by Jack Porter
“Answer me!” I demanded.
“Perhaps,” he said. “There might be a chance–”
I had to grin at his phrasing. There might be a chance. As if luck could indeed play a role.
But the demon hadn’t finished. “It would depend on how strong the shield wall is in comparison to the strength of the shield.”
“And how would we know?” I asked.
I felt Azrael’s mental shrug. “We try it,” he said.
That was all I needed. Instead of hovering in midair, accomplishing nothing, I drove down to where Sandy was trying to get her car to restart.
I landed heavily right beside her. “Give me the amulet!” I demanded.
Sandy didn’t even hesitate. She just took the amulet off and handed it to me without question. I was too big in my demon form to slip the chain over my head, so I gripped it in my hand.
Activation was simple. I just pressed the jewel in the middle of the amulet as if it was a button, and all at once, I was covered in the same sort of translucent, lightly purple nimbus that had enclosed Dario when I tried to shoot him in the head. It was delicate and ephemeral, enough that I couldn’t see through it without any loss of vision, but it was definitely real and in place.
It felt different. As if the world was still there, but everything was shifted slightly to the left. It was as if the whole world had developed a lag that lasted no more than a fraction of a second.
I waved my hand back and forth in front of my eyes and couldn’t help but think back to the one time where I had stumbled across my roommate’s stash of shrooms. It was like that, but not as severe, like maybe I’d taken just half a dose.
Then I turned my attention to the wall and resolutely stepped forward.
With a snarl on my face and my heart pounding in my chest, my fury at being trapped barely contained, I raised a hand and pressed against the shield wall.
It was still there. Still solid. Still substantial.
And yet… It felt less obdurate than before.
As if, instead of being a wall made of solid, unyielding concrete, it was made of a thick, spongy mattress.
With effort, I could push my hand into it.
Encouraged, I gritted my teeth, set my feet, and raised my other hand to the wall. Then I pushed with all my considerable muscle.
I sank into the shield wall to the depth of a foot but could go no further.
Encouraged but frustrated at the same time, I turned about and put my back to it, hoping that I could push enough of myself through that the shield would give way. I saw Sandy and Piper both watching with interest, and Rachel joined the crowd as well, touching down lightly next to Sandy’s ruined car and watching what I was doing.
“Help me!” I demanded, and it was Rachel who acted the fastest. Still in her demonic form, she lent her strength to mine, and for a moment, it seemed to be working. I sank further into the shield wall, but then, as if it had reached the limit of its flexibility, I could go no further.
I cursed and looked about, seeking inspiration.
But all I could do was the same as I’d tried before, searching for a weak spot and hitting the shield wall at speed.
I did so, but this time, I felt like I had made progress, but not enough. Instead of smashing myself against the wall, I seemed almost to bounce.
But there was still no way through.
And the boundary of our prison was growing smaller by the second as the Agents continued to step inward.
I found that I hated the man blond man with the scar on his jaw with everything I had, hated his companions as well, and hated the BDA as an organization.
But that hate could only take me so far and wouldn’t help get me through the barrier. With a sense of frustration and almost despair, I touched back down in amongst the girls, noting that Rachel had resumed her human form.
“Now what?” asked Piper, but I had no answer to give.
“Maybe when the shield passes my car, if you’re inside it…” Sandy said, and I could see what she was thinking. The blond had managed to back her car a little away from the shield before the engine gave out. It was sitting there, the shield inches from the ruined front end.
Perhaps, depending on how that shield worked, the car would provide just enough protection that I could make my way through.
But before I could move to try it, something else happened.
A nondescript sedan came out of nowhere, accelerated as hard as it could, and aimed straight for one of the Agents.
I knew it was Julie before I saw the dark-haired woman through the window. Her expression was a mixture of rage and determination, and she was driving with intent.
She ploughed into the older woman Agent at full speed.
The woman’s divine shield provided her with all sorts of protection. No doubt, she barely felt the actual impact of Julie’s car at all. But the momentum imparted was another matter entirely.
Just as I could pick up a shield-wearing Agent and smash them against concrete columns, the force of Julie’s impact was enough to bounce the older woman completely out of the playing field.
Now, where before there had been half a dozen people keeping our prison intact, now there was one fewer.
The shield was still there. I could see the shimmer in the air. But I knew it was weaker than it had been before by the strength of one person.
Julie hadn’t finished. She looked at me through the shield and shouted something I couldn’t quite make out. But her intentions were clear. She was going hunting, and her prey was another BDA Agent.
I nodded my understanding, and in moments, she was gone.
I didn’t waste any time. I leaned my weight against the shield wall once again, and felt it give even more than before. Encouraged, I kept at it, and in less than a minute, the shield weakened again, no doubt in response to Julie’s efforts.
It was enough. I pushed my way through.
The three women still trapped inside lit up in delight at my success. Rachel even jumped up and down, clapping her hands in front of herself, and for a moment, I was distracted. She was naked after her transformation into the succubus form, and even as a human, it was a sight to behold. Then I turned my attention to the problem at hand.
“Flee,” Azrael said in my mind. “The risk is too great for you to remain. Do not give the BDA Agents a chance to regroup.”
As usual when my demon offered this kind of advice, I ignored him completely. Instead, I looked around for a weapon, something I could use from a distance, so I didn’t need to get too close.
Before I could make up my mind between one of Dario’s fence posts and a decorative boulder, Julie pulled up beside me, the front of her car damaged but still in one piece.
“I managed to get another one,” she said. “But the others are not on the road.” She looked at me with a seriousness. “What do you need me to do?”
“Get out of the car,” I said.
She didn’t hesitate, and in less than a second, stood at my side.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
I grinned at her. “I hope you’re insured,” I said.
She gave me a half a grin in return. “It’s a work vehicle,” she said. “Do whatever you want.”
Still in my demon form, I moved to the front of the car and gripped it on each side of the hood. Then I launched myself into the air, carrying the whole weight of the car as if it was nothing.
Higher and higher I flew, until I was beyond the height of the shield that the Agents were still keeping in place. From high above, I found my target and hefted the car for weight.
I could have just dropped it on him. It probably would have done the job.
Instead, I lifted the car above my head and then hurled it downwards with all my strength.
It should have crushed the blond man. Should have turned him into mush. But I’d misjudged how the shield worked once again.
Perhaps I should have used the car as a baseball bat, and smashed him out
of the park. Perhaps then it would have done what I wanted.
Instead, the car did no more than bury him and his shield up to his knees in the earth.
It didn’t kill him. Didn’t even come close. But it broke his concentration, and I could see that the shield had faltered.
Three people weren’t enough to keep it together. The shield around Dario’s house blinked out of existence.
I spat a curse of anger, and hurled myself toward the blond man with the scar, heedless of any potential danger. The man could have resurrected his shield, and I would have simply bounced off. Instead, he took the coward’s way out and blinked out of existence.
I gave a snarl of rage and hovered in place, turning my attention to the others.
But they also sensed they no longer had the upper hand, and just like that, they were gone.
It seemed that they had been better prepared this time. It seemed that all of them carried one of those teleportation devices.
But they’d still lost. We had still come out ahead.
Even as I gloated about this, I acknowledged that it had been too close a thing.
I flapped my wings again, and made my way back to the girls, touching down beside them and getting to my human form.
There was a moment of celebration, of hugs, kisses, and more, although it seemed it was more out of relief than a true sense of victory.
When it had faded, Sandy voiced what I was thinking.
“Where do we go now?”
28
“What about one of the places confiscated by the police?” Julie suggested.
The rest of us stared at her.
“If a place is deemed to be the proceeds of crime,” she explained, “the police take possession.” She shrugged. “There’s an auction a few times a year where they get sold. Not just houses, but boats, cars, jewelry, anything you can imagine. It used to be that you could get quite a bargain, but there’s more competition now than there used to be.”
“You have access to places like that?” I asked her.
Julie grinned broadly. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”
The place she found for us turned out to be every bit as grand as Megadeath’s mansion, with a view almost to rival Dario’s.
Julie explained that the owner had been a fake hedge fund trader who was really just operating a complex Ponzi scheme, stealing from Peter to pay Paul. The fraudster was currently serving the start of a long prison sentence, but I didn’t really care about any of that. All that mattered to me was that the place boasted the same luxury we had all grown used to, that it had more than enough space to suit all our needs, and that there was pretty much no way for the Syndicate or the BDA to track where we were.
Or so I believed.
I was admiring one of the expensive lounges when Azrael burst my bubble of false security. Perhaps our fight had made him realize he shouldn’t keep important information from me.
“The soldier demons can still trace us,” Azrael said.
“Huh? What?” I asked him.
Azrael had the audacity to sound exasperated that he had to explain.
“The soldier demons controlled by Bianca Gambetti,” he said. “They are vicious, powerful brutes that seem more animal than anything else. But what you didn’t see is their affinity for information. That is their core talent. Someone like Bianca can send her demons out looking for whatever information she needs. They can find out anything.”
I knew this, of course. Julie had mentioned it before. But apparently, I needed to be told more than once.
“Are you saying they could already know where we are?” I asked my pet demon.
“It is possible. But only if they have been asked to find out. And even then, it can take them some time. And remember, the BDA Agents have their processes to follow, and they don’t have direct access to the demons they use.”
I understood. Likely, the BDA Agents would have to debrief, then someone more senior would decide what to do. If that decision included any form of escalation, then that would have to go through a process to be authorized, and only then would they seek to locate me and the girls once again.
That sudden understanding explained why it had taken so long for the BDA to attack us a second time. In that, it gave me a sense of almost relief. We had some time to play with.
At the same time, I figured there wasn’t much we could do to hide our presence if the soldier demons wanted to find us again.
Unless…
“Azrael?” I said. “Is there anything that will hide us from the soldier demon’s eyes?”
“Of course,” my demon replied. “There have been divine items crafted for this very reason. They are fairly common.”
That was all I needed.
It had been a long time since I had personally logged onto one of the Ascender forums I had used to frequent. I knew how they worked, knew the pitfalls of seeking such an item, and the community knew me as well. I didn’t have to worry as much about being steered in the wrong direction.
In just a few minutes, I had found what I was looking for. An arcane supplier, his main business barely on the legal side of the ledger, had a thriving side business in the type of thing that I wanted.
In less than an hour, I picked up an item that appeared to be no more than a fancy candle holder with places for five different candles. This time, I didn’t need proof of its divine properties. Azrael could sense it, and confirmed it was what I was after.
Then I was back at our new mansion, confident that unless the BDA itself came knocking on our front door, we would be safe for at least a while.
That alone felt like an enormous weight lifted from my shoulders.
It had been a rough week. The girls and I had moved three different times in an effort to stay ahead of the BDA. We lost Dario early on, and while I knew in what was left of my soul that a man’s life was worth far more than anything else, I mourned the loss of my car just as much.
And to top it all off, there was still Azrael’s news to deal with. But at least that one was for the future.
As for just then, my focus was on usurping Bianca Gambetti’s role with the Syndicate, and leveraging that to get the BDA off my back.
There was a movie franchise I liked where every problem the heroes faced had the same solution. They got in a car and drove it really fast until the problem was solved.
It was a great series, and I was looking forward to the next one. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but think I got the better end of the deal.
Sure, the guys in the film really liked driving their cars. It was what they did. But if they could swap for what I had? I was pretty sure they would do so without hesitation.
Because I solved all my problems by having sex with as many women I could.
And you couldn’t get better than that.
29
As usual, Sandy lined them all up for me. Although, ‘lined them up’ perhaps was a bit linear compared to how it actually worked. From the moment we figured out what to do and what our plan of attack should be to deal with Bianca Gambetti and the BDA at the same time, there was a never-ending orgy going on, with me right in the middle.
The financier’s mansion had more than one comfortable living area. I chose the smaller of them, a sunken one already decked out with cushions and beanbags more than regular furniture, and turned the lights down low to set the mood. Then I basically just waited for the girls to arrive.
It started slowly with just a pair of blonds in their mid-twenties, full of excitement over how naughty they were being. Sandy showed them in, introduced them to me, and left us to it.
Before Azrael had taken up residence in my mind, my earlier self would have said something stupid and effectively cock-blocked myself in any number of ways. But I’d had plenty of practice since then and could seal the deal with a smile and hardly a spoken word.
And anyway, Sandy did her job well. It wasn’t like the girls didn’t know what they were in for. We were all naked within a mat
ter of minutes, exploring each other’s bodies with our hands, lips, tongue, and anything else that seemed valid at the time.
Those two girls were just the first, and I wasn’t done with them when Sandy returned with a third woman, a brunette who looked at the three of us with an expression of shock.
Perhaps unsurprising, because at the time, I was balls deep in one of the blonds.
Sandy just laughed at the brunette’s expression. I paused, turned toward her, and said, “Come and join us. There is more than enough to go around.”
Despite her shock, the brunette seemed willing, and began tottering toward us before she really knew what she was doing.
I thought Sandy might stay to offer her additional encouragement, but she had to disappear, to greet the next girls.
More and more girls kept turning up. Blonds, brunettes, redheads, girls from every part of the globe, tall, short, willowy, fit, through to thicc and generously padded.
How many there were all together, I didn’t know, and figured only Sandy would have a true count. But I did know that for more than a week, I was almost never out of the room, pausing only when I needed to eat, drink, or grab a five-minute break.
Azrael’s enhancements meant that I didn’t even need to sleep. I just moved from one woman to the next, pounding away for all I was worth, enjoying the writhing, moaning mass of female flesh.
It was, as far as I was concerned, the mother of all orgies. Not once after it truly began did the number of women drop beneath half a dozen, and at one time I counted more than twenty, all of them naked, most of them amusing themselves as they awaited my attention.
It was ecstasy on steroids. A delirium of passion and lust. Madness in the form of flesh and desire, and the dreams of any healthy, red-blooded man come to life.
If Azrael hadn’t bumped up my stamina almost to the max, I would have lasted perhaps half a day and chalked it up as a wild success. But as it was, I ignited the demonic blood within woman after woman, bringing their succubi to life, watching them shudder and collapse, only to recover as one of my conquests.
I was an assembly line of one, a maker of demons, the source that gave rise to a burgeoning power within the city of El Diablo.
