Sisters of Sodom

She pulled one boot off, and immediately a strong scent wafted to her nostrils. The damp interior of the boot had a distinct aroma, part worn leather, part perspiration. It was a heady smell that immediately sent a strange tingle through her body as she drew it into her lungs.

She needed more.

Shaking her head in disbelief, she cursed herself and planted her face straight into the humid foot-hole of the boot, inhaling deeply. The earthen scent overpowered her senses, creating a warm odorous cloud around Eudora's face. When she finally pulled the shoe away, her face was flushed anew, her lips quivering.

The scent was now driving her crazy, and she became singleminded in her desire an even more intimate sample.

She gripped the woman's exposed cotton sock, tearing it from her foot only to find another, slightly moister one underneath. She ripped that one off as well, revealing yet a third layer.

This was the one she wanted. Its striped surface was spotted with deep stains of sweat, especially at the toes, where some ice-water had collected.

She snatched it free from Ayaka, exposing the woman's finely manicured, bare foot to the winter air. With a slow groan, Eudora lifted the sock to her nose, inhaling its powerful, ripe scent. She felt another, stronger tingle that caused her nipples to tighten beneath her breastplate.

Dual feelings of anger and arousal fought within her—anger at herself, for succumbing to this strange and inexplicable proclivity when time was still of the essence. She knew that every second spent indulging in this diversion was affording other Pythonesses, some undoubtedly even more powerful than Ayaka, more time to find the remaining artifacts.

And yet...the scent of this striped fiber was intoxicating. She savored it, breathing it in ravenously, almost hyperventilating with lust.

Then she stuck part of it in her mouth, and began sucking the ice water from the toes, the briny flavor dibbling down her throat. She glanced at the defeated mistress's bare foot again, seeing it twitch slightly, and then she heard a grumble.

"Crap," Eudora mumbled to herself, her face full of sock. "She's still moving?"

Ayaka shifted to her side, moaning, then her left eye slowly crept open. Eudora froze. No, she can't possibly be...the punk Pythoness thought as Ayaka's eye grew wider, first in complete disorientation, then in disbelief.

In that brief moment, Eudora could see that Ayaka was conscious enough to understand what she was looking at. And then the word that graced Eudora's ears prodded her soul like a hot poker:

"I-Iyarashī..."

She didn't know what it meant, but the message was clear. She could see Ayaka's expression of disgust slowly forming. Humiliated, Eudora angrily raised her fist and struck the woman dead in the face.

The woman grumbled, but a creaky, joyless laugh began to tumble from her bloody lips. She'd seen too much, and this knowledge only further enraged Eudora, who hastily struck Ayaka again. Then she reached for the woman's strange club that was laying nearby in the snow. She stood tall and lifted it high above her.

Gathering just enough spiritual energy for her words to translate directly to Eudora, Ayaka hissed,"You perverted mongrel...y-you don't deserve to even touch that mighty kanabo!" The words, delivered raggedly in between piercing hiccups of laughter, caused Eudora to see red.

"Shut up!" the young punk Pythoness shouted in response. She thought to bring this "kanabo," which to her just looked like a oversized baseball bat with fetish studs, down on the woman's skull and shatter it forever.

But then an even darker urge touched her, and she paused, her eyes suddenly flying to the woman's skirt. She grabbed Ayaka by her bare ankle and dragged her wriggling body over to a large log resting prominently at the foot of the hilltop.

The mature Pythoness's laughter trailed off, replaced by a stream of unintelligible, stuporous invective, and finally what sounded like wild, fearful bellows. Ayaka's weakened frame was slung over the log, face down, and then she felt her skirt being yanked up over the small of her back.

Eudora clasped the screaming woman's hips, feeling the bulk of her dense undergarments. She found the hem of Ayaka's thick insulated hosiery, then the elastic band of her underwear. Eudora forcefully yanked them both down to the woman's knees, exposing her bare ass.

Now Eudora the one to laugh, taking in the site of Ayaka's compact, clenching buttocks as goosebumps quickly rose on their surface. "Better hope they have good surgeons in Japan," Eudora taunted with true venom in her voice, and then she spat once on the end of the heavy studded kanabo.

"Nani...?!" Ayaka grumbled, her sharp eyes now full of terror, trying in vain to move her battered body.

Eudora gripped the kanabo with both hands, aimed, and suddenly drove it straight between Ayaka's ass cheeks.

She heard a loud, sickening squish, the sound of stretching flesh, and then a shriek so loud it rattled her eardrums. Blood shot up the length of the kanabo as Eudora forced it up Ayaka's rectum, shoving it so deep that it rammed the bend of her colon.

Amidst Ayaka's agonized shrieks of debasement, Eudora could now be heard laughing maniacally, reveling in this ultimate insult to her foe's dignity. She began violently sodomizing the veteran Pythoness, the resulting cries exciting her, and inspiring her to yet more brutal thrusting.

As she anally assaulted the woman with unbridled, demented glee, feces and yet more blood began to smear along the shaft the large club. Only when Ayaka finally fell silent did she stop.

Unconscious or dead? Eudora didn't care which; in any case, the message had been sent: don't fuck with the great Eudora, or she'll fuck you.

The young girl took a step back, still chuckling evilly to herself as she admired her handiwork. The image she saw was one she wanted all others who might cross her path to see: a defeated veteran Pythoness with her own sacred weapon crammed up her ass.

This log would greet all who came to Aokigahara's spiritual nexus, and upon it, the body of one of Japan's strongest sorceresses, defiled in the basest way possible. I think this should be my signature from now on, she concluded.

It was ultimately a stroke of luck, she realized, that this foe had shown up. With her new victory, Eudora could feel some of Ayaka's power begin to drift free from her still body. It was an essence that, once freed of the cage of the ego, flowed like air. And like air, it could be inhaled and captured by others.

Eudora breathed deeply, drawing these small displaced shards of Ayaka's shattered essence into her own lungs with vampiric relish. Feeling it transferred to her, making her even stronger, more arrogant, more entitled. It was this power that, she knew, would expedite the situation at hand.

The task of uncovering the rest of the nearby treasure was now an easy one; an excavation that might have gone well past sundown was instead accomplished in under an hour.

Chug, chug, chug as the sun finally faded beyond the distant hills. Tossing the dirt-caked shovel aside, she pulled the twinkling treasure free from its deep earthen coffer.

The Giyǣda ring. One of the treasures absolutely crucial to her goal. It bore a gold twin cobra engraving, denoting it as a true relic of her ancient superiors. Its surface appeared untouched by time; it glimmered in the moonlight as she held it aloft.

But there was also one more treasure to claim before she left this place.

Ayaka's sock.

She cringed at her impulse to take it, but she was not in her right mind now, and she found herself picking it back off the ground and pocketing it, to be smelled time and time again in the future.

With a heavy sigh, she took one last look at her "work"—that grotesque image of Ayaka's petit bottom run through with that giant kanabo—and laughed to herself once more.

She then turned and started back down the hill. She didn't need a light to guide her back out of the forest, she knew. All she needed to do was follow the hidden voices of the ancients that beckoned her to her next destination...even as she scoffed at them.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

URBAN FOOTSTEPS

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Eudora took another hot, well-deserved sip of her black coffee and leaned back on her seat. Her lips curled to a satisfied smile; the punk pythoness was feeling uncharacteristically buoyant at the moment, and for more than one reason.

First of all, she was finally back home, and having no more flights booked on her immediate schedule was a very welcome change. For the past few months she'd been flying from one corner of the world to another, with nary a moment to simply enjoy herself. At least not in the passive sense.

She looked around the coffee shop, observing random details—the shabby cut of an old man's jacket, a bug zooming about the ceiling, the distant beep of a dump truck.

Eudora didn't take note of these things in the usual calculating, tactical way that she'd been trained to. She simply let them come and go, suppressing any paranoid urges that might ruin her little mood. Trying to remember what relaxing meant. It was getting harder every day.

Even this moment wasn't entirely without clear purpose, however. This "stopping to smell the roses" pretense was just a form of momentary procrastination; she needed a mental break before she delved back into the work laid before her. Piles of dense notes and torn pages lay scattered on the table in front of her, awaiting deeper investigation.

Eudora had never really liked franchise shops, and this place was no exception. Everything about it, from the punny name of each beverage, to the bland furniture and sterile decorations, reeked of mundanity. It just so happened that this particular place was close to her apartment, and its personnel was agreeable.

Most importantly, its size only allowed for about a dozen customers at a time, which was something she really appreciated—especially when she was sitting there reading about ancient artifacts and powers unknown to common folk.

The documents and notes she were reading were the latest results of much independent research on her part. Although poring over them was a bit of a bore, they detailed the whereabouts of another artifact, supposedly located somewhere in Norway of all places.

"Fuck, why does this have to be so complicated?" Eudora bitched to herself. It was then that her attention was drawn to her left, in the direction of the entrance door.

A girl had just walked in, some short hipster chick wearing a blue plaid shirt under a ragged brown coat. Not an unusual sight in a place like this, but this stranger was walking very slowly, as if showing off, while closing the distance between her and Eudora.

This moment gave the punk pythoness more than enough time to stare at the girl's whole figure. At first she did it for the same reason she stared at flies on the ceiling. Yet as her glance turned to a stare, the mere shirking of research duties didn't seem a sufficient excuse for why her eyes followed the girl so intently.

"Is she doing this on purpose?" Eudora asked herself as she felt her breathing slow down. Eager to know more, she focused on the girl's every movement, searching for clues. Before she knew it, the punk pythoness was pretty much fixated on this newcomer.

The girl had a white wool cap on, from which salon-fresh chestnut hair sprouted down to her shoulders. She wore oversized non-prescription glasses, that trendy trademark Eudora hated so much. And she sported spare but artful makeup, nothing comparable to the heavy black Cleopatra eyeliner Eudora was so fond of.

As expected, most of the girl's outfit choices had been made to pretend she was penniless, but a more careful observation would obviously disprove that—from her leather wristbands to her torn purple skinny jeans, everything felt fake.

"Ugh. Fuckin' little pretentious..." Eudora started to comment just when the sight of the girl's footwear made her pause.

The hipster chick was wearing some battered custom Vans, with multicolored socks just barely visible at the low-cut ankles. Without even thinking, Eudora began to intensely scan the crevasses of the girl's clothing, her mind raced to strange, moist thoughts.

Just then, the girl took seat right in front of Eudora.

A big plastic smile sat on her pixieish face as she introduced herself. "Hello, Eudora! My name is Hailey, and I'm such a great fan."

That the girl already knew her name was one thing, but the unmistakable mockery in her tone was what really alerted Eudora to a possible threat. She quickly deducted that she was facing another fucking pythoness. But before Eudora could decide a course of action, Hailey continued.

"No need to get all bent out of shape. It's such a warm, peaceful day, after all. And it's been fun keeping an eye on you..."

Eudora's pierced lips curled a bit—she knew other witches had begun to fear her powers by now, but had it already escalated to the point where they were sending scouts ahead of them like the fucking Mafia?

Feeling more confident and arrogant than ever, Eudora leaned forward and locked eyes with the girl. "So, what the fuck do you want from me? Tickets for one of those faggot bands you hipsters masturbate to?"

Hailey did not flinch at this provocation. "Gosh, language! Actually, it's funny that you'd use a slur like that so casually," the hipster said with a soft smile, "considering you dress like a dude, and clearly have a thing for other women." She leaned forward challengingly, then tapped her chin as if devising something.

"So some asshole sent you here to annoy me to death?" Eudora said scowlingly.

"Naw, don't be sillypants Eudora. I came here to make a deal."

Eudora said nothing, waiting to hear the girl's inevitably lame pitch.

"See, I really want what you have there," Hailey continued, fingering the most prominent notebook on the table. It was a thick leather-bound pad full of incredibly rare scraps of text, maps, and diagrams, as well as Eudora's own hard-fought annotations.

The hipster girl's tone remained gratingly playful and overly amused as she added, "And I am sure...I have something you want, as well."

"I don't what the hell you're talking about, but you'd better go back your trust fund loft and leave me the fuck alone," Eudora whispered grimly, leaning forward in her seat and giving the girl her sternest glance. It seemed to have zero effect on Hailey, whose smile only grew wider.

"Now, now. No need to be uncivil, y'know. I was just gonna tell you about my day, and see if anything about it interested you. Y'know, I woke up bright and early this morning, did some yoga, then made it down to the airport just in time to catch you getting off your flight..."

"Oh yeah?" Eudora said monotonously, trying to sound as disinterested and incredulous as humanly possible.

"Yeah! But y'know, it's weird that you didn't just take a cab or train home. Did you really have to walk?"

"It's called exercise," Eudora said. "Try it sometime, it's even better than yoga."

"Oh, you! Well yeah, I guess you'd probably want to use your legs after sitting on an airplane for fourteen hours. Forgot about that—"

"You know what else you forgot?" Eudora interrupted. "That I can kill you, instantly. You're not getting this book. Begone."

"Hmm, not sure about that whole killing me instantly part...but point taken. All I really wanted to tell you was that following you here meant that I had to step on all those grimy sidewalks...and the trip really made my tender lil' toes very, very clammy..."

The way she deliberately weighted those last words sent shivers down Eudora's spine, awakening a feeling she had suppressed since that incident back in Japan.

Hailey did not look surprised, continuing, "Ah, you probably think I'm a pythoness, don't you?"

"Either that or a failing performance artist," Eudora grumbled.

"Well, I suppose I am an honorary witch by proxy, but I have no powers of my own, so there's no need to worry about me zapping you in plain daylight. I just run errands for a certain someone, and she's immensely interested in you."

Eudora's thick eyebrows twitched slightly. This girl seemed to know just the right cadence, and just the right details, to hook her. But how did this "Hailey" know about her...interest?

"Who sent you?" Eudora demanded, suddenly clasping her coffee mug so tightly that it was close to breaking.

"Like I said, just a certain someone. Don't worry about that just now, you feisty anarchist you! Just remember what I said. I've been with you every step since you got here, and since I haven't have the luxury of a second shower today, my feet are probably much sweatier than yours. In fact," Hailey said with a chirpy rise in her voice, "I was thinking I need a change of socks."

"What?"

"That's what," Hailey replied, pointing her dainty finger towards the large corporate chain store that Eudora distinctly remembered used to be a local dive bar. "It's a good thing that clothing store is right across the street..."

"Knock yourself out," Eudora said with an actorly yawn. She snatched up her notebook and held it in her lap just in case the girl tried any swift moves. Hailey seemed to have no such thing on her mind, however, and she simply stood up in profile, displaying the perfect arc of her little bubble butt as it strained against her designer jeans. She then turned and looked down at Eudora.

"Knock myself out? Oh, my feet may pick up a strong scent from a long walk, but they're not that bad," Hailey joked, then laughed, despite the fact that this did not seem to tickle Eudora in the slightest. It did, however, subtly arouse the punk pythoness, something which came through clearly despite the facade of icy indifference surrounding her.

"Well Eudora, I'll be buying a fresh pair of socks over there. You can help me pick them out if you want. And maybe watch me try them on, in the changing stall..."

Against her true feelings, Eudora forced herself to laugh at the idea. "Whatever, skank. If this is what pythonesses are resorting to in order to get ahead of me, I must really be doing well. Now do me a favor and piss off before I turn you into a frog."

"A frog? Wow! I actually love frogs, so that would be kinda awesome!" Hailey said without a care in the world. She knew full well that such high sorcery was still beyond the abilities of even the strongest pythonesses; only one who attained every last artifact could even dream of being able to transmogrify people into animals at will like in the storybooks. She spun on the heel of her colorful Vans in a dancelike manner and skipped out the door, humming to herself.

Eudora remained planted in her seat as she watched the girl leave. Of course, every fiber of her being knew this was a setup. It was so blatantly obvious, so stupidly simple, that it felt like something only child would devise. And there was indeed something childish about this "Hailey," who seemed gloriously unaware of just how dangerous Eudora could be.

But even this, the punk pythoness knew, was probably part of the illusion. And yet, she could not understand why she found herself placing her notebook in her backpack, and standing up. It was as if her body was moving of its own volition.

She could stop herself, sure, but doing so seemed harder to do than usual, the way it sometimes did when was drunk or anxious. In a way, she was a little bit of both—drunk on the damp, heady thoughts that this girl had just planted in her mind, and anxious with the realization that a palpable slickness had begun to generate from between her legs.