Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

"YOU KNOW THIS orange-haired bitch?"

Rafel's smile was addictive. "Aye, Corazón. This Orange-haired bitch is PEITHO: my Subservient Infernal System."

Cora freed her choking hands immediately. "This is the bitch inside your head? All up in your business?

"GODDAMN! Woman!" Cora entertained herself at the girl's obvious displeasure. "—I thought she'd be ...slimmer. Some nerd archetype."

"Actually, it's a stereotype, Lady Mortimer. And I'm sure you mean well but you're a woman too." Peitho said this to the intensity of the taller tomboy's river eyes—and Rafel could almost spot the bridge of Cora's nose twitch. Another storm spell might be expected soon so he put himself in front of the situation. Because he would be the first to admit Peitho was not slim. She had them curves. Dang! She was an Egyptian beauty; her hips not as out pronounced as his slave's, but then again, they didn't lie.

She must have been quite the rocker in her time—'whenever' that was, he admitted to his brain. Come to think of it, back when she'd been just a country girl's slur in his head she did mention a thing about being trapped in there. . .in the [Altered Space] or some stuff.

Back then, who cared? He was just an adventurous flaming soul with a gigantic entire planet of horned pricks as his home and more than a fair share of virility.

He DID NOT think he'd ever meet with the sugar voice. Coupled with the fact that Peitho had always acted like she wasn't real. Not really anyway—more of a gentle hyper-mentality girlfriend he couldn't fuck. Plus she did all the stuff with his [Mana Core], augmenting his Influence, abilities, souls eaten, and such and such. He hadn't even considered what a System really meant or if anyone but him had one. He knew powerful Hel regents like his Uncles and his girlfriend's murdering dad had Familiars and [Straysouls] but he really doubted even they had a PEITHO.

She seemed a higher immaterial being.

—omniscient, spiritual, infinite, borderline transcendent.

In his head he did liken her to a really hot virtual librarian babe.

It had never ceased to be a fond thought of his. But now he could touch her. And he did.

His left hand moved for her incomparable orange curls. She was a woman with a big hair. Nice! He'd never had a girl with an Afro—a white chick with an Afro. Yeah! Imagine that shit.

[I'm not white, Lord host.]

Rafel's fingers slowed in her fine hair. His yellow eyes skated her form, perching on her own stare too. Those orbs – she reminded him of Rosamunde: young miss Spears, who had been his exotic islandic chica. More than the relatable pinewood eyes, soft and colored like the beach, she also had the verisimilitude of Rosa's genius allure. Howbeit where Rosamunde had being all Trenchcoat-wearing detective, the girl before him was spectacle-wearing bookkeeper.

Since he'd seen the wonder of the Autumn Angel, the Sprite of reincarnation, solace of a thousand souls, nothing surprised him. But he did pause when he heard her voice in his head—that addictive Elizabethan lilt. He asked of her, aloud, "you can still talk in my head?"

The other girls heard and their eyebrows raised.

"Yes, Lord host." Peitho replied dutifully. "We shall always ever be connected, despite my Ascendance. I am yours." She lady-dipped with a bow. And for his ears only she added:

[Don't tell, but I am of Afrikaan blood.]

He shared her a sacred smile.

"Are you talking in his head again?" Aya was excited when she said this. But when Cora recited the exact same words it had the opposite intention—which was not lost on anyone in the room: "yeah? ARE YOU TALKING IN HIS HEAD AGAIN?" Peitho glanced her way but just as soon turned her eyes back to Rafel—his warm hand on her cheek, leaning into it. She whispered, "Lord host, I—"

"Hey!" Cora snapped her fingers in front of her face. "I'm talking to you, sugar mama."

"Lady Mortimer," she began.

"Quite calling me that."

"I'm afraid I can't, missus. You will always be my Lady. Any consort of my Lord Host is held in utmost regard. So I'm afraid miss, you shall be addressed as Lady Corazón till my last breath, as is the will of Lord host."

Peitho's meek words calmed the fire in Cora's eyes. Even her couldn't deny that this Afro-rocking posh nerd chick still had the silver tongue. Cora leaned back on one heel and tried to look indifferent. Peitho continued, "I can't relate how happy I am—honored to be here. But first things first..."

She looked around, blushing, "...you all are still clad in birthday suits."

Rafel dropped his hand. And Peitho hurried to fetch instant garments, for each one of them. Rafel was severely impressed. As Peitho tossed the girls kimonos and brought him a bathrobe—cause it was the only thing in nearsight that would fit—Aya chuckled. "My my! Birthday suit she calls it? We have got an unplucked one on our hands."

Cora plopped back on the big sofa. She stared Peitho down as the colored woman avoided their dressing with her cocoa eyes. "More like un-plugged."

"Ha!" Ravenna and Aya sniggered.

The three lovely girls made space for Rafel to settle in their midst—in his gray bathrobe. Peitho hopped on her heel and played with her fingers until they were all settled in. "Okay, let's try this again..."

"Uh, darlin'," Ravenna offered politely, meaning no offense, "you're wet."

Cora snorted. Peitho blushed again, hotly. She looked on her clothes—damped in a hundred bottles of red wine. She smelled the vigor of probably several ten thousand Eldorian hard currency. "Sorry about that." She moved her head back. And in just one flippant move, a gust of air dried up all of her clothes—less than a second. One word: magic. One more time Rafel wasn't surprised, but impressed. His system got moves. Ravenna nodded playfully. "Okay girl!"

Peitho smiled and pulled on her fashionable magenta top. She looked even more expensive than the wine Cora had splurged all over her. And the clothes weren't the kind you could find this side of the Continent. She adjusted her round-rimmed glasses—standing like she was before a table of judges to begin a hot Musical, her formal introduction rolled out in most wonderful diction. In the bourgeoisie space of Vinta Plusia, the grandé chamber, it wasn't ironic to call her voice a melody.

"Lord host, my Ladies, shall I begin with my person. I humbly am SUBSERVIENCE, system of the Apollyon, His Eminence. He, in his gracious wisdom, first called me Peitho."

"So your name isn't Peitho?" Cora's nagging tune came off Rafel's shoulder where her wonderful blonde head rested.

"Oh no it is, my Lady. Alas, 'tis uncommon in this era and kingdom, as my life wasn't lived in this time but under the disposition of the fallen days of Gomorrah. Our kind did dwell amongst the Situv, Mayan, Canaanites, the children of Bel and Oolyohemnua, and the glorious Akkadians. But when from the heavens gushed forth the waves of fire and the skies broke asunder like volcanoes on the rise, my encampment I had to flee. And I was imprisoned, by my own hand—in the alternate reality: the last hope of a world bathed in [Atomos], the living fiery tongue of the Martyr.

In those days, the cowled god was vengeful. He wrecked his lands with unforgiving fire and did not hate to see the pillars of ash blow in the nuclear winds... dusts of his sinful heritage."

"That's what you meant when you said you had been caged?" came the deep rumble.

Peitho nodded to the ruddy hellion. "Yes, Lord Host. You, Sir Israfel Blüdthirste, seventh of the Morningstar are my one and only Host." She then read his mind clearly as if she was still in it, "and no, Lord host, I am not a parasite. Not a hive mind neither. I am EVOLVED INTELLIGENCE. A higher Spectre of genius mind that clearly rises with the will and [Prowess] of her Host. I only reached Optimum for [Ascendance] because of you, Lord host.

"I have scoured lands and times, encountered parallel realities and profane gods. One world of sky-high glass castles, a Statue of Liberty and unnatural clothing. Another steeped in Vines and swamp, ruled by cruel Urzkataga, battles fought between hairy men and dinosaurs.

"I know well the hands of time."

Peitho blinked behind her large glasses. Her very pink lips held a healing smile.

"Lady Mortimer, you should know I adore all concubines of my Host. . .more than the wife of King Tchtamek." She finished.

"Lady? I'd prefer if you called me boy." Cora leaned back on her hands. "—lady sounds dainty and I, sugar mama am not dainty. But scratch that, back to what you said earlier, what is Ascendance?"

Peitho stepped closer to the four. "Ascendance..." her honey voice slushed like a member of an exclusive sex club, "is the complete will of the Host and fulfillment of the system. I above all desire to submit to my Lord, in every way thinkable. I have his mind and now—"

"You want his body." Ravenna stood.

"I didn't quite say that, Your Majesty." She avoided Ravenna's emerald gaze as the young Empress walked like a swan to the gilded windows. Vinta Plusia was very spacious. Yet Peitho's voice still flowed like poured millk. "Apologies, Empyrean if it sounded forward of me. But I only seek to serve my Host as much as he would let me. I seek not the wrath of his heavenly mistresses." Her dark eyes said otherwise. "And I AM DEEPLY SORRY, Lord Host, for the sudden migraine. There's always the risk of headaches in the transference between realities."

"Ascendance." Aya commented intelligently.

"Yes, Lady Naamah." Peitho smiled her way. Of all her Host's mistresses, the curly-haired sukky was the one who received her best.

Ravenna, balanced at luminous windowsill, playing with a dancing curtain said, "for a Greek deity you are quite aesthetic."

"If I am to be placed in such, Empyrean, I was first Numidian and Sumer before Hellene. And my clothes are from the world with the Statue of Liberty of which I spoke." She traced the fine threads of her jacket sleeves. "It's called a lady suit."

Cora was about to throw her a curve about the pants getting in her asscrack—Peitho suddenly jumped. "Lord Host is hungry."

Then she ran off, right out the door, calling on the first maid she laid eyes on as if the castle were her own. At the close of the chamber, Cora told Rafel bluntly, "I don't like it." He took her hand. "Aren't you the one calling her sugar mama? You didn't like Ravenna at first either, remember." He took them all seasons past to Emberfall. "Come here," he instructed. And Aya dived straight into his lap, plopping her fat ass. Rafel smirked and waited on Ravenna with an outstretched hand. "My queen?"

Gently, she strolled into the circle of his arms. He said to them, "Peitho is my System. We are platonic. Work it out with her, that's an order."

Peitho burst in before the breakfast. Her brown eyes landed on Rafel and his chicks. Before he could say zilch about the food—

[Ding!]

[RIDERS AT 1500 Metres.]

"What is it now, sugar mama?" Cora piped—who could not hear Peitho's voice but could clearly see her wide hazel eyes and big orange Afro. Peitho didn't need say the words aloud for the city's bells began tolling loud. Cora rolled her eyes as Aya moaned. "I guess Breakfast in Bed is off then—fuck. He just got here people! A little us-time isn't cruel to ask." She cussed again and fell on the bed, grabbing pillows "—fuuuuuck!"

The bells kept tolling.