuckfight had inflicted upon them both.  Exhaustion threatened to make Rowenna pass out.
   
   'Hurry,' Sondra's voice called, 'Now is the time to finish her.  She is vulnerable.'
   
   Antanasia sat up, bewildered as to how a mortal had managed to make her cum.  With what little strength she had left, Rowenna kicked her right in the nose. 
   
   Disbelieving, Antanasia held it, exclaiming, "That... hurt!"  She rose to her knees and dove to tackle Rowenna.  The redhead rolled onto her back, drew her knees to her chest, and arrested the woman's charge by planting her feet on Antanasia's stomach.
   
   'One', thought Rowenna.
   
   'Two', answered Sondra.
   
   'Three', the two chimed together.
   
   With a mighty heave and the last of her reserves of power, Rowenna straightened her legs and launched Antanasia through the air.  The weakened vampire sailed a full thirty feet and slammed into the end cap of the shelves marked "History" where she collapsed into a pile of arms and legs.  Her head drooped, unconscious.
   
   'Hurry,' Sondra urged.  'Get up.  She will regenerate quickly.'
   
   'I'm trying,' complained Rowenna.  Her ravaged, naked figure could barely stand.  She looked around and saw an ornate silver letter opener lying on the floor nearby.
   
   'The doors, Rowenna.'
   
   'What about that-'
   
   'No.  Hurry.  To the doors.'
   
   Antanasia's eyes snapped open, fully alert.
   
   Rowenna turned to face the twin doors that formed the library entrance.  Through the darkened glass above it, she saw what Sondra was trying to tell her.
   
   Rowenna turned back around to see the vampire stirring.  With a confident snark she said, "Those last words I said to your succubus?"  Antanasia rose to her feet, angry and almost recuperated.  Rowenna knew that she could be on her in a flash.  She reached behind her and twisted the door handles.
   
   "They were 'Go to Hell'".
   
   She pushed with all her might.
   
   The portals to the outside world swung wide.  Streaming straight in through them came the brilliant morning sunshine.  Its beams painted Antanasia golden from head to toe.  An unholy wail erupted from her mouth as the pure light of that Sunday dawn exorcised the evil blood that sustained her.  The vampire rapidly deteriorated, skin aging unnaturally fast and falling from her like decaying bark, muscles evaporating, bones crumbling to powder.  In a dozen beats of Rowenna's heart, the creature was nothing but a heap of dust on the carpet.
   
   The doors creaked closed again, bringing the library foyer into relative darkness.  Rowenna leaned against the wall next to the notice board to recover her wits.  Half a minute ticked by on the dial clock that hung above her.  Gradually, she became aware of a glowing light in front of her.  She raised her weary eyes.
   
   Shining a radiant white, Sondra stood in a plain ankle-length gown with her hands outstretched and her palms opened toward her.  "You understand the gift you were given now," she spoke aloud.
   
   Emotion welled in Rowenna's heart.  "Yes.  Oh, thank you, yes.  I... I can't ever repay you."
   
   Sondra smiled.  "You already have."  As Rowenna stared in awe, two glorious silver wings unfurled from Sondra's back and spread out wide.
   
   "I pray that you live a long and happy life," the angel said.  Its wings shook once.  Sondra rose upward, growing more transparent as she went, until she faded through the ceiling.
   
   Large tears dropped from Rowenna's eyes, a potent mixture of sadness and joy.
   
**********

   Half an hour later, after a hurried reunion with Kyle to get him into the clothes Rowenna had brought in the duffel bag, Rowenna drove them both away from town.  Kyle was eager to demonstrate just how randy Rowenna's more voluptuous figure made him, but neither wanted to remain in the library longer than they had to.  At Kyle's quizzical expression upon arriving at the hospital instead of home, Rowenna explained, "There's someone I need to check on."
   
   They were greeted in the lobby by Kyle's doctor, who was arriving for the day.  Kyle agreed let her run a few quick tests and promised Rowenna he'd catch up as soon as he could.
   
   Upstairs, Rowenna sneaked quietly into Auntie Willow's room in case she was sleeping.  Instead, she was fussing with the television remote, unable to find anything she wanted to watch.  Upon seeing Rowenna, she dropped it and cried out in happiness.
   
   "My dear!  So wonderful to see you unharmed."
   
   Showing off the shiner on her cheek, Rowenna said, "Not totally."
   
   "Oh my.  How'd you get that?"
   
   "It's... a long story.  How are you feeling?"
   
   "Well, when I woke up this morning, I felt like a cloud had lifted off my mind.  I suddenly remembered everything.  That... bitch of a librarian!  Excuse my language.  Acting like a lost traveler to get me to invite her in.  Lordy, but she was in a right rage.  She beat the ever-living tar out of me before she even asked me who I was helping against that succubus.  I was careful not to mention you, but she seemed to know all about you as soon as she heard Kyle's name."
   
   "Don't worry.  This town won't have to suffer under her spell any longer.  All of the people she once controlled are now free."
   
   "You... took care of her?"
   
   Rowenna nodded.  "She's gone, forever.  Her succubus, too."  Auntie Willow's mouth fell agape.  "I had help," Rowenna added modestly.  "Sondra Jackson turned out to be quite the ally.  As did the recipe book you let me have."
   
   "You mean, it wasn't full of rubbish?"
   
   Rowenna's face broke out in surprise.  She laughed.  "No, not at all.  Here."  She handed over a water bottle filled with milky liquid.  "For rapid healing of cuts and bruises."
   
   The old woman studied it, impressed.  "When I read the power in your hands, it didn't seem like you had that much, and certainly not enough to be making this sort of thing.  You must be a natural!"
   
   "A natural what?" Kyle's voice boomed as he strode in through the door.
   
   "Auntie Willow, meet my husband.  Kyle, this is the woman I told you about on our way here."
   
   "Ooh," cooed Auntie Willow, pinching one of Kyle's muscular biceps between her fingers.  "I see what all the fuss was about."
   
   "Hey, hey," Kyle jokingly warned, "Rowenna here's got a bit of a possessive streak.  You wouldn't want to get her riled up."
   
   Rowenna blushed.
   
   "Speaking of which," Auntie Willow said, her tone growing serious.  "I've been meaning to talk to you about that.  Word's been traveling through the grapevine about you being..."  She glanced furtively at Kyle.  "...abnormally pushy here at the hospital.  You best be careful.  This is not a town where you want to get a reputation for having anything to do with... well... the occult."
   
   There was a pregnant pause, then Kyle burst out laughing.  "The occult?  What, like my sweet little Rowenna chatting with spirits and demons... or using magic?  That's ridiculous.  Right, honey?"
   
   Rowenna remained silent for a moment, then spoke calmly and confidently.  "Let them talk.  After what I've been through this week, I think I can handle a bunch of gossipy women."  A mischievous smirk crept upon her lips.  "And hey, if any of those busybodies wants to stir up trouble,
   
   "I'll show them just what this witch is capable of."
   
The End

[AhnaFights]

I am fan-girling out!!! This story is amazing!

[Catharsis]

Thank you for the very kind praise.  The sequel to this story has been completed and will be posted soon.

[Wives Fighting]

Thank you for the very kind praise.  The sequel to this story has been completed and will be posted soon.

Oh dear god. this is amazing news. Much as I have loved to see many of your other stories to have sequels, I never expected this story to have a sequel. Wow this is something I will be checking daily from now on. Thank you legendary Catharsis!! I can hardly wait!!