World of Women - World of Women – V4 – Chapter 37

“Y-you?” I took a step back, ending up very close to the chuckling Rebecca. “You planned all of this?”

“This?” Grace looked around the room questioningly. “I have no clue about any of this.”

As she spoke, her expression didn’t come off as evil. She spoke exactly as she had always spoken, lightly dazed and peaceful. The idea that this police officer who had always acted kind was a demon was hard to accept. However, she had shot Cornelia and knocked out Roxanne. Her actions were undeniable.

“I’ve already canceled the spell. You’ve failed.”

I wanted to keep her speaking, so I decided to edge her on in this manner. As I spoke, the ground shook as more explosions occurred overhead. There was a battle happening now. I needed to be topside, but there was Cornelia on the ground. I needed to protect her and Roxanne.

“I don’t care about any of that.” She responded dismissively. “I already said, I’m not involved.”

“You said we’d be the sacrifice.”

She smiled and nodded. “Yes, you will be my crowning achievement. Once I kill you, I’ll finally be at peace.”

“She’s not the one who did this. Those people fled during the attack,” Rebecca’s weak voice came from next to me. “You’re also mistaken. She’s not a demon.”

Rebecca must have guessed what I was thinking, but her answer left me even more confused. Grace wasn’t a demon? Then, what was she? As I was shaking my head in confusion, Grace smiled, putting her gun back into her holster, and then pulling a knife out.

“You don’t recognize your own sister? You treat that slut Madison so nicely.”

“S-sister?” I thought about it for a moment, and I started to see some familiarities in her facial features.

However, those similarities didn’t match up with my mother’s side, but my father’s. “You’re a half-sister? I didn’t know.”

“And… after I did so much to get your attention too…” She responded, her head jerking slightly, her hand coming up and pulling at her hair. “I just wanted you to notice me. You should have fucked me, got me pregnant, you have a responsibility… brother…”

“Hehehe… this girl is crazy…” Rebecca giggled, making the atmosphere even more creepy.

“My attention…” I shook my head, and then my eyes widened. “You… the murders.”

“Was it so hard to cut people up and pull them apart?” She asked. “They called me a demon. Well, that’s what I wanted them to think… did you enjoy that message? The scary lady asked me to leave it for you…”

Grace was the woman who had murdered my friend. She was the one who had been murdering all of the men recently. I had been right, she had been wanting to get my attention. However, I had been wrong about everything else. She wasn’t a demon. She wasn’t part of the government. She wasn’t part of any of this. She was just a crazy woman. Perhaps, it was Jenji who had spoken to her, using her as a distraction, but that was all she had been.

“You… you killed Rigor…” I said, trying to work moisture back into my mouth.

“I also shot Mako… If I had been a better shot, I could have killed her in front of you. Ahh… but I missed.”

I shook slightly. I felt angry, but I also felt afraid. This woman had been in my home. She had been near me all this time. She was at the scene of Rigor’s death. She was there at Mako’s shooting. She was at the apartment when that man died in the pool room too. I had trusted her, and all along, she had been like a ghost, haunting me and torturing me.

“Why? Why did you do this? Was it really just so I would notice you?” I demanded, feeling like such a simple answer wasn’t satisfying.

As I spoke, I was moving slowly. Grace remained on her spot, her hand clinging to the knife in her hand. I needed to run. I had a feeling she’d chase me. If that was it, then I needed to lead her away from Roxanne. I didn’t even know if Cornelia was still alive. I was afraid if I took the time to check, and brought attention back to the girl, she would finish the job. My only choice was to lure her away and get to an exit.

“Why… hmmm? I wonder…” She put her finger on her lips. “Why did your father end up knocking my mother up and then leaving her?”

I compressed my lips. I had known about my father’s indiscretions for years. He had claimed to be with my mother, even going so far as to marry her. The pair had three children together before one of them turned out to be male. This was virtually unheard of in Amaryllis and was a love story worthy of the envy of every young maiden in Amaryllis. The story was regrettably a lie. While my father claimed to be loyal to my mother, he had carried out several affairs with other women.

This could have been considered normal, maybe even commendable. Men in this world showing any loyalty to any woman could be considered miraculous. However, I had always believed my father had been better. In the end, that was just a lie he had built up because of his embarrassment. Then, he had gone ahead and died, being murdered by a woman who felt spurned that he wouldn’t give her the same attention that he gave Morgan, my mother. As I had that thought, my eyes sharpened on Grace.

She chuckled, nodding. “That’s right. You’ve heard of my mother, haven’t you? Delila Moor. Regrettably, you’ll never have the chance to meet her. It was a shame, but she was going to rat me out. You understand.”

The guards at the prison had told me about the woman who had murdered my father. It was Delila Moor. However, two months before, she had been found in a trash compactor, bludgeoned to death. The assumption was that it was some other prisoner. I had thought that she had escaped, but it turned out that by that point, Grace Moor was already making her move. She had murdered her mother, and when I got out, she started to murder men to try to get to me.

“What is it that you want?” I demanded.

“Where are you going?” She demanded.

She had finally noticed me shifting to the side. I had hoped I could keep her distracted, but she was a police officer, so it wasn’t like I could act in a way where she wouldn’t notice. She might be crazy, but she still had her head on her shoulders. That only made her more dangerous.

“You wanted to have sex down here?” I asked.

“Sex?” She asked, her expression looking confused for a second.

“Isn’t that what you want? You want to have my baby? Isn’t that what this is all about?”

Her expression twitched slightly. It seemed like in her brain, she was arguing with herself. I had always thought that Hannah was insane. Later on, the demons Rebecca and Ashton had seemed like lunatics. However, despite all of their problems, they all thought rationally and had reasons for doing the things they were doing. I was quickly getting a feeling that Grace had no such direction. She was acting purely because she could.

“Stop!” She held the knife out, shaking it in my direction angrily. “You… stop… I’m going to… I want to…”

My eyes were on her hand. It looked like she might throw the knife at me. Her eyes were completely unhinged. I was waiting for the right moment. However, instead, the island rung with a massive boom. The ground shook, and Grace lost her balance. At that moment, a hand reached out and grabbed Grace’s leg. It was Roxanne who had grabbed onto her.

“Roxanne?”

“Run, Clyburn!” She shouted.

Grace snarled, using her free foot to kick Roxanne in the face. The other, who still seemed to be mostly paralyzed by whatever she had been injected with, rolled away. I didn’t waste the opportunity though. I turned and started running. If I had stayed there, Grace might have killed Roxanne. Only by getting her to chase me was there a chance. Thankfully, Grace’s focus was locked on me, and she started to run after me.

“Clyburn! You don’t need to run.” She shouted as she began to follow me, her voice echoing down the corridor. “We belong together.”

This woman was a nut. Her mother had killed my father, and now she was chasing me down the corridor on an island during the middle of a war between Amaryllis and their men. Just how had things ended up like this? I didn’t even have the time to think about it though. I just had to keep moving. I wasn’t familiar enough with the underground corridors and was already lost. Running around aimlessly would get me caught, so I did the only thing I could. As soon as I found the first ladder to the surface, I grabbed it and started climbing.

“Ahhhhh!” A voice screeched from under me. “I’m coming for you, Clyburn! We’ll be one.”

A hand made a grab for my ankle, but I pulled and managed to slip away as I climbed rapidly. I could hear the click of Grace’s knife against the metal ladder as she started to climb too. Thankfully, I had remained fit and avoided becoming the out-of-shape man who died from a heart-attack too young, and was able to climb the ladder quickly. Grace was fast as well though and was only just behind me.

When my head reached the latch, I slammed into the cover with all of my weight. If it was stuck, then I’d be looking at a very early death. I let out a little prayer as I heard a creaking and the cover swung open. I desperately climbed out, feeling like Grace’s fingertips were just below my own.

I tried to grab the cover and slam it back down. If I could stop her just by sitting on it, I would do whatever it took. However, just as it reached the vertical point she burst out and swung at me with her knife. I jumped back, my shirt getting sliced in the process. She shoved open the cover, negating my progress, and I had no choice but to run again. We were in the basement of one of the male dormitories. I was able to tell that much as I reached the stairway.

Panting for breath, I started running up the stairway two steps at a time. Grace reached the stairway too. She didn’t seem to be breathing hard. Was she fueled by pure insanity? I reached for my pocket, but I couldn’t find my cards. Did they fall out beforehand? My mind was in such disorder that I couldn’t form a spell. It was something that needed time, and Grace was only a single floor below me.

“Stop running, Clyburn! You’re making me mad!” She yelled, shaking her knife.

I had met crazed or desperate women before. Usually, I felt a modicum of control when dealing with them. I felt like I could get what I wanted from them, or at least if I gave them what they wanted from me, they wouldn’t hurt me. I had none of these feelings for Grace. Instead, I could only keep picturing the sight of Rigor. That scene echoed the scene of my father’s death, which was more brutal than I had ever been told.

Clenching my fists, I just continued to run up the stairway. I can’t say why I didn’t run toward the entrance to the building. I was so panicked I had already started running up, and I was past the first floor before I had even thought about it. Plus, I had never even entered one of these buildings through the front door before, so my natural inclination was to race to the roof. Thankfully, this building was just like the one that I had met Oswald in only a few days ago.

I broke out into the sunlight. Immediately, the ground shook again, and I could see airships in the sky launching spells at each other. There were also spells being launched at the island and away from it. A powerful shield was protecting a large portion of the island. That was some pretty heavy magic, and my only assumption was that it had to be Lilith maintaining it.

“I said stop!”

“Gah!” I yelled as she sliced at my heel.

She missed, cutting across my calf. Her hand had emerged from the darkness of the apartment to try to cut me. I jumped forward, stumbling across the roof as I tried to make some distance. Grace emerged into the light, and it only allowed me to get a clearer look at her unhinged face. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, and her smile that used to feel encouraging now only came off as sinister.

“I will have you, Clyburn.” She declared, licking the blade and cutting her tongue in the process. “Then, I will make sure no one else can!”

She lunged at me again, and my only choice was to jump off the rooftop toward the next roof. I landed hard and stumbled, desperately moving forward. Grace followed unceasingly, humming to herself as she seemed far more stable moving across the roofs. When I glanced back at her with aggravation, she let out a chuckle.

“You know… I was born in this district… before it was made the male district.” She giggled, pointing somewhere in the distance with her knife. “Only a few blocks that way. We kids used to run across these roofs all the time. You really don’t have a chance, Clyburn.”

A spell. It was my only chance and my greatest strength. I would use a spell. As I tried to keep from falling off the roof, I worked out the simplest wind spell. A strong enough gust would push her off the roof. At that point, I’d be safe. I had been thinking too hard. Just a simple spell.

I worked out the runic incantation while Grace continued to gain on me, getting closer and closer despite the fact she wasn’t running. She was taunting me, allowing me to stay ahead of her. To her, this all seemed to be a game. Well, I was done playing! I spun around and lifted my hand. I connected my chakra points and began to inject mana into my wind spell. Grace threw her knife, and it struck me in the shoulder. The spell I had been planning was shattered in an instant and I stumbled back onto the rooftop in surprise.

“That’s police training.” She laughed. “You think that we aren’t taught how to deal with a perp who tries to use magic against us? Spells seem so impressive when fired from a distance, but as soon as you know where the spell caster is, interrupting them is laughably easy. That’s why spellcrafting is just a fantasy for stories. As for you and me, Clyburn, we’re done with fantasies. This is real!”

She jumped on top of me, and grabbed my shirt, pulling me up. The knife still in my shoulder stung as she lifted me unrestrained. She licked my face from my chin to my forehead and then grinned. She grabbed the knife in my shoulder, and then shoved me down with it. I let out a cry as she stabbed the knife the rest of the way through the back of my shoulder, and into the floor behind, pinning me to the roof. With her spare hand, she began to fondle my belt, pulling my dick out.

“What are you…”

“You’ll get me pregnant, just like your dad got my mom pregnant. You will give me a baby boy.”

“That can’t be guaranteed.” I shot back through gritted teeth.

“Oh, but you’ll guarantee it, won’t you?” She asked, twisting the knife in my shoulder.

“Ahhhhh!” I screamed as she agonizingly moved the knife. “Yes! Yes… I’ll give you a boy! Okay?”

“Mmm… good! Good!” Grace laughed. “Then, you can join your father.”

Join… in other words, once she had a baby boy, she was going to kill me! She did say that she was going to make it so I couldn’t have any more children. I thought she was talking about cutting off my balls, which, with her fumbling for my junk with the knife, I had grown scared for a bit. I felt relieved she only wanted to have sex with me, and then bitter that I was relieved about it.

She had opened her pants and was now rubbing the head of my cock against her pussy, trying to get it to go in. The issue was that I wasn’t hard. How could I be hard? She had a knife in my shoulder. I was in a lot of pain.

“Why aren’t you hard!” She yelled, grabbing my dick with her fist and squeezing it like she could just make it do what she wanted.

As she did though, her hand kept shifting on the knife in my shoulder, only leaving me in more and more pain. Through gritted teeth, I shot her a hateful glare.

“It looks like I’m just not that into you.” I taunted her.

It wasn’t the best thing at the moment, but I felt angry and humiliated. In the end, it wasn’t a demon or a government that had put me to this point, but just a crazy person with a knife. All of my strength, all of my planning, and all of my magic, and I was going to be raped and killed by a psycho. It was a thought that left me feeling stupid.

My words caused rage to exploded on Grace’s face. “You bastard! You bastard! I hate you! I hate you!”

She pulled the knife out of my shoulder, but I knew the next moment she’d be plunging it somewhere far more vital. At the very least, I wouldn’t give this crazy bitch a kid. Was that okay for a final thought before I died? Hopefully, Charlie wasn’t too disappointed in me.

Bam!

Grace jerked on top of me, and I opened my eyes to see a bloodstain forming a red spot dead center of her chest. She tried to get another grip on her knife, intending to bring it back down on me again.

“Get the fuck away from my son!” A woman screamed out.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Three more bullets struck Grace, and this time she fell to the side. She slid off the roof and then plummeted down three stories, hitting the sidewalk with a thunk. Before I could even react, a woman leaped on top of me.

“Oh… my baby! I found you! I was looking for so long! I missed you so much!”

Large soft things pressed against my face, and I could feel wet tears falling on me. I was still a bit stunned, and my brain wasn’t working yet. It took a few moments to register who was on top of me.

“M-mom?”

“Sweetie! Oh no… you’re bleeding! Ah! Your penis is getting hard!” she cried out. “Oh no, mommy will take care of it, just like she used to. Ahhh!”

“M-MOOM!” My eyes went wide as my mother put my dick in her mouth immediately and started to suck on it. “Now is not the time!”

My daze went away extremely quickly and I was back to full awareness.

“It’s okay, honey, I’ll be really quick! Just lay back!”

“I’m bleeding!”

“Mommy can only handle one thing at a time! I’m doing the best I can!” She looked up at me with tears while her hand jerked me off.

That’s when I remembered my mom was pretty crazy too.