by Jack Porter
I had to admit, I didn’t know what to say. “What do you want?” I asked.
“Prove to me that it’s real,” she said.
Chapter 32
I frowned, realizing it was a difficult challenge for me to meet. “Will you accept the word of others who have gone through it before you?” I asked.
“Nope. I don’t want words. I want proof.”
I felt like I was losing her. Not that she was pulling away, not exactly, but that she would if I failed to come up with what she demanded. Sure, it wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, and it wasn’t like it was the first time I had been rejected in my life. But I’d already gotten used to success in this arena.
And, if I was honest, I had already been envisioning what it might be like to fuck this pretty, curly-haired woman sitting opposite me.
In desperation, I gave a mental shout to the demon in my mind. “Azrael? Any ideas?”
In times past, he had been very hands-on with advice when it came to my dates, guiding me, making sure I said and did the right things, and more importantly, didn’t do the wrong things. That he’d been largely silent through my last few meetings like this was a point of personal pride.
It meant I was getting it.
But this was something new.
“There might be something,” the demon said. “My strength is growing. While still far from what it once was, there might be something I can do.”
“What?”
“I might be able to show her our true self.”
“The demon, you mean? The image I see when I look in the mirror?”
“The same.”
“What do you need to make that happen?”
“Just get her to look at you.”
The conversation with Azrael had taken only a moment. Sara was still awaiting an answer.
I nodded. “Watch closely,” I said. “Don’t blink.”
She seemed puzzled, but willing. And moments later, it was done.
I could feel it. Or, perhaps feel wasn’t the right word. I could sense it. Instead of me sitting there, just a normal, good-looking guy in a booth, for the briefest of moments, I became something else.
Something powerful.
A figure of darkness and awe. An Incubus incarnate, full of strength and leathery wings, a visage much more handsome than my own even with the horns on his head. I felt a sense of hugeness, as if I had become gigantic, sitting at the booth.
It was astonishing. I had grown very much stronger in the past couple of weeks, but this was a different level entirely. It was like Azrael was a force of nature, and I, Simon Kingman, no more than an ant.
It felt like more than just an illusion. Somehow, it felt almost real, as if Azrael had managed to extend himself into the world for real.
Or, maybe not quite. Because it felt like there was much, much more still hidden.
And then, as quickly as it had started, it was over. I sensed Azrael’s exhaustion and knew he would be out of action for a while.
Sara’s expression had become one of astonishment. There was fear in it as well, and a certain amount of awe.
“Well?” I asked, and that was enough.
Her astonished expression turned into one of undeniable lust.
She didn’t try to hide it. Instead, she stood, forgetting her half-finished hot chocolate as if it had ceased to exist.
“Come on,” she said, her voice suddenly grown husky. “I have a place.”
It was so much easier to get laid than it ever used to be. It would have been a full-time occupation if the girls had demanded their carnal activities one at a time. Even as it was, with the girls being more than willing to work as a group, I would have been hard-pressed to keep up if Azrael hadn’t tweaked my stamina as well.
And now there was Sara to add to the mix, although I fully expected this to be a one-off thing.
Not that it mattered, I thought as I waited for her on her comfortable, king-sized bed. Bonking Sara would earn me just as many points as the others had done, and there was a purpose behind it. And besides, sex was always fun, whether it was a one-off thing or part of a longer-term arrangement.
Especially now that I didn’t have to worry about the looks of self-loathing that used to be par for the course in my pre-Azrael existence.
I didn’t have to wait long. Sara reappeared mid-musing, wearing nothing but a sheer, dark negligée that flowed about her and hid precisely nothing, just as Sandy had done the first time I’d slept with her. Sara was plumper than Sandy, but shapely with it, and had a surprisingly narrow waist. She had a purple birthmark on the left side of her tummy, underneath her well-formed breast.
She paused for a moment to admire my naked form, and I couldn’t blame her for that. There were male fitness models gracing the cover of magazines who would do much the same. Thanks to Azrael, I was perfection. Adonis himself had nothing on me, and while I lacked the sheer bulk of the competitive bodybuilder crowd, to my view, they lacked the balance and symmetry I possessed.
“Like what you see?” I asked.
Sara’s cheeks flushed once again, and I could tell by the way she ran her tongue over her lips that she did.
“I do. Is that what happens when you have your own demon at your command?” she asked.
I grinned broadly. “I was always like this,” I lied. Then, as her expression gave way to confusion, I relented. “No, I wasn’t always like this. You wouldn’t have looked twice at me before. And yes, this is indeed one of the benefits. But it’s not an immediate thing. It depends on how strong my demon can get.”
With that, I held out a hand in invitation. Sara took it, and within moments, we were both breathing hard, moving to the rhythm of ages, Sara’s delicate negligée torn off and lying on the floor.
Chapter 33
Less than an hour later, I had awakened a new succubus and gained some additional points. Instead of using them right away, I began to think about the future. Wondering how they could best be spent, for the good of everyone involved.
I figured I should have a chat with Rachel and Sandy about it at some point. For the time being, I kept it in mind that I had them, and whistled happily to myself as I made my way to my car.
The day was still young. While it had started well, there was still more to do.
Rachel had already found the first small part of Dario Gambetti’s business for me and Piper to dismantle.
That was for later today. In maybe an hour or so.
Just enough time for me to get changed, collect the gear I might need, and get ready.
Gambling was illegal in El Diablo, but certain types of betting were not. One of the most lucrative businesses Dario Gambetti controlled was a legal betting shop close to downtown. Even by itself, it would have been a great little earner, assuming the people who ran it were good at figuring the odds. But Rachel had discovered it was little more than a front for two other businesses Dario probably wouldn’t have wanted the authorities to know about.
The first was an illegal gambling hall out the back of the shop where people could play the pokies, roulette, and various card games. It was like a miniature casino, and according to the numbers Rachel uncovered, it was a license to print money.
The second hidden business was even more illegal. The betting shop was a cash business. There was no way to measure how many actual customers walked in the front door (or for that matter made bets online). Gross revenue was whatever Dario and whoever actually ran the business decided it was.
Which made it an excellent option for laundering huge amounts of money gained from other sources.
Of course, Dario would have to pay tax on any profit turned, but that was the cost of laundering money. And there were always dodges and fixes in place to minimize that as well.
According to Rachel, the whole enterprise was run by a guy called Fat Tony, a distant cousin of the Gambettis who lacked the last name but had a gift for numbers matched only by his appetite for fresh baked sweet pastries.
>
He ran the place with the help of his sons, assorted muscle, and other staff, and Piper and I knew he was somewhere inside because we’d watched him walk in.
We both sat in my car across the road from the betting shop, fully armed and trying not to look suspicious despite the bullet holes in my windshield.
“How do you want to do this?” I asked.
Piper gave me a smile. “Normally, I’d just go in and kill anyone who got in my way. But that’s not the goal here, is it?” she asked.
“No. We don’t want to kill them so much as scare them into submission. Remember, if this goes according to plan, Fat Tony and his sons ought to end up working for us. And they can’t do that if they’re dead.”
“What about if I just killed a few of them? You know, leave enough alive to still do the job.”
I hadn’t known Piper very long at all, but she was an assassin. She might have had a sense of honor, but she was still a killer.
And I could see the appeal. Killing was cleaner. Less uncertain. There could be no doubt as to whether a job was actually done if you blew a man’s head off, for example.
“Only if we have to,” I said.
Piper uttered a sigh. “How about at least one? To make an example?”
“That ought to work,” I replied.
“Okay, then. How about we just walk in the front door and do what we have to do?” Piper asked, responding to my initial question.
“The direct approach. I like it. Let’s go.”
With that, we both climbed out of the car, closed the doors behind us, and made our way across to the betting shop with our guns on full display.
I was carrying another assault rifle with an extended magazine. I knew that could empty quickly, but that was okay, because I was carrying spares.
Piper had gone for a mixture. She carried a matched pair of Glocks, one in each hand, and a small pack filled with various items, some of which I’d seen before when she and her men had attacked me at Chad’s apartment.
I didn’t know exactly what she intended with them, but I approved of her choices. We couldn’t know what was going to happen, and the grenades and the rest gave us flexibility.
Whatever we needed to do, we would do it.
The time for reflection had past. We strode into the middle of the betting shop, with me trying not to throw up because of the garish colors and hideous carpet, and with nobody paying us much attention.
I didn’t like that at all, because it went against what we strove to do, so I let off a two-second burst of fire from my gun to get some attention.
“Don’t just stand there!” I yelled. “Get out! You’ve got three seconds, or I’ll fill your stupid asses with lead!”
Some of the patrons were frozen in terror but others were quick to react. A surge of people started toward the door, and I gave the rest a hurry up. “Move it! Move it! Move it!” I let off another burst of fire to make sure they got the message, and the previously orderly betting shop turned into chaos.
It was delightful. Gratifying on a cellular level. But we didn’t have time to admire the stampede.
Piper took my lead and joined in with the yelling. She pointed her guns at the people behind the counter, two men and a woman, and added to the confusion.
“Not you!” she bellowed. “You get to stay there!”
She might have said more, but one of the tellers was quick to act. They hit the panic button, and the whole place filled with the sound of a siren. It was loud and piercing, and I had no choice but to try to protect my ears against it.
But that wasn’t the worst. The worst was that a set of steel shutters slammed down between us and the tellers, completely blocking them from view.
I uttered a curse, but Piper’s response was more pragmatic. She looked the steel shutters over and noted that they didn’t go all the way up to the ceiling.
They were open at the top.
“Do you know what happens,” she shouted through the sirens, “when you enclose a grenade in a space with no windows?” She waited half a second, but nobody answered. “It compresses the blast. Makes it stronger.” Casually, as if she was just talking and not shouting at the top of her lungs, she continued. “I’ve always wanted to see that, and now you have given me the chance. If you don’t open up, you’ll get to see it as well. You have until the count of three. One. Two.”
“How do we know you won’t kill us anyway?” someone yelled from within.
“I guess you’ll just have to take our word for it. It’s a bet either way. Fairly fitting, don’t you think? Now, what was I up to?”
“Two,” I provided.
It was enough. Piper never got to see what sort of a mess her grenade might make in an enclosed space. One of the tellers decided, and the steel shutters retracted.
Piper had put away one of her guns and drawn out a grenade. She grinned at the tellers as she waggled it in front of them.
“Good choice,” she said. “Now, if you could turn off that god-awful racket as well, you might just walk out of here in one piece.”
In moments, it was done.
By then, the betting shop was empty apart from us and the tellers. Yet the aftermath of the exodus was clear. There were rows of booths against the walls where people filled in their betting cards, and a number of those cards had fallen to the floor. A couple of the booths had been turned over, and someone had even managed to leave one of their shoes behind.
Also, there was the distinct odor of gunpowder in the air, almost masking the lingering smell of sweat.
I grinned my most charming grin and waved my gun in a way that I’m sure the tellers would have thought was far too casual. “Now, you’re going to tell us where the money is kept. And we want access to the gaming room, as well.”
Chapter 34
One of the tellers pointed us to a hidden door behind one of the booths. When opened, we saw that it led to a narrow stairwell.
I looked at Piper. “Pretty sure that alarm told everyone down there that there’s trouble upstairs. What are the odds they’re waiting for us to show our faces?”
“About 100%,” Piper responded. She looked toward the tellers. “I’m looking for a volunteer,” she said. “Who wants to go down there and tell everyone to play nice?”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, nobody jumped at the chance. So Piper altered her offer.
“Let’s put it another way. You,” she said, talking to the guy who had pointed out the hidden door. He was a skinny guy who couldn’t have been older than twenty, and he looked terrified.
“You’re going downstairs,” Piper said. “Or I’m going to shoot you in the face. Which is it?”
The poor guy looked stricken. His eyes were wide and he looked like a goldfish, his mouth opening and closing as if he was gasping for breath, without any words coming out.
“You have until the count of three,” Piper said. It seemed to be her threat of choice, and it worked a second time just as well as the first. “One,” she said, but that was as far as she got.
“Okay, okay,” the skinny guy managed. “I’ll go. But they’ll just shoot me as well.”
Piper smiled sweetly. “You’ll have to tell them not to,” she said, indicating with her gun that he should get moving.
He did. The poor guy looked terrified, as if every step he expected to be shot, or worse. Yet he made it over to us and approached the stairs.
“What—what do you want me to tell them?”
“That’s the spirit. Tell them we just want to talk. That we want to come down there, but don’t want anyone to get excited. Can you do that?” she asked, just as casually as before.
The skinny guy looked confused. But he nodded and tried to swallow his fear. “I can do that.”
“Well? What are you waiting for?” Piper said.
I have to admit, I was curious to find out what would happen. Would the skinny guy get blown away before he could make his case? Would he survive?
I wouldn’t have wanted to put
money on it either way.
Oh, and yeah. We definitely were not there just to talk, as Piper had said. But who was I to contradict her?
Stiffly, the skinny guy started his descent. He made it halfway before he started to shout. “It’s me! Don’t shoot! They just want to talk!”
From further down, I heard rough voices, and knew whoever was down there didn’t quite know what to think. The alarm had been loud, but it had shut off reasonably quickly. Did they know what had happened?
A quick glance around showed more than one camera in the room, so I figured they probably did.
“I’m alone,” the skinny guy was saying, perhaps in answer to a question. “It’s just me!”
By then, the skinny guy must have reached the bottom of the stairs. We could no longer see him, because the stairs turned a corner. But we could hear the sounds of movement from below.
“Are you ready?” Piper asked.
I still had no idea what she intended. “Sure,” I said.
“Then follow me.”
With that, she darted down the stairs and threw the grenade she had been holding ever since threatening the tellers around the corner, before ducking quickly back. I heard curses, grown men swearing, then a muffled explosion.
“Now!” Piper said, and charged the rest of the way with me following close behind.
The stairs opened to the gaming hall that Rachel had described, except perhaps a little bit messier. The grenade had done its job very well, blowing the skinny guy to pieces, along with three or four others, most of whom looked to be security of some sort. They were big guys, and even though they had been wearing vests, the grenade had cut them into ribbons.
Even so, one had still managed to hold onto his gun, and groaned in pain. Without batting an eye, Piper shot him in the face.
I couldn’t help but admire her just a little bit more than I already did.
There was little for me to do other than step into the room beside her. “Didn’t we agree that this wasn’t going to be a wholesale slaughter?” I asked.
