by Randi Darren
Jes was the picture of a confused and beautiful sex goddess.
“Yeah, well, I’m finding that in this year so far, my life has changed more than when I became a planar lord,” Sam said with a shrug and meant it. “Get with the times or get out, right?”
“Right,” Jes said, grinning at him from ear to ear. “Yes. I’ll exchange Brands with you. When we get back?”
“When we get back,” Sam agreed.
“We got about five minutes people before the contractor opens that portal,” Decima called out. “Last minute detail checks in three minutes. Don’t forget your cloaks.”
Jes winked at Sam and then turned to the group nearby.
“You heard her girls. Let’s get moving. Go-go support team!” cheered Jes. “We’re the bra that holds those big flabs of boob fat up.”
Stacia grinned at that, while Hillary laughed.
Abigail only shook her head but looked amused.
“You have the biggest bra size here,” Carissa replied neutrally.
“See? I should know all about bras,” Jes said, patting Carissa on the shoulder and dragging her into the next room. “And we’re a great bra team for the boob fat team.”
“Boob fat,” Sam said, smiling at Stacia who’d lingered behind.
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t have a whole lot,” Stacia said. “My vest fits rather well.”
Rolling his eyes at the compliment fishing, Sam just walked by her, sliding his arm through hers and pulling her along.
“And I’d bed you eight ways from Sunday without ever feeding on you for your beauty alone,” Sam gave her.
“Speaking of feeding,” Stacia said. “Can I snack a little if we get the chance? I’m feeling a little nervous. Watching Roger die was… I dunno. It just reminded me how mortal we are.
“Sure, we have a huge likelihood of dodging death because you can call us back but he… he didn’t come back.”
“Course. Not a problem. And yeah… he crossed over, it sounds like,” Sam said.
Walking into the adjacent room, Sam was surprised. Melody was standing off to one side in a business suit, beside an already opened portal. .
On the other side of the portal, he could see Jes, Carissa, Hillary, and Abigail all chatting as they checked the interior of wherever they were going.
All the remaining chaotic energy that had been around Melody the last time he saw her was completely gone.
“Hey,” Melody said, waving a hand at Sam. “Figured I’d just… open it now. Leads into a warehouse. Reix said good luck and thanks.”
“Oh. Thanks,” answered Sam, pulling his cloak out and putting it on. He looked back at the vampire by his side. “Rain check on the juice?”
“Yeah, thank you, Sam,” Stacia said, pulling out her own cloak. The spell that filtered out UV was a constant thing around her. Maintained by her own ability now, instead of Sam.
Stacia moved ahead, through the portal to the other side.
“Hey, Melody, can I ask you for a favor?” Sam asked, looking at the contractor.
“Certainly, though if it’s sex, I’ll have to say no,” Melody said with a shrug of her shoulders. “Saving all that I can of myself for my Indigo.”
“No! No, no,” Sam said, shaking his head. “I’m going to have a child with Abigail. Probably Irma eventually as well. Any chance you’ll be their godmother?”
“Oh! Yes. I can certainly do that. Not a problem,” Melody said with a grin.
“Great, thanks. See ya after the mission,” Sam said and then crossed over to the other side.
Before Sam could get settled in, let Stacia have that snack, or do much of anything, Decima led her group into the room.
The portal closed shut behind them.
“Alright, let’s get moving. We’re supposed to head to the Torment’s old seat of power. Pick the trail up from there,” Decima commanded. “I want Wren up front, Tiffany at the rear. Single challenge, then eliminate them. We’re strangers in a strange land and we don’t have the time or inclination to linger.”
Wren—looking like the warrior all Cambion were—moved to the door and threw the locking latch up then pushed the door open. Stepping into the world outside, she held her rifle close to her chest.
They weren’t taking anything for granted here.
Not taking tech from their world would have been an idiotic move, to say the least. Sam didn’t care one whit for the development of this plane. He was here only to get a job done.
Decima met everyone’s eyes and then went outside to join Wren.
She was followed by everybody else, with the rear being taken up by Sam and Tiffany.
Staring at the back of Abigail’s head three people ahead of him, Sam wasn’t sure how he felt about her coming along. But by this point, she seemed to have blended into the team rather well.
As far as he knew, she’d only gone on two missions previous. Both took place when he wasn’t there, but he hadn’t thought much of it.
He needed to change his opinion, it seemed. Abigail was a contractor in the Inc-Suc PMC and had earned her place.
Looking around, he found that they were on what he could only describe as a dirt street lined with ramshackle wooden homes. They were all built too close to one another and were held up more by their neighbors than their own supports, he imagined.
All around him went men, women, and non-humans dressed in brown and what was likely once white clothes. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of dyed cloth.
Looks like right after Rome fell. The “dark age” as they called it.
Hm. I wonder if they have a feudal system, too.
Could be fun to make contracts here. They were always much simpler.
“Abby got shot in the face. Twice,” Tiffany said from behind him out of nowhere. “Killed who shot her, too. Jes fixed it. Abby didn’t want anyone to tell you.”
“Remind me to reward you for your loyalty to me above others,” Sam said after turning his head to look at Tiffany directly.
He meant it, too. If she swore to not tell him, but did anyway, he’d reward that.
Tiffany didn’t meet his eyes for long, but she did nod at him. Her head turned right back to the surrounding area. With so many people so close, it was going to be hard to make sure people didn’t try anything stupid.
Given their presence and how they were carrying themselves, however, the local people were giving the Inc-Suc PMC members a wide berth so far.
“Is… that where we’re going?” Stacia asked from directly in front of him. Her head was slightly tilted up and it looked like she was gazing off to the side.
Following the direction she was looking, Sam saw a rather large palace.
It wasn’t a castle as one might expect from such a setting, but an actual palace. Glittering, sparkling, and as far as he could tell, covered in gold leaf and jewels, it was amazingly gaudy.
“Probably,” Sam muttered. “I could see Reix building that, but not the exterior. I’m thinking that’s someone else trying to show that they’re the one in charge. Not Reix anymore.”
“It’s hideous,” Irene mumbled from behind Abigail. “I like gold and sparkly things as much as the next girl, but what… the… fuck? That’s just… no.”
“Did Reix say anything about not robbin’ the place?” Tiffany growled. “I wanna buy a new truck.”
“You just got one the other week,” Stacia reminded her. “We went out and bought it together.”
“I want another one,” Tiffany grumbled. “A four-by this time.”
“No, he didn’t say anything about not robbing the place. Consider it fair game as long as it doesn’t risk the mission,” Sam said.
“Great, gonna rob their fucking treasury,” Tiffany said. “You in, Irene? Stacia? I’ll need a portal.”
“Course, I’m in,” Irene promptly replied. “It’s a pile of money waiting to be taken. We can—”
“No more talking,” Decima called from the front. “Guards up ahead. We might
end up having to do something. We don’t speak the local tongue.”
Now that she mentioned it, Sam noticed that everyone here was speaking what sounded like a very odd and modified dialect of ancient Greek.
He could understand a great deal of it, but not everything. His own understanding of Greek had slowly morphed toward the modern version rather than it’s original dialect.
“I can probably speak it,” Aster said. “It’s all Greek to me. Ha. There’s some oddness to their—”
“Get up here then,” Decima interrupted her. Aster quickly moved to the front of the group.
Course she understands it. She probably had a hand in inventing the original language back in the day.
Their group came to a stop and spread out a bit. At the front, Decima and Aster were speaking with several men in simple leather armor. They had the look of a militia or town guard.
Whatever was said between the group and Aster wasn’t very polite, or remotely friendly.
In fact, Sam would wager that what was actually happening were the guards demanding that Aster let them take her back behind the building.
Given her personality as it is right now, I’m going to bet on someone dyi—
Aster slapped her right hand to the side of the leading man’s head. Lightning coursed through his body, his muscles going rigid.
Blood began flowing from his eyes, ears, and nose.
In seconds the man became a blackened husk, with smoke billowing out of his skin as if he were being cooked from the inside out.
Letting the man go, Aster turned her eyes to the other two men.
“Above all, I detest the boasts of a proud tongue,” Aster growled in the true Greek language she’d molded around her pantheon. “More so, a man of villainy who would force himself upon a woman. Get thy self hence and take this offal.”
The remaining two guards grabbed up their fallen compatriot and rushed off without another word.
“I think we’ll be fighting our way there,” Decima grumbled.
“That’s fine,” Irene countered, clapping her hands together. A purple wall of shimmering power expanded out in front of her.
“By twos?” Abigail asked. “Like last time?”
“By twos,” Decima agreed.
Everyone quickly sorted themselves out into pairs. Sam remained at the rear with Tiffany.
Most of their firepower was evenly spread out with their magical combatants interspersed throughout the entirety of the column.
Hmm... we really do have a lot of force in this little PMC of ours. I’m not sure there’s much that could actually stand in our way.
Moving at a light trot, the company kept heading straight for the castle. There was no reason to move slowly now that they’d more or less announced their presence.
Seven - Run and Gun -
“You know, I really didn’t see this—” Stacia paused to hold her left hold out. A red bolt of liquid badness zipped away from her palm and smashed through the head of a soldier who’d come running out of an alleyway. “Turning into a running firefight.”
“Honestly, the moment Aster tried to talk for the group, I thought it’d be this way,” Sam answered. “Aster has always been—”
Sam’s words were drowned out as Wren’s rifle ripped out with short bursts of gunfire in front of their group.
“Has always been free with her wants and short-tempered when anyone tries to make her do anything,” Sam finished.
“I like her,” Tiffany said, pulling her shotgun up in front of her, sighting a militia man and pulling the trigger.
The heavy slug blasted through the man’s breastplate and knocked him to his ass.
Moving ever onward, it felt like Wren’s rifle was a constant and ugly reminder that they were in danger. Irene had swapped places with Decima and was throwing out ugly blobs of purple witchery that made people melt.
Up ahead, Sam could see the outer wall’s gates which led to the palace. The massive heavy doors were shut and the portcullis was down in front of it.
Oh. That might be something I need to handle.
Drawing on the constant stream of Essence he’d been generating through sex, Sam built up a construct of heat.
He pulled on the very flames of the underworld itself, as well as whatever heat he could draw from his personal plane.
Because the truth was, as much as Sam claimed not to be a demon, the underworld wasn’t a place that could harm him.
He’d been born there. A citizen of Hell.
It was beyond unlikely that he’d ever get to pull a soul across in the same way he had Decima—not without some heavy bargaining—but he could always borrow some of the substance of the underworld itself.
A chilling blue flame formed above his team as they ran. Fighting their way onward, soldiers and militia men began clearing the way rather than face them.
Clearly they’d figured out that when dealing with Sam’s team and their “unknown” weapons, it was better to run away. Not that he could blame them for their cowardice.
“Sam?” Aster called back from the front.
Must be my cue.
Controlling the blue flame to speed off toward the gate, Sam felt a severe dip in his Essence banks. He was constantly filling them with Emotional Essence through sex, but he was still extremely lacking in Life Essence.
There simply was no substitute and he had precious few opportunities to gain it anymore outside of contracts.
Not to mention, he had to have enough Life Essence in reserve to keep Jes and Decima alive. He couldn’t squander it carelessly.
And that dip in Essence triggered his hunger.
He could smell Tiffany next to him and Stacia in front of him. Sam was practically imagining the smooth flavor of Stacia blended in with the meatiness of Tiffany at the same time.
Desperately, he craved getting them into a three-way and repeatedly having them orgasm until he was full.
There was no impact or boom when the flame hit the gate.
All one could hear was a faint sizzling sound. Immediately followed by the gate, the stonework around it, the portcullis, and a section of the tower it was a part of, becoming molten rock and iron.
Superheated by an Incubus who tapped into what was hell.
Sam could feel Jes building a spell over their heads.
As they were about to cross into the bubbling molten morass that was once the palace gates, Jes brought her spell-work to life.
A solid and very icy looking metal of some type was formed over it all. Like a ramp.
Running onto the metal, the company didn’t stop for even a moment.
Hitting the courtyard, everyone formed into a circle, Irene and Stacia forming two halves of a sphere and building it around the group.
Hillary, Tiffany, Wren, and Abigail fanned out and began taking shots at everyone they could see with a weapon.
“Aster, Sam, Tiffany, with me to the throne room. Carissa, take Jes and get up to a perch,” Decima ordered. “The rest of you hold this position.”
Reacting immediately to the given instructions, the team broke apart and reformed quickly.
Decima was in the lead with Aster on her right. Sam had moved to Decima’s left and Tiffany was in the rear again.
The Were-wolverine was an excellent rear guard.
Unsheathing her sword with her right hand, Decima drew her pistol with the left. Sam immediately did the same.
Amusingly enough, they had a similar fighting style if Sam wasn’t using his Essence.
Holding a hand out in front of herself, Aster shot out a lightning bolt that cracked into the large heavy door of the palace.
The entire door blew inward as it splintered into little more than woodchips.
Stepping over the wreckage, everyone piled into the receiving hall.
Decima raised her pistol and began taking shots at the soldiers who were rushing toward them. They were dressed differently than those they’d met so far, which meant they were likely an elite pa
lace guard.
Pity.
Sam lifted his pistol and began firing as well. Tracking a target, Sam pulled the trigger twice after aiming center mass. Then he moved on to the next.
For some, it wouldn’t be enough to kill them, but it would put them out of the fight. There was little they’d be wearing that could stop the modern day rounds his team were using.
Aster held her hands up above her head. Thin bolts of lightning began streaking out of her hands and hitting every enemy visible.
In seconds, the Torment of Lightning had quite literally cleared the field.
“Have I mentioned I really like where the world is?” Aster grinned, giving her hands a shake and letting them fall to her sides. “Having Essence on tap is… amazing. Simply amazing. I kinda want to find a nuclear power plant and see how it tastes.”
Damn.
The world is literally her oyster now, isn’t it?
Decima gave the room a thorough look, then started moving forward again. Sheathing her sword, she took a few seconds to remove the magazine from her pistol and replace it with a fresh one.
“I think perhaps I could have cleared out the infestation of Spain with our team,” Decima muttered.
“Decima dear, my sweet sexy honeybuns, we could conquer the world as we are today if Jes and Sam let us,” Aster countered, punctuating her words by swatting Decima on the rear end with enough force to make a cracking noise. “Getting in a three-way with you and Sam later. You’re so fucking hot.”
Skipping forward a step at the sudden slap, Decima turned a wide-eyed look at Aster, her face pale and her cheeks flushed red.
I don’t think anyone’s ever slapped Lady Decimation on the ass before.
The consummate warrior that she was, Decima turned back to the front and ignored Aster outright. Smashing her boot into the door in front of her, Decima marched forward into what was likely an antechamber which would lead to the royal throne room.
“Have fun making a new body or whatever,” Tiffany muttered. “Decima’s going to kill you.”
“No, she won’t,” Aster said with a laugh. “She’s probably thinking about it. She has no experience. All I have to do is promise to teach her everything that’ll make Sam a happy husband after she’s done licking me clean and Sam fills my throat up.
