by Jan Stryvant
Fawn snorted. "I doubt any of them have ever even seen a sobek."
"Exactly," Lofn said with a happy sigh. "So all they'll have to go by are the myths, and seeing Daniel here not only eat Weson, but that he has us all of us firmly under his thumb, too."
"What makes you so sure I'm going to eat him?" Dan said, looking around the room.
Wrath snorted. "You mean, other than the fact he murdered your stepfather, drove your mother to suicide, tried to assassinate you multiple times, and imprisoned all of us?"
"Umm…" Dan shifted a little in his seat, feeling uncomfortable about the thought of eating yet another person.
"He hurt Lofn, Dan," Fawn whispered.
"And don't forget what your father told you," Olivia reminded him. "You're a god. It's time to unleash some godly wrath on that pompous asshole."
Dan sighed. "It's just kind of hard to plan on it, you know? Yeah, I'm sure the moment I get my hands on him, I'll go all biblical on him, it's just…" Dan shook his head, "I'm still getting used to this."
"You didn't seem to have a problem with it in the car yesterday," Olivia said with a grin.
"Well, yeah. Except for George, who's my friend, they all work for me. So I gotta treat them like that. I learned that from my stepfather. You have to set their expectations up front, or you'll regret it ever after. But you, you're my mates, my family, my life." Dan shrugged and gave them a guilty look. "I need to be honest with you. I mean, you're all more experienced than me, definitely a lot wiser and more mature."
"Notice he didn't say 'older'," Aella teased.
"Umm, never mention a lady's age," Dan said, giving them another guilty look. "I know you're all mine, and yes, I mean that literally. But I'm still learning, and yeah, I want to kill Weson more than anything, because of everything he's done to the five of you. What he did to me doesn't even enter into it.
"But you're right, if I can get power from him, I'll need it for our showdown with Godfrey. I don't think he's going to give us much time to get organized before he tries to move in on us."
"Most likely he'll try to hit us while we're finishing up dealing with Weson," Wrath said. "That would be our weakest moment."
"So we need a good plan to get the hell out of there once we're done," Aella said.
"Set it all on fire and burn it to the ground," Lofn said lazily. "It'll draw the fire department and lots of mundane attention, and everyone can sneak off under cover of that."
"Awww! Aren't we going to loot the place?" Fawn asked.
"No," Dan said, "we're not."
"As long as we get those spears we promised Firreiro, we're good," Wrath said.
"And we don't want to spend all day dealing with traps and end up having to defend a place we just destroyed," Aella added.
"Fine," Fawn said with a pout.
"Well, now that we have a general plan, let's figure out the details," Wrath said, getting up and walking over to the monitor.
"Shouldn't we wait until we know how many people we have and what they can all do?" Olivia asked.
"It's easier to modify an existing plan than to come up with one from scratch on the spot. We'll come up with the initial plan today, then as we learn who and what we've got, we'll adapt it."
"How are we going to land everybody on the roof?" Dan asked.
"Helicopter."
"What? No magic?"
"Not everything has to be magic, Dan."
"Yes," Lofn said happily, "not everything does."
A Short Trip
Dan sat in the back of the van. He still had Lofn plastered to him, though she'd been asleep for most of the trip. He'd peeled her off long enough to shower and get dressed, though he'd been sorely tempted to bang her in the shower, but he knew if he started with her, it'd be another day before they went anywhere, since everyone else would want another turn.
At least she'd gotten dressed.
The others were all being pretty touchy-feely with both him and each other now, as well. He'd obviously touched all of them very deeply, and he was proud of that. He was beyond committed to each of them, and apparently it'd finally sunk in that he loved them for who and what they were, warts and all.
For Lofn, this was apparently a far bigger deal then he'd realized. Sure, he'd seen that dark patch on her soul; it wasn't like she hadn't warned him of it already. Her problem was that she'd been hiding behind it, full of guilt for her past—a past that even she had learned to condemn.
He'd taken the time to understand it; it had been important enough to her that he couldn't just ignore it. She'd been everything she'd told him she once was, what she'd been accused of. But that was the past, and he felt it was time for her to forgive herself and forget everything beyond the lesson she'd learned, that she could love and be loved.
Then he'd shown her not only how much he loved her, but how much she deserved to be loved. The one thing he now realized she'd given up all hope of ever truly being.
Giving her another hug, he smiled and held her as she slept. She wasn't just emotionally exhausted; she'd been the one he'd loved last, so she hadn't gotten a lot of sleep afterwards. He figured the only reasons he wasn't tired were the combination of the catnaps between each of them, and that at his age, staying up long hours wasn't that big a deal.
"Better wake her up, Dan," Wrath said. "We're almost there."
Dan nibbled on one of Lofn's ears, then whispered her name.
"Time to wake up," he said, and she smiled at him as she opened her eyes.
Lofn shifted to straddle his lap, then stretched in the back of the van, half unfurling her wings as she did so. He watched appreciatively, because damn if it wasn't incredibly sexy.
"Sorry I monopolized him," Lofn said in a soft voice to the others, "but I couldn't help myself. I promise to make it up to each and every one of you. Several times," she added, and then giggled.
"I think I'm gonna enjoy that!" Aella snickered from the passenger's seat up front.
"You and me both!" Fawn added with a giggle of her own.
"You needed it, Lofn," Wrath said. "What kind of mates and lovers would we be if we didn't give you what you need?"
"What she said," Olivia agreed.
Dan put his hands to either side of Lofn's head and gave her a kiss as she furled her wings, then slid off his lap onto the seat beside him.
"So what are we going to get from Aureate?" Lofn asked. "I think I dozed during that part of the planning."
"Mostly, we need something to take on that golem Weson has," Dan told her. "But if we can get more powerful weapons, or anything else to help us, we'll take it."
"Have you given any thought to what comes after?" Lofn asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, with Weson out of the way, we need to move quickly to seize as much control over the people he subverted in government. Further, if any of our old connections are left, we should probably move on those, too."
"Ah, damn!" Wrath said. "I've been meaning to go see if my blackmail files are still where I stashed them! Guess I'm doing that tonight."
"I've already said that I lost all mine," Aella said.
"I already checked," Fawn said, speaking up. "All my guys are gone, one way or the other."
"I called my club last night," Olivia said with a smile. Weson hadn't been able to get it back from her in the week they were gone. "Once it's safe, I can see if what I hid back when I was working at it is still there."
"Did you have anything?" Dan asked Lofn, who shook her head.
"Mostly I'd just disguise myself as someone's secretary and go through their files for stock tips or a little influence peddling and blackmail."
Dan nodded as Wrath pulled into the parking lot and found a place to park.
"Let's go see what Aureate's got for us."
They got out, and after a moment to sort themselves out, they went inside. The same guy who'd been there all the previous times—or one close enough Dan couldn't tell the difference—nodded to them and pick
ed up the phone to let Aureate know they were there.
"Wrath!" Aureate said, coming out of the back and giving her a hug. "The stories coming out of Sacramento had me worried there for a while!" She went down the line and gave each of them a light hug. "Daniel! Nice to see you've still got your winning ways! Fawn, Aella, Olivia, and my, it's nice to see you looking happier than the last time you were here, Lofn.
"Let's go back to my office, and we can discuss why you're here."
Wrath and Aureate caught each other up on what had been going on as they walked back to the office. Aureate had heard about their trip to Wrath's father's home, and figured they'd gotten both the curse broken and Dan cured, seeing as they'd come back as a group.
"How'd you find all that out?" Fawn asked as they came to Aureate's office.
"I called Estaca and asked," Aureate said with a smile. "She knows Wrath and I are friends, so she let me know she was okay. She also told me about Wiles' visit to the bar, as well as that you're now planning to take on Weson."
"Which is why we're here," Wrath said as they found seats.
"I take it you need help?" Aureate asked.
"Actually, we need something to take out an iron golem."
"Weson has an iron golem?" Aureate said, looking surprised.
"Yeah, we ran into it when we made our first attempt to free Lofn—the one that didn't go so well," Aella said with a heavy sigh.
"What else do you need?"
"What else do you want to offer?" Dan asked as Fawn claimed his lap, and Lofn stopped behind his chair, rubbing his neck.
"We've got three mages signed up to help so far," Wrath said.
"And about forty demons," Aella added. "Possibly more."
"That's quite the turnout," Aureate said, looking impressed. "Do they know you intend to take over Sacramento?"
"Dan is the one taking over Sacramento," Lofn said with a warm smile. "We've made that clear to everyone. Only the demons know he's one of us, now."
"Oh?" Aureate said, looking back at Dan.
"I found my father, my real father," Dan said with a happy smile of his own. "I'm a sobek…technically I'm half sobek, though apparently, in my case, that's not exactly how it turned out. I can do everything a sobek can, including assuming my aspect."
Dan shifted in his seat and assumed his aspect, and was surprised by the look Aureate gave him. Then again, he now looked more like a crocodile, and she was an erpeto, which was also a reptilian race. He smiled at her, reflecting that she was quite nicely put together, then changed back to his human form.
"I think I have something that will help you with Weson's golem. However, I must warn you that it will probably destroy a fair bit of the building, as well, probably rendering it unusable."
"We're going to burn it down after we kill Weson, anyway," Wrath told her, "so that's not much of an issue."
"I also want to send someone with you."
"Oh? Why?"
"Because it has become important to me that you succeed, why else?" Aureate said and smiled at Wrath. "Besides, how can I ask for a really big favor if I don't do something to deserve it?"
"Actually, you've done a lot for us already, Aureate," Dan said, "and I don't plan on forgetting about it, either."
"Why, thank you, Daniel," she said with a warm smile. "How would you like to join me for lunch, because I would love to hear about your adventures over the last few months."
"We'd be delighted," Wrath said with a smile.
"What's a rust monster?" Dan asked, looking at the wand Aureate had given Wrath as they were leaving.
"It effectively eats iron by turning it into rust."
"That sounds good."
"It is. But once it finishes with the golem, it's going to look for more iron to consume, until the summoning spell ends, and it's sent back home."
"So be careful, when it starts eating the steel in the building, that it doesn't fall on you," Aella warned.
"Any idea who she's going to send to help us?" Olivia asked.
Wrath shook her head. "She told me she'd see who's available and decide after that."
"Who's available? I thought she ruled here or something?" Fawn asked.
"It's not a simple matter of grabbing whomever she wants. Also, not everybody who lives here is actually one of her…subjects, I guess you could say. I wouldn't be surprised if whoever shows up doesn't even work for her."
"Then why come?"
"Because Aureate would owe them a favor."
"Okay, that I can understand!" Fawn said with a grin. "And you know what that means?"
Wrath shook her head.
"If we like 'em, we can poach 'em!"
Wrath laughed. "You may have a point there."
There was a moment of silence then, and Fawn looked around. "Hey! Where's my praise?" she asked as they laughed.
"Sorry, sheep-girl, but maybes aren't good enough," Olivia said with a grin. "But I think I have a reward you'd like!"
Fawn eeped! as Olivia grabbed her and dragged her into the back of the van, causing the rest of them to snicker.
"Well, back home? Or do we have anything else we need to take care of?" Wrath asked everyone.
"I'd like to stop at Fawn's hotel. I left my stepfather's notebook there," said Dan.
"I guess we could do that, but we need to be careful in case Weson's still watching the place."
"I think we need to go to the Zoo again—probably tomorrow after we have our meeting with our three new mages—to see exactly how many people we have, and tell them when and where they need to show up," Lofn said.
"What about practice?" he asked.
"Practice? For what?"
"We ran a bunch of practice drills with Dan when we went to get Olivia," Aella said, "because we had to work in a tight formation."
"Oh," Lofn said with a nod. "While that's a good idea, I don't think we're going to be able to get a random group of demons to practice at all."
"Honestly, I think your time would be better spent learning spells and working on curses," Wrath said from up front.
Nodding, Dan pulled out the book on portal magic and worked on the group of spells needed to create an anchor point.
"We're here," Wrath called out, and Dan looked up from his book. Looking out the window, he saw they were indeed pulling into Placerville, though they'd come up 49 this time. Looking back at the book a moment before he closed it and put it away, he realized he'd understood it a lot better as he read through it a second time. You weren't just building a terminus, you were building an anchor point, along with a 'beacon' of sorts, so you could find the terminus and anchor your portal gateway to it.
The way permanent portal gateways were formed was by making two or more terminus points and linking them together. Which actually wasn't that much harder than making the terminus point.
The only tricky part to the whole thing was setting up your terminus so others couldn't connect to it without your permission. Making one that only you could open wasn't terribly difficult, and it appeared to be impossible for anyone else to open it. Making one that anybody could open a link to, assuming they knew it existed, was easy. But putting permissions on it?
That was hard. There were different ways of doing it, of course. There were probably as many ways of locking a portal as there were for putting a lock on a door. Some were better than others—which made them harder—but all of them could be hacked, or picked if you like, if someone knew what was needed and figured out a way to spoof it.
Which meant, unless he linked it to himself, putting one in the basement of the house probably wasn't a bright idea. Putting it outside the house on the grounds somewhere was better, but then he'd have to ward it, so if he wasn't able to keep out unexpected surprises, at least he'd know about them when they showed up.
Slipping the book into his pocket, he took out his pistol, checked to be sure it was loaded, then put it away and checked his mace.
"You know that pistol really isn't worth much anymore,
right?" Olivia said, crawling out of the back of the van with a pleased expression on her face. Fawn was still lying on the floor in the back, panting.
Dan nodded. "I'm thinking of engraving curses on the bullets."
Olivia grinned. "Now that would be cool!"
"Guess we need to buy a bullet press," Aella said.
"What's that?" Dan asked. "And why?"
"The rifling in the barrel will scratch the sides of the bullet, and that might destroy the curse, right?"
"Umm, it could," Dan agreed with a nod.
"So we'll pull the bullet out of the cartridge and you can inscribe it on base. Then we press it back in, and everything is fine."
"Oh! Yeah, that makes sense."
"You alive back there, Fawn?" Aella called out.
"Give me a minute," she said, still panting. "As soon as I find my phone, I'll order one."
"Okay, let's hit the hotel and get Dan's book," Wrath said, parking the van.
"Great, I need a shower," Olivia said.
"Me, too!" Fawn called from the back.
Shaking his head, Dan got out of the van. "Hey, why aren't we parked by the hotel?"
"Cause I don't want them getting an ID on our van. Otherwise they'll follow it back to our house," Wrath said.
"Oh! So how do we keep them from following us back to it, then?"
"Killing works," Wrath said with an evil grin.
Dan laughed. "Yeah, I guess it does."
He blinked as the others got out and thought about what he'd just said. He'd just consigned a bunch of people he didn't even know to death.
And the idea didn't bother him in the slightest.
He gave a small shake of his head. He couldn't ask 'how have I come to this', because he could document the entire process in painstaking detail.
"Let's go," Wrath said, breaking him out of his revery.
"I wonder if it's just Weson's people keeping an eye on the hotel? Or if Godfrey's got people there as well?"
"Doesn't matter, they both know we're back," Lofn said.
"Weson knows because of the taps on his power, but how would Godfrey know?"
