Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

"HOW LONG DO YOU THINK they have being here, exactly that way?"

"Five hundred years, give or take." Rosa replied Aya. "To think they buried themselves in with her is a cause for both worry and faith. I don't know which is best to consider. One on end, I admire the monks decision to commit life and death. On the other end, it's pretty stupid to suffocate to death for one who is already gone. I wonder what they were thinking in the final moments of their death."

"—probably that their knees hurt so much," said Rafel, and everyone laughed.

"Ugh! Please can we get to the sarcophagus. The air is ripe."

Ravenna held up a gloved hand to her nose. Sekhmet admired her etiquette a moment. The young lady was often randy in her ways, not boyish, just wild. Lifting the lid on the jewelled tomb showed the others just how much [Divine] strength Sekhmet had coursing through her veins.

She tossed the hard granite and silver like a paper weight. Everyone peered in.

"Good God!" Rosa exclaimed. "In all my life, I have never seen such a beautiful mummy."

Rafel would've laughed, but he too was perplexed. The body of Tomasina was in perfect animated state. Not even a speck of dust on her shined forehead. She had pure, porcelain skin, and she was a brunette; her waves of dark brown still in a tidy coiffure of the homely fashion common in her century. She was like she lived—and was half expected to open her eyes any second.

She didn't.

Tomasina was dead as a doornail, but looked like sleeping beauty.

Unlike her abbots, her skin wasn't gray or wrinkled, and she smelled like the eternal moonflowers at the sides of her sarcophagus, buried with her. She had a garland of peach petals in her hair. Her hands were folded over her belly. Her gown was long and white; it did out the toes. And her ghostly face seemed like she was about to smile.

In her hands was a staff of pure gold. . .and the Book.

"Hah! Finally! I'm sorry, Saint Tomasina, but we'll be needing this. Thank you!" Ravenna gingerly raised the dead girl's hands, plucking the long, leathery tome underneath. "Is there a ritual to this thing?" She looked around.

Everyone's gaze landed square on Rosa.

"What? Oh, because I'm the Detective? I have all the answers now?" Rosamunde chimed. They all kept staring. "I don't know," she quickly added. "We found the Book together, you know.

I'M AS INTRIGUED AS YOU ARE."

Ravenna was flipping through the empty pages. She said, "you sure this is the GREAT and MYSTERY Book of Souls? The pages are blank. There are no words. No fucking symbols either!"

"That's because you aren't a demon." Rafel's dark voice echoed in the dank tomb. "You do not trade in souls."

Sekhmet tipped her head to Rafel. "Do not be rude, Ravenna. Give the book to His Eminence."

Aya Naamah held the ball of light closer, the glow illuminating their faces in sinister cast. Ravenna did as instructed, bowing, "I'm sorry, my liege. I've forgotten myself to discovery. Here you go." She held out both hand, offering the Book of Souls. Aside the unnatural heaviness, the tome seemed like any other library book.

Rafel collected the book but didn't open it.

He said aloud, "I promised a certain fair Detective I wouldn't use the Book until I was strong enough. My nurse hasn't cleared me yet." He smiled, and Sekhmet blushed. All the women returned it. He had a contagious spirit. "Come on! Let's leave the Saint to get rest.

The land of the living is above and waiting. We got what we need."

The girls took his arms in Chaperone fashion. Aya led in front, her glowing lamp rising to dangle ahead and light the way. Once outside the tomb, the wide stone wall grated closed again. Ravenna blinked at the sudden afternoon light.

"Geez! I'm hungry. Can we get something to eat?"

Sekhmet chuckled. "We can forage around the compound. Do not forget; the islands are magic. It will provide food. I did spy a certain wild goat herd on our way over here yesterday. We'll have ourselves a small feast to celebrate our discovery."

[🎶 Hangover – Taio Cruz ft. Flo Rida.]

An hour later, Rafel clinked glasses with Rosa who turned next to Sekhmet. The Detective toasted, "To finding lost tombs, and animate saints!"

"Hear! Hear!" The others raised the goblets to attend, smiling and cheering. In their midst sat the Book of Souls. The hardback was an eerie shade of gray scale that looked ripped right off a crocodile's back, but both Rafel and Sekhmet, and Ravenna and Rosa had seen their fair share of weird.

Since they had brought no glasses in, they gathered the gold chalices Ravenna had scooped from an inner sanctum.

Rosamunde was skeptical at first, "By the Martyr! Have you no fear of the holy?" She'd gaped, when the emerald-eyed beauty had first run out with the chalices. Ravenna had responded by chuckling. "I do, but it gives far more pleasure to be naughty. We are not stealing them, just borrowing. .

."

Now, as they all sat on the grayish smooth Drekya floors, a little away from their makeshift sleeping area in the main halls of devotion, the clutter of plates and pans went echoing into the solemnity of the chapel as Sekhmet served vegetable rice with a ladle and Rosa cut up the roast. Blue, the [Guardian] wolf sat in his corner, wagging his tail and expecting a fat slice.

Sekhmet's dart had barely sunk into the belly of a wild goat before Blue was upon it's neck, draining out the remaining life. The rest was history—for the poor goat.

"I can help," Rafel said.

His nurse sent him the slitted crimson stare she reserved for those time when he tried to be macho and do everything by himself. "—but you will not. That's why you have us, and last I checked, we're not complaining."

Ravenna sniggered with her face turned away. Very few women could let Rafel have it; Cora was one of them. Her leafy eyes lit up. "I have an idea. I'll be back." She took the last gulp of her chalice, draining the communion wine—she had also stolen a few bottles during her quick detour to the sanctum. She rose and vanished among the pews, rounding a corner behind a great stone arch.

Rafel called after her, "do not stray too far, Little Raven. The Abbey might be empty, but who knows what other traps these fanatic monks might have laid. By the way, this communion wine tastes far better than I'd thought it would, considering."

Rosamunde laughed. "Really? You spite the holy and pure that much."

"I do not spite the holy and pure. Infact, I admire the Faith." He leaned in so his gilded eyes danced close to her cheeks. Her lips quivered. "I think you of all people, Detective, know all about that."

Sekhmet smiled at his winking. Rosa was resisting, or at least trying to.

"If you weren't such a beautiful man. . ." His nurse drew near. "Food is served."

Their late lunch was full of shared laughs and quiet arousal. All the women had eyes for Rafel. The top buttons of his Adventurer shirt were open; his light skin dazzled thought, and his silviér [Explorer Doublet] which was priceless as a cut diamond and cost fifteen hundred gold in the Arcane Shop hung off the back of the pew closest to him.

And the woman at his side, so pretty and perfect she was a Dreamworld fantasy, rocked ever so softly into him. Sekhmet had changed into plain tribal wrappers customary among Islanders. Her breasts were more rounded and peaky in the maroon bustier. It gave no room for a bra.

If one hooked a single finger in her cleavage and pulled just a bit, every beautiful generous flesh of her would come spilling out.

As for her matronly hips and Abba-esque thighs, the wrapper could not keep it hidden. Her assets played with the eyes, teasing, and corrupting. They all caught peeks from the narrow slit reaching up to her left hip and hints in her body movement. Her curves were beyond this world. Her skin was as handfuls of the sun at dusk, spills of light too buxomy and ripe to look away.

This superhot, gorgeous body of hers was pressing in mounds to Rafel's divine hardness.

When one looked at them, it was impossible not to think of sex; to imagine them together, the friction of his gold virility pounding her wanton flesh.

Aya and Rosa indulged their eyes to the fullest.

Blue was appreciatively cracking down bones tossed to him when Ravenna appeared again from the side arch. She walked out with her hands behind her back. And when Rosa's pupils widened at the mystery, she produced from her back a lute.

Gently, she held it out to Rafel.

"For mi'lord," she said. Rafel noticed her accent was thicker when she was showing emotion. "Look what I found. Play us something, will you? Please?"

Rafel shook his head, but Sekhmet had already taken the bait.

"You play the guitar?"

"I dabble." Rafel avoided her bright eyes.

Aya giggled. "Oh, posh! He's being cute. He plays the piano too. He's. .

.really good with his hands."

All the women shared a look, and as Rafel bent his head they burst out laughing.

"—ha! Oh my God! I haven't laughed this hard since that party Dionysus threw back a century. You guys are amazing company. Well, go on, Apollyon, play us a song!" Sekhmet urged him with her eyes. In the face of four breathtaking babes, who was he to refuse?

Rafel licked his lips and collected the fine guitar Ravenna handed out. It was an exquisite make; a Spaniard treasure, with lively gold strings. He tuned and plucked one, and the ladies drew closer.

"If I play, you have to dance."

"We will, my Lord," Aya couldn't contain her smile.

Rafel started a high spirit folk tune they all knew too well, and in seconds, he had the girls jumping on the feet, gigging and wiggling hips to every belt of his baritone and strum of his fine guitar. They sang with him:

"O'er the hills, the squirrels play. O'er the trees, the bluebirds sing! And we'll be coming 'round the mountain side. . . WE'LL BE COMING 'ROUND THE MOUNTAIN WHEN WE COME!

WE'LL BE. . ."

On and on they sang and danced. And eventually fell breathless to the floor, sweaty and glued to each other. Ravenna rubbed her head in Aya's thigh and gazed up Rafel.

She whispered, "I wish we can stay like this forever. I don't wanna leave."

It was Sekhmet who broke the companionable silence. "We don't need to."