He unbuckled himself and stood up. At least there was artificial gravity in this escape pod. He went over to Joanne, who was slumped in a seat two rows behind. She had opened her eyes. Her gaze was clear as she looked out of the window. Jeff leaned over her.
“We’re in space,” she said.
“Yes, we got away. We made it, and we’re on our way to Earth.”
“That bright explosion just now. Was that the black ship?”
Jeff nodded. “Yes, it’s been destroyed.” He forced himself to smile. “Everything’s going to be OK. How do you feel?”
“Not too bad. I’d like to get up. Can you undo my belt?”
“I think you should rest a bit more.”
“Please,” she implored.
Jeff sighed and leaned forward to undo her belt.
From the corner of his eye he saw Joanne raise her arm but thought nothing of it.
Pain exploded through his temple and he blacked out.
35.
Jeff regained consciousness, groaning. His head hurt so badly, he thought it would break into a thousand pieces at any moment. He had to force himself to open his eyes.
“You’ve woken up,” he heard Joanne’s voice somewhere behind him. He wanted to turn around but couldn’t. He was shackled to the seat in front of the window, where Joanne had just been sitting. His arms were tied to the armrest with thin straps. His feet were hanging freely above the floor, but they were tied together at the ankles.
Joanne came into his field of vision from the right-hand side. She was grinning. But he could see immediately that it wasn’t Joanne’s grin. The demon had taken off her combat suit, she was wearing only a white top and skimpy white panties.
“You’re still alive!” Jeff said. He couldn’t believe it.
“Yes. I’m surprised myself that it worked,” said the demon. “It seemed that the prospect of death helped my consciousness make the leap to her body.”
“But the shield in Joanne’s suit—”
The demon gave a dismissive wave. “Green broke that already. It was the only way to take possession of her. Worked with Owl, too.” He chuckled. “And you dimwits didn’t notice a thing.”
Jeff jerked forward but the restraints were too tight.
“Don’t even try.” the demon said. “You don’t stand a chance.” He laughed, and globules of spit landed on Jeff’s face. “In the end, I won after all.”
“But the ship is destroyed.”
Joanne’s body shrugged. “But now I have a nice new, young body. That’s worth something.” The demon ran a hand over Joanne’s breasts.
“Do you want to know what I’m going to do?” the demon asked. He didn’t wait for Jeff to respond. “I will go to Earth and take over your Emperor. He’ll soon develop a few new hobbies. In the cellar of his palace there’s plenty of room for a nice dungeon, full of nice toys. It was starting to get a bit boring on the ship anyway.”
“You’re gross,” Jeff hissed.
“You’re repeating yourself,” the demon said, rubbing between his legs with Joanne’s left hand. In the other, he was holding a slender knife with a black handle. “That’s a nice feeling. I never did understand human sexuality. My former body didn’t have anything like this. We still have a little time till we get to Earth. Maybe we can use it to experiment a little.” He came nearer and sat down on Jeff’s lap. “I could ride you. That way it’s enjoyable for both of us. Oh yes, let’s do that.” Then he raised his other arm and examined the knife. “And while we do it, I’ll slowly slit you open and keep on riding you till you’re dead. What do you think of that?”
Jeff’s eyes narrowed to slits. He didn’t answer.
“It was almost too easy.”
“What do you mean?” Jeff couldn’t stop himself from asking.
“After I took over Green, it was no problem killing the others. I didn’t actually want to bring you to the center of the ship, I just wanted to have a little fun. Green was supposed to kill you all, one by one, like he did Fields and Irons.”
“You were lucky that Green’s deflective shield was broken.”
Joanne shrugged. “I only found out about your protection fairly late. I’d been wondering why I couldn’t take over any of you. I tried it with you, too.”
The headaches he’d had—that they’d all had! It had been the demon’s unsuccessful attempts to possess them.
“And then you pretended to be the computer. A clever idea.”
“Yes—that was a lot of fun. Improv theatre, so to speak. But some of Irons’ questions got me into a bit of a sweat.”
“And who put the food outside the door?”
Joanne laughed loudly. “That was particularly amusing. I sent one of the ship’s avatars and dissolved it as soon as it had knocked on the door. You should have seen your faces!”
Jeff shivered as Joanne’s hand caressed his face almost tenderly.
“Actually I wanted to kill you and not Irons that night. But when the Major told you about the codes on the device, I changed my plans.”
“You were listening in?”
“Of course! I heard every word you spoke.”
Jeff shook his head. “Then why didn’t you kill me and have the Major bring the handheld to the center of the ship?”
“Irons was too stubborn for me. He might have destroyed the thing too soon.”
“So why didn’t you just kill me later and have Green bring you the device with my finger? You didn’t know about the password any more than I did.”
Joanne nodded eagerly. “That’s true. I didn’t know. But I thought I could turn it into a nice little game and kill you all, one by one, until only you were left. The fact that you guessed the password was a stroke of luck. I never would have thought of it myself. But it was fun, wasn’t it?” The demon moved his face even closer, so that Jeff could smell Joanne’s breath. He needed all the willpower he could muster not to turn his head to the side.
“Then you sabotaged Owl’s and Joanne’s suits,” he said.
“Yes, that was easy. All I had to do was break the connections to the shields and then I was able break their spirits.”
There were no bounds to this creature’s evil!
But he had to keep him talking until he came up with an idea. His mind was racing. “One more thing—in the first cavity we found the bones in the mass grave. Were they from the avatars?”
The demon shook his head. “Those were real humans. I didn’t put all of them in cryogenic pods. I took some of them straight to the cavitys to experiment with them. But it wasn’t much fun because they broke too quickly. It’s more fun to slowly destroy the soul than to quickly break the body.”
Joanne stroked his cheeks again. “But now we’ve chatted enough. Let’s finally have some fun.” The demon leaned over him and before Jeff could react, kissed him on the mouth. He could feel Joanne’s tongue on his lips, which he pressed together as tightly as he could.
Finally the demon laughed, pulled back his head, and stood up. He went to the back of the capsule and rummaged around in a compartment. “Of course, we need protection. You always need to protect yourself during sex, that’s what I’ve learned.” He chuckled and returned to Jeff. In his hand he was holding a thin, silver metal cylinder that looked like a pen.
“What’s that?” Jeff asked as his heart started to beat faster.
“Just something to help you relax. So that I can take off your suit more easily. Don’t worry, you won’t be completely unconscious. You’ll still be able to enjoy the sex. I promise you: it will be the best sex you’ve ever had!” He cackled as he approached Jeff’s face with the syringe.
Jeff looked down at his bound feet and then at the window, which was literally right in front of him. He had an idea. His suit was deactivated, so he couldn’t save himself, but if it worked, at least the demon would be destroyed once and for all. And he wouldn’t have to be the demon’s sexual plaything. He had only one chance. He was running out of time.