Devil Take The Hindmost

Chapter Thirty

There have been moments over the years when I have regretted my life choices, and it could be argued I had been ill-advised at many stages, mostly by myself.

Indeed, teenage Satchmo had scoffed at his school career adviser and her glossy pamphlet advertising a cornucopia of tedious futures, replete with photos of individuals with the cold, dead-eyed stare of a workaday stiff.

Consequently, I spurned the opportunity to join the ranks of M&S suits and their browbeaten countenances of paycheck slavery whose only dalliance with joie de vive was the selection of sandwich to choose with their lunchtime meal deal.

No, I needed to be different.

I tried to emulate my old man but without the security of a uniform, as a result of which I now faced the dubious prospect of being fucked to death during a black magic ritual in veneration of the City's Anglo-Saxon founder.

I don't recall that being an option in the career adviser's pamphlet at all.

When I regained consciousness, it was to a scene of choreographed worship in the throes of rising to a crescendo. There were four other people in the room with me, all with heads bowed reverentially, chanting alternately in English and other languages or phrases I did not understand.

Two of the attendees wore coal-black hoodies, and I thought I recognised them by build alone as having been amongst my attackers from the breaker's yard. They were Frog, who I thought to be the leader of those that jumped me, and the towering frame of Princess. The remaining two individuals in the room I knew for sure.

Sylvia Distain presided at the foot of the large wolf's head standard, holding aloft a wicked looking dagger with a double-edged blade, its needle-tip point already dark with blood. She wore a pale grey cloak fastened at the neck with a silver wolf's head broach and the corner of her mouth was smeared red where she recently tasted the edge of the dagger.

Beside Sylvia stood Letitia Banton-Smith, as naked as the day she was born. The milk-white of her skin etched in several places by thin welts still oozing crimson. She glanced up from a penitential gaze at her feet and smiled when she saw I was awake.

"We can begin!" she called above the droning sound of the chant, before joining in with another verse with gusto.

Daughters of a different mother, Sisters all to one another.

Carried ere within her womb, from cradle grim to joyful tomb.

The participants in the ceremony were all placing a little too much vocal emphasis on the final line of the dirge for my liking.

"Excellent, not a moment too soon," Sylvia responded, raising her arms for silence. The chanting fell away, and I became aware of the faint sound of a commotion occurring somewhere nearby, shouting and doors banging. "Letitia, you know what must be done."

Tish nodded, and with a predatory grin on her face she climbed up onto the platform to which I was still bound tight, crawling across me on all fours like a big cat stalking prey. I felt the soft warmth of her skin brush my thighs, and the tips of her breasts against my chest as she moved into position above me.

"Don't disappoint me, Satchmo," she leaned low and whispered into my ear, her auburn curls falling around my face like a curtain.

Then she rose onto her knees, reached beneath herself, took me in a firm grip and began to try, with some success, I'm ashamed to say, to elicit a response.

The chanting restarted, louder and more feverish, and I closed my eyes, willing my body to resist.

However, unwanted erections are a lot like examinations. The higher the stakes and the more you think about them, the harder they get. I resolved instead to take Tish's advice on my final moments; I might as well enjoy them.