Rune Waker

by Jamie Hawke

  “You like what you see,” she stated. It wasn’t a question.

  “We can’t…” I tried to look away, but felt that same energy that had guided me here, now pulling me toward her. “Others will see you and…”

  She laughed. “Relax, relax… I don’t have the life force yet to be seen by anyone not touching the amulet.”

  My first thought was one of hunger, one of needing her all to myself. Then I realized what this meant.

  “You’d be with me, like this… at all times?”

  “Is that a problem?” She tilted her head, one hand going to her hip, the other tracing the side, moving up to caress one of her breasts, then bringing her finger to her lips, to lick it. “Would that be distracting?”

  Blood was already rushing south, but now it swelled, the bulge too much to hide. Her eyes moved down, loving what she was doing to me. I turned away, doing my best to tuck it into my pants line.

  “I’m looking for my fiancée,” I stated.

  “And?”

  “And, that… I mean—I can’t just run around with a naked woman on this adventure.”

  “Sugar, I’m hardly a woman. Not only, anyway.” Still, she sighed and waved her hand, creating a sort of armor that appeared around her curves, covering enough of her nether regions and breasts to make it at least slightly less awkward.

  I hated the feeling of regret, the sense of longing now that she wasn’t fully exposed, but pushed it aside. To not have tried to take her right there was more than most men could have handled, and I reminded myself of that point.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Thank you.”

  She shrugged, a thin line of blue mist escaping her eyes, like light trailing off. “I told you, strong willed and determined. As much as I would’ve loved to fuck you right here and now, I can respect that.”

  “As much as part of me would’ve been all for that, yes. I have my mission.”

  “When we find her, maybe the three of us—”

  “You said we need something of hers?” I interrupted.

  “Indeed.” In a flash she was pressed up against me, one leg between mine and feeling my bulge press against her. She bit her lip, then blinked.

  Just like that, we were in my apartment, me in my VR rig, her still pressed against me, but on top. She smiled wide, then rolled off and had a look around. I couldn’t help but notice that her new ‘armor’ did a horrible job of hiding her ass. My eyes lingered long enough for her to catch me. Instead of the giggle or mischievous grin I’d expected, though, she held a finger to her mouth and pointed to the kitchen.

  Looking to see what she was pointing at, I heard the voices as the same time as I saw the shadows. We weren’t alone—there were at least two men in my flat.

  10

  Why the hell were there two strangers in my flat? At least the presence of a nearly-nude demon succubus or genie lady could be explained, in an almost insane way. Assuming everything she’d said about the rift and other worlds was true, and judging by the fact that the amulet was still on me, under my shirt with its cold metal against my skin, I had to assume it was. In a normal world, one doesn’t take items with them out of a simulation or game.

  She had crept over to the doorway, peering out, and glanced back my way, pursing her lips.

  I widened my eyes in that, ‘what’s the deal’ sort of way, but she shook her head.

  “It’s a shame we haven’t… connected more. You’d be able to see through my eyes, hear through my ears.”

  Her meaning was clear, and the fact that the two men hadn’t reacted to her voice confirmed what she’d said before about only being available to me, or whoever held the amulet.

  So, all freaking out aside, I cleared my mind and focused on my one objective—to find an item that had belonged to Katie, and then get the hell out of there. The two men couldn’t have been there long, because it sounded like they were looking for something.

  “Try his bedroom,” one said, giving me this impression.

  “…then we wake him,” the other one said. I cursed under my breath, moving into action.

  “Name?” I whispered to the demon.

  She held that finger to her mouth, suddenly at my side, and whispered into my ear, “Call me Varena.”

  I nodded, then pointed back toward the direction the voices had gone. “You’ll warn me if they’re coming?”

  She nodded, giving me a rueful glance, then vanished, to reappear at the doorway. I had no doubt that the way she pushed herself up against the wall, sticking her mostly exposed, mostly purple ass out at me wasn’t an accident. This demon lady was laying it on thick. I wasn’t only staring because it was a perfect, plump ass though. It was the first time I was noticing that she was turning more purple as time passed.

  My focus on my goal, I went to my bookshelves, remembering that Katie had let me borrow a book. It had been her way of trying to get things a little more exciting in the bedroom, I guess.

  “Just give it a try,” she had said as she’d pulled it out of her bag when she’d come over that night, a week before the accident.

  “Kill Code?” I’d asked.

  “It’s not as intense as some, but… kind of sets up a fun situation. It’s got some of that geeky stuff you like, but leads into... well, let’s just say you can get the idea from the end. If that whets your appetite, I have many more recommendations.”

  I’d thought the cover looked badass, but never did get around to reading it, yet. At first I’d just been busy, but then after the accident I couldn’t bring myself to.

  Scanning the shelves, I frowned, realizing it wasn’t there. My nightstand. I’d left it there, really meaning to finally give it a read. Only, the bedroom was exactly where the intruders had said they were going.

  A glance back at the demon showed her moving her ass back and forth. Maybe she was bored, or maybe she was aware of me looking, and this was part of her mating ritual. If I hadn’t been so high-strung right then, I might’ve laughed. In another life, I would’ve run over and taken her from behind, giving her what she clearly wanted.

  Pushing that thought aside, I turned to the footlocker I kept in the corner. While it mostly held old equipment from my rig, including previous versions of sensory enhancers, it was my only other hope for something of Katie’s to be in this room.

  Wires. Plugs. An old coffee mug from a SciFi convention I’d once gone to that said “Age of Expansion” on one side, and a cool spaceship on the other. But nothing of hers.

  I turned, realizing the demon was at my side, her eyes inches from mine after I’d faced her. With a start, I blinked, then mouthed, “What?”

  “They’re finishing up in there.”

  “Shit.”

  “We need to go, but… if they take you, we’re fucked. Definitely a bad kind of fucked, like the kind where everything hurts, where—”

  I held a finger to her lips, surprised for some reason that my finger actually made contact. I’d half expected it to go right through her, as if she were a simple projection of my mind.

  Then I had an idea. I remembered Katie had stayed over several times in her last days, and I hadn’t gone through and cleaned out her stuff.

  “Toothbrush,” I hissed, and then I was at the doorway, pausing, listening.

  “…some hacker bullshit,” one of the voices said, coming this way. “That’s all they said. Related to that company that vanished recently, and all this crazy stuff they’re reporting on the dark net.”

  “Fuck you, you got access?” the other voice cut in.

  “All part of the job, my man. And it’s intense, believe me. You read half this shit, you’ll start looking for ghosts over your shoulder.”

  I glanced back at Varena, and she frowned, clearly not liking where this was going. Those two men were about to enter and try to take me in, whether that was to some sort of jail or maybe for questioning related to LivreTech, going with them would mess with my plans.

  My only hope was to ma
ke a mad dash for it, but a realization struck me. After I had the toothbrush, then what?

  I turned to ask, but Varena was there again, almost pressed up against me. “One kiss.”

  “Not the time,” I hissed.

  “You hear something?” one of the voices asked.

  “It’s a connection thing,” Varena quickly explained. “The amulet is against your skin, so I can move about, talk with you. But I’m not strong enough to do anything else. Most contact, and especially intimacy, will give me enough power to cause a distraction.”

  So, a good fuck would let her kill them, basically? I’d made up my mind—succubus through and through. In a sense, anyway.

  They were close now, so I ducked behind the other side of the bookshelf, waiting. She was staring at me, eyes wide.

  “You want it to end like this?” she asked. “They’ll destroy your equipment, take away the amulet. All hope, lost. But, one little kiss can fix it all.”

  Fuck it. Katie would understand.

  She’d always said she wanted me to move on, if something ever happened. While I clearly wasn’t doing that, until we were reunited, it wasn’t exactly cheating. And hell, at the moment it seemed I had no other options.

  With a brief nod, I leaned in, lips slightly spread. Varena was ready, hands on my cheeks, cold lips meeting mine and tongue darting into my mouth. At first the sensation was jarring, as if part of me had been gripped from the inside and yanked out through my mouth. But then she was warm, inviting. Even as my energy started to drain, I wanted more of her. I wanted to give her my all. Fuck life and everything else, all that mattered was that moment, her touch, and…

  “Go,” she said, pulling back, and I was amazed to see how much more alert she appeared. But more than that, she was exuding power. “Go now.”

  She vanished. A crash sounded, then screams and one of the men shouting, “What the fuck was that?”

  I went.

  Charging around the corner, I plowed into one of them, knocking him to the floor, where he fell beside his companion. Varena stood over them, a dark cloud of purple and black moving before her, eyes staring at me as they glowed bright orange like the furnace of hell.

  “A portal, there,” she said, indicating the bathroom.

  “Perfect,” I replied, not sure whether I was still intoxicated by her kiss or horrified by what I was seeing.

  Either way, I was moving, arriving in the bathroom just as one of the men recovered and lunged for me. I turned back and slammed my fist into his face, then the door on his wrist as he reached for me. He cursed and, as I pulled the door to slam it again, I saw his friend drawing a pistol.

  “Virna!” I shouted, kicking the nearer of the two men back and shutting the door. My hand found the toothbrushes, and I stumbled.

  “Varena,” she corrected me, appearing at my side to catch and spin me as a bullet tore through the door. It narrowly missed me, hitting the edge of the far wall instead.

  “We don’t want him fucking dead!” a voice shouted, but whatever came next, I didn’t hear.

  Varena had me, pulling me into the shower. My mind filled with images of the two of us in that shower, hot water running over our bodies as her hands caressed me. Only then it was Katie, and she was smiling, laughing as I caressed her thigh with my slick cock. She had me, gripping me tight and pressing her body to mine—only then it was Varena again, her eyes back to the glowing purple and blue like a shifting haze.

  “Again,” she said, and she kissed me. We fell back into the wall, the same spot I’d seen Katie’s spirit vanish into before, and then we were gone.

  11

  The dark room where I’d found the amulet was exactly as we’d left it, except for one major difference—the rest of my ‘team,’ if you could call them that, were back. That, and they had Brad’s own scythe at his throat. He was on his knees, his hands tied behind his back.

  When he saw me appear, his eyes went wide and turned up to me, a worried hopefulness to them. Pierce the kobold was at his side, smirking at the sight of me, and the large dragon creature held the scythe. The two elves lifted their hands at the sight of me, red and black magic forming.

  “This doesn’t have to get ugly,” Pierce said. “Hand it over.”

  “What?”

  The Marine and his one remaining Spartan friend appeared then from the darkness. He had his rifle aimed in at me. The Spartan carried a spear although he wasn’t aiming it anywhere, but his eyes spoke volumes.

  “You heard him,” the Marine said in his youthful voice. “The genie’s ours.”

  “What genie?” My eyes were moving around them to try and gauge how serious this was. Were they all onboard with this? What did they know that I didn’t?

  “The enemy’s key to holding this place rests in the hands of a genie,” the Marine explained, apparently seeing the question in my eyes. “One who can not only win this fortress over for us, meaning access to their world, but… grant unheard-of extra benefits.”

  “Extra benefits?” I glared at the Marine, wondering how much about extra benefits he knew. If that was a twelve-year old boy in there, this was getting a bit twisted. I shook my head. “Regardless, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Ryan,” Brad pleaded. “Don’t…”

  I went for my sword, but it wasn’t there. With a frown, I saw only the toothbrushes in my hand. My hand—not my avatar’s. My clothes, too. I was here as myself!

  “You’re wondering, too,” the Marine stepped toward me, lifting the rifle for better aim, “why you returned in your true form? Because I was hoping you’d have an explanation for that. Then again, I’m guessing your genie friend can tell us.”

  “Again, there is no genie.” I took a step back, not sure what my plan was there, but knowing I’d come too far to give her up. We had Katie’s toothbrush and Varena had promised she could track her. If we could get out of this situation, I’d be on the right path.

  “Hold on,” the dragon woman said, and she breathed a light fire, just enough so that it lit up the room a bit more. When she let it fade, everyone was staring at me with more curiosity than before.

  “Ryan,” Brad said, voice no longer scared, but fascinated. “Your skin is kind of… blue.”

  “I’d say purple,” Pierce added.

  “Is it?” I asked, wondering what I had to do to bring Varena out, to get her to take me from this place.

  At that thought, she appeared beside me, hands behind her back, assessing my friends.

  “They are rather insistent, aren’t they?” She turned to me with a grin, and while the group kept talking, demanding I explain why my skin was changing color and how I’d returned in my normal form, their voices drowned out so that I could hear hers. “To answer the question I’m sure you want to ask, but could easily answer yourself just by looking at their reactions to my appearance, no, they can’t see me. Just like the men in your apartment. And to answer their question, you’re you simply because you didn’t use your avatar to travel here this time.”

  “Get me out of here,” I mumbled.

  “What was that?” Pierce said, his nasty little kobold head tilting to one side.

  “You want out, fine.” Varena paced in front of the others, assessing them. “You just have to kill them.”

  “I’m not doing that.”

  “He’s… he’s talking to it right now,” the Marine said, taking a step back, gun swiveling. “Shit, it’s here… serving him.”

  “To be clear,” Varena scowled, “I’m not serving anyone. Helping you, maybe, but not serving. Not until you serve me first.” She gave me a wink, then flicked her tongue between her lips. “Fine, not all of them. Just… that one.”

  She indicated Brad.

  I shook my head. “The kobold.”

  Pierce’s eyes lit up at that. “What about the kobold?”

  Varena grinned. “Suit yourself. You’re in your body now, but you’ve… tasted me. Maybe not as much as I’d have liked, and on the
wrong set of lips, but that can come later. Get it?” She chuckled, but saw my look of worry. “Point is, you can use that—I came to you when you were in your avatar, so you can still draw on it. You won’t be the exact same, but as you grow in power and our connection gets stronger, well… we’ll see, I guess.”

  “But I don’t have a sword.”

  “Fuck this,” Pierce said, drawing his dagger. He lunged. The little creature was only half my size, but not being in my avatar’s body and not having my sword put me at a distinct disadvantage. When I went to dodge the blade, I tripped, landing on my ass. The kobold tackled me, and it was all I could do to keep the dagger from sinking into my neck.

  Varena was at my side, eyes dancing with excitement as they went from me to him. “Do it. Give me the kill, his life blood. With it, we can grow strong. With it, we can start on our path to achieving great things.”

  “How?” I asked, desperately.

  “Ours is the magic of the soul. I have access to two realms at the moment, meaning we could summon if our connection were stronger. Which it isn’t.” The fact that she’d referred to the magic as ‘ours’ didn’t even register right away. My mind was focused on survival, little else.

  “Today,” I interrupted, very aware of the others moving in to help the kobold if necessary. At least Brad was left unattended, I noticed, and was struggling to break free.

  “Right. Point being, your best bet right now is to focus through me, to recall some of your other self.” She leaned in, finger against the kobold’s blade as she gave it a slight nudge further away from my throat. His eyes went wide with that.

  “I… don’t know… how.”

  “Fuck this guy,” the Marine said, stepping up and leveling his rifle at me. “Move aside so I can finish him off.”

  “Not gonna happen,” Brad said, and he was free, leaping onto the Marine from behind, casting decay spells on his armor. The two stumbled out of my sight.

  “Find it,” Varena said, voice rising with excitement. She seemed to be into the whole violence thing. “Focus, call forth your sword.”