Alexei Iskakov, Bounty Hunter: Chapter 4: Virtue [Mf][bdsm][drugs][Fsub][sense dep][sci-fi]

Virchyu gulped, and crossed herself as she waited for Shaykh Godzwil to let her in for her report. She fingered a small vial of one of the sacraments, one meant to give her confidence and honesty. No. She knew better than that. Shaykh Godzwil preferred to converse and give instruction on as earthly a level as possible.

Finally, the door opened. The Shaykh stood in the entry, and Virchyu could easily read that he was displeased. She swallowed again, then bowed on one knee, taking his hand in hers and kissing it reverently.

“Esteemed Shaykh… If The Lord wills, I am here to give my report.”

The Shaykh stared down at her for a few seconds, his face impassive, reading her expression and body language. Finally, he stepped aside.

“Come in child. Be blessed.” the customary greeting felt colder than she had ever heard it. “I eagerly await your explanation.”

Virchyu stood, and entered. The room was mostly spartan and bare, but she knew the walls could spring to life in a dance of color and motion at any moment. Godzwil kept his back to her.

“So… report on your mission.”

“I reached Poseidon before the deadline. After locating the drop site, I made a beeline to it. I found the capsule, Shaykh…”

“But? I don’t see an Edenite.”

“But it was empty when I arrived. I searched for the Edenite, but could not find any trace of her.”

“If you had arrived sooner, this would not have happened.” the Shaykh turned around “Tell me, Sicaria Virchyu, did you take a sacrament after landing on Poseidon?”

“I-I was nervous, Shaykh. I thought if I clea-”

The Shaykh cut her off with a snap.

“The sacrament of Maria and Joanna is for devotional use only. Your foolishness has cost us what might be our only chance to prove our worth to the Brotherhood of the Faithful.”

“Please forgive me Shaykh… I was weak.”

“God forgives all, child. However, our Order requires penance for shortcomings.” he held out a thin tab of film, and Virchyu opened her mouth obediently, trying to quell her sense of dread. Shaykh Godzwil placed it on her tongue. “Pain will bring perfection. To the post.”

As the sacrament dissolved in her mouth, Virchyu stripped off her robe, baring her back to the Shaykh. She reached her arms around the column in the center of the room, feeling for the cuffs dangling from above on the other side. She gulped as she clicked each around one of her wrists, the sacrament coursing through her and bringing every sensation, from the cold metal of the chains to the rough stone of the pillar against her chest, into sharp relief.

“Now, Sicaria” she heard the strands of the Shaykh’s scourge whistle through the air, then the sharp sting of its tips on her back, intensified exponentially by the effects of the drug. She gritted her teeth in order to not cry out. “Recite your vows.”

“I serve the one god”

The whip cracked against her skin.

“I honor all prophets”

The blows continued, each coinciding with one of the holy names.

“Adam” she started.

With each snap of the whip the pain became more intense. By the time she reached Augustine she was seeing double. When she got to Haile Selassie, she was barely conscious.

Finally, the whipping stopped. The shaykh gently took her chin in his hand.

“You have done well, Sicaria. Your sins and mistakes are washed away. Come, visit the Almighty”

The shackles on Virchyu’s wrists had been the only thing holding her upright. As Shaykh Godzwil unlocked them, she crumpled to the floor, barely cognizant of her surroundings.

“God will see your scars, and in his infinite mercy, heal them so you may fight another day.” the Shaykh had switched from his detached, punishing tone to that of a loving father, or at least what Virchyu imagined a loving father would be like. He helped her to her feet, careful not to touch any of the sore spots from the whipping he had just given. She bowed her head

“Please Shaykh, the unveiling sacrament, if I am worthy to meet God tonight.” She held out her tongue, still shivering with every shift of the air and miniscule movement of her superior’s hands. The shaykh pulled a thin film of sacrament from a pocket on his waist, and placed it on Virchyu’s waiting tongue.

As it dissolved, she robotically let him guide her to the baptismal tank. She readily accepted the feeding tube pushed down her throat, and the air system coming into her nose. She would see God, and he would lay out a path for her to correct her failures. As the Shaykh closed the helmet around her, leaving her blind and deaf to the material world, the vision was already starting. As her wrists and ankles were strapped into the tank, and the numbing fluid began to surround her body, the fiery figure of her personal angel came into view.

As the feeding tube was pulled out of her mouth, Virchyu came to. Physical reality, and linear time wormed their way back into her brain. Had she been out for days? Hours? Weeks? She knew of some devotees who stayed in communion for years. Godzwil was unlocking her restraints, and he looked uncharacteristically nervous.

“Sadly, I must cut your session short. The Inner Council wishes to speak with you. Get into something modest, I’ll be waiting.”

Virchyu hurried back to her room, throwing on a loose, but presentable robe and tying her hair back under a kerchief embroidered with names of the prophets. The inner council almost never called individual agents, and being summoned by them was a sign of either highest approval or public damnation.

She rushed out to the audience chamber, passing by the Shaykh’s room. He stopped her in the entryway, looking worried and harried.

“Sister, Sicaria. I cannot begin to tell you the gravity of the situation you are about to enter.” he sighed, and his usual imposing, fatherly figure turned to the slouch of a defeated man. “We have a chance, ever so slim, that with God’s blessing our order will recover Earth for the Faithful. Mecca, Jerusalem, Rome, Salt Lake, Kingston. The lands the prophets walked!” he breathed in hard, again. “But if we fail in this, we’ve used our last chance, and the Brotherhood will destroy us as they destroy heretics and atheists. Please, for the sake of our order, your brothers and sisters, make a good showing of yourself!”

The Shaykh kissed Virchyu on the cheek, then pushed her into the audience chamber. Reacting as quickly as she could, she bowed reverently, not to the holographic images of the inner council, but to the empty chair in their midst.

“God’s handmaiden awaits your commands, esteemed ones.”

“Finally, I thought the drug addled fool would never drag you out!”

She knew the voice. Ammon Hatch, the youngest living Apostle of the Latter Day Saints, a hardliner who pushed total prohibition on Zion. Probably not a friend. As annoyed as she was to hear him speak, she was not surprised that he had taken the mormon seat on the inner council.

“Apostle Hatch, I apologize on behalf of the entire Partaking Order for the delay, but-”

She was interrupted by an older, more mellow voice, it’s Arabic tinged with a thick, distinctive Anglic accent.

“Your order has done no wrong, save a simple mistake. Do not let the Bringhamite worm distress you, we are all alike in the eyes of Jah” Virchyu turned, following the voice to the hologram of the elderly, kindly face of Ras Davit.

“Th-thank you Ras.” she bowed again, beginning to sweat. In inaccurate but widespread knowledge, her order was said to have sprung from Rastafari practices. While this was untrue, it meant their elders, including the deceptively relaxed Ras Davit, kept an especially attentive eye on the actions of the partakers.

“Enough with the small talk.” One of the dreaded triumvirate finally spoke out, in a very archaic form of Latin. Virchyu could see pings from Godzwil desperately trying to get a translation to arabic, but she waved them away. She hadn’t studied all these dead languages for nothing. Cardinal Gutierrez continued “We’ve received word from the blasphemer king that your quarry was found on Mazu, in the possession of some half assed pirate. If I don’t see the fucking earthling in a month, I’m siccing the whole inquisition on your ass.”

As she was about to try to reply, Imam ibn Musa cut in. “As much as I disagree with my compatriot’s use of language, I am forced to agree with its meaning. Bring us the earthling. This is your order’s last chance, the faithful have tolerated your Shirk long enough. Kill the pirate, bring the earthling. Go with God’s blessing.”

The last sentence came out more like a threat, then the holograms blinked out. Virchyu’s wrist communicator lit up with two profiles. Alexei Iskakov, a low level pirate and hired gun. The other was just labelled “Hawwa”, and displayed a young woman in an ancient spacer suit.

Godzwil had watched the entire meeting. When Virchyu came out, still rigid with fear, he handed her the key to the armory. Wordlessly, she took it from him, and marched down the hall to the appropriate door. As Virchyu entered, and the automatic door closed behind her, she realized the gravity of her situation. She would succeed in her mission, or everyone she knew and loved, brothers and sisters in God, would die in the wrath of Christendom and Dar al-Islam. She breathed in deeply, and took a heavy duty repeating rifle from the wall, allowing herself some profanity of thought.

This Iskakov fellow was fucked.

Source: reddit.com/r/Erotica/comments/mspe1y/alexei_iskakov_bounty_hunter_chapter_4_virtue