by Randi Darren
“Of course. My plan was to bed you all night long until your hips give out, Abrah, my sweet Demon-Knight,” Sam said, reaching out to lay a hand on the small of her back as she worked.
It made the Demon-Knight shudder, her skin going straight into goosebumps that he could see.
“I plan on treasuring you, just as you asked,” Sam promised in a murmur. One that he put some desire into for her ears alone. “You were so delicious, my darling Abrah. My would-be Succubus-Knight.”
Abrah let out a soft squeak, her hands paused in mid-corpse grab. She began to breathe hard, her shoulders slowly gaining a quiver to them.
“Re-release me, my Lord Lust, or have me on the ground right now. I can’t remain in this limbo you’ve put me in,” begged Abrah. “I have so much work to do to put your city to rights.”
Laughing, Sam gave her a gentle pat and slowly eased up on the pressure he was putting on her.
“That’s fine. When you finish with this work, let’s go to the vault,” said Sam. “I want to utilize some of the Essence there to see if I can’t jump start my own little war with Jenaphila.
“I’ve found a sudden weakness in her defenses and I want to see if I can’t exploit it. We shall see, however, if I can make it work.”
“Yes, my Lord Lust. I’m your Demon-Knight, and at your service,” swore Abrah. “I’ve already begun recruiting other Demon-Knights to serve me, and thus to serve you.”
“Excellent work,” Sam said, then let his hand fall away from Abrah. “Did I mention your horns are looking lovely today? Did you buff them?”
“I— yes, I did. I wanted you to look at me,” admitted Abrah, pulling over a new body. She picked up the dagger and ran it over their throat. This time there was a flinch as she did so. The person wasn’t quite as dead as they’d appeared to be.
“Well, I’m looking, Abrah. I’m looking,” Sam said, putting the full weight of his gaze on her. He knew exactly what it would do to her.
He was an ancient Incubus, after all. Half of what he did to women wasn’t even in his control anymore.
Moaning, unperturbed by her surroundings at all, Abrah shoved the now very dead Demon into the new pile, and went for another.
Clearly his admonition of her “rude behavior” was driving her through the actions. Which was perfect.
***
Standing in the doorway to the vault, Sam finally believed he’d done the right thing. Taking over the city was exactly what he needed to do.
There was far more Essence here than he’d ever need to break the spell that held him. More than he’d need to do it six times over, in fact.
He wouldn’t even beggar the city by taking what he needed. Timithy had been very frugal with his spending.
“It’s… considering the woes of the city, this is far more than I expected to see,” complained Abrah with a shake of her head. “He was just hoarding it all.”
The massive ephemeral ball of Essence rotated slowly in the vault. Hovering in the air and spitting out small gouts of power that were quickly reabsorbed.
Apparently, the vault had been designed specifically in mind to hold a great deal of Essence.
“I’ll repeat back to you, your own often-stated reminder to me, Abrah. This is Hell. Looking out for others has no place here, regardless of the age,” Sam said in an almost bored tone. “I can’t deny that we might go against the grain with our plans though.
“We’ll certainly change things a bit for the city. Likely give the citizens a better life than they had for the taxes they give us, but it’ll still be Hell.
“You cannot change a Demon that doesn’t wish to change. They’ll just listen to their natures and let those dictate their life. I was no different before becoming what I am.”
“Yes, Lord Lust. I understand,” Abrah said sincerely. He could tell she was trying to fine-tune her thinking as rapidly as she could. She was learning quite quickly, as well.
“Sam, or Sammy, when we’re alone, remember?” Sam reminded her. Holding his hand out, he put a thread of his Essence into the stored Essence.
“Should I remain? I’m not sure what you’re going to do, but I feel as if you should always have a retainer, Lo— Sam.”
“You may remain. As a Demon-Knight, you might have some proficiency to learn and use Essence sorcery, since you haven’t learned it previously,” Sam said after a thought about it. “Doubly so, since you now wear my brand. I imagine you could utilize it directly through that.”
“I can indeed. I’ve already been using it to empower myself,” agreed Abrah. “I’m at least three times as strong as I was previously just utilizing the brand alone.”
Sam just nodded his head to that. It made sense.
Demon-Knights were quite versatile as lieutenants and assistants.
I should have gotten a Demon-Knight instead of Jena.
Feeling a grimace on his face, Sam began to reach out toward the spell around him. He shaped an Essence construct to start prying at it once again.
Almost immediately, he felt the active pressure from outside. It was attempting to reinforce the spell from every angle and side. To prevent Sam from unraveling it.
Smirking, Sam had been thinking about this exact moment. Because it hadn’t made complete sense to him.
He was cut off from his planes, but this Essence was coming from elsewhere. Which meant it had to be coming in from a plane or a tear in Hell’s planar fabric.
In either case, Sam could use that to his advantage. Because if there was an opening, that meant he could follow the Essence back and find it.
Even as he mimed that he was about to start working on the spell that hung on him, Sam also built a separate construct out of Essence. It was a snare of sorts that would pull on the owner of the magic it latched to.
Given that Sam knew exactly which brand Jenaphila was wearing, he could also fine-tune his spell. He had all the tools and then some to rip open a portal back to wherever Jenaphila was.
Sam was betting that was the prime material plane.
Slowly, he closed his snare around the extra planar Essence he’d detected. Jena’s Essence coming from her actively trying to work against him.
Following it backward, Sam was trying to see where it went before he fully committed to his entrapment. He’d only have one shot at it, so he wanted to learn what he could.
A sudden loop in the Essence surprised him when it coiled back to the spell around him. It was exiting the spell directly, going out past his Essence construct, then back to the spell.
The… spell is the portal? How curious. That means I should try to get my snare in place where it exits. Because I won’t have much time after she feels it lock in.
She’ll pull it through, then I’ll yank open the portal once my Essence is on the other side.
Then I can immediately open another portal to somewhere else and close the original.
Before Sam could reach the end point, Jenaphila must have noticed what was going on. Maybe she sensed the snare, perhaps she got spooked by the fact that he hadn’t acted, but her Essence was rapidly withdrawing.
Snapping the Essence snare in place, Sam clenched onto it with all the force he could muster. He pulled with his Essence, leveraging the brand he knew she wore, and using the vault’s Essence as a stabilizer so he could respond to whatever she did.
Which was nothing.
Sam had locked his snare in place so tightly that it’d done the opposite of what he wanted. Rather than his Essence being drawn through to the other side, it’d completely halted Jenaphila’s line.
Halted it cold but had inadvertently yanked on it.
It was as if a piece of twine was held between two points and Sam had just dropped a weight right in the middle.
One side was held in place by the vault, but the other wasn’t as securely tied down. Which pulled the twine down towards the middle.
Before Sam could think of pushing in through the small tear in the planar Essence of the world, he missed his chance.
Faster and faster it came as if there was some type of vacuum force being applied to it now. More of her Life Essence—that had the taste of death and fear—piled ever higher.
Then Jena popped through the tear itself and landed at Sam’s feet. She landed flat on her rear, with her feet pressing against his shins.
I… what?
Fourteen - Surprise Mechanic -
Staring up at him was Jenaphila.
To which Sam stared back at her.
She was wearing a nightgown that was doing its best to emphasize what little she had in the way of a figure.
Jenaphila was exactly as he always remembered her— the picture of neutrality. Her brown hair was pulled back behind her ears. Her blue eyes were cold and flat.
She had always been the picture of mediocrity.
Before Sam could actually process that she was here, she lashed out at him. All the Essence that she was sitting in was hers, as was the spell around him.
Sam was literally launched up against the ceiling under the weight of a massive blow of Essence. Slamming into it, he felt the air whoosh out of his lungs with the force of the impact.
“Sam!” shrieked Jenaphila as she got to her feet. “You bastard! What have you done!?”
Groaning, Sam cut away the Essence she was using to hold him in place. Dropping down from the ceiling, he angled himself toward the Imp who’d once been his partner and confidante.
Apparently, in her haste to attack him, she’d forgotten the single most important fact about Sam. Something she would never be able to escape as long as he lived.
He owned her.
With a thump, he slammed straight into her. Knocking her flat on the ground. He nearly crushed her under the weight of his body and the height of his fall.
Latching his hands to Jena’s modest bosom—as it was the nearest thing he could grab—he attacked his brand on her. The binding of ownership that she’d taken control over from him.
All she’d needed in the end was some time alone with his personal control rod. Something he’d allowed her to use on a number of occasions because he’d been too bored to deal with their empire.
Even if she held it in her hands at this moment, she wouldn’t be able to stop him from exerting his control. Control over his brand.
Smashing right into her with his Essence, Sam lit up the brand that dwelt inside her. Then he began to crush it mercilessly, grinding it into itself.
Jenaphila screamed in misery as her soul was wrenched around inside her. The brand he’d given her, given all his people, was more than enough to absolutely destroy the body.
To force the soul straight out of it and into the afterlife.
“I’ll kill you,” Sam promised even as he continued to compact the brand.
“Sam! Please! No!” shrieked Jenaphila.
He could feel the massive reserves of Essence that dwelt behind her now. She was drawing on it. Using it to fight back against him.
By pushing all of it straight into the brand and empowering it directly. Forcing it to expand against the crushing weight. Filling it to the point that there was no room for it to actually collapse.
At this rate though, there was a definite possibility of it exploding from the amount of Essence flooding into it.
“Sameerixis Fidenis Xilin Fisch Elh, I beg you to forgive me and spare me!” screamed Jenaphila at the top of her lungs.
Sam had no inclination to give her any sort of leeway. Not in any way, shape, or form. She’d been the bane of countless millions of lives and he was the one responsible for it.
Now that he’d gotten his hands on her, there was no way he’d ever let her go. There wasn’t a single thing in his mind that could change that.
“I’m not Jenaphila!” screamed Jenaphila a second before her entire body collapsed in on itself. She became nothing more than a humanoid shape of water.
The brand he was using to destroy her remained true. Though now that his mind was forced to consider the situation, he knew instinctively he hadn’t drawn it.
It had all the correct markers for his brand, but it wasn’t one that he had placed. He’d placed the brand on Jenaphila himself.
It was like comparing two people’s handwriting. There would be considerable differences between the two.
What was beneath him was a Water Elemental, not Jenaphila.
“Please, Master Sameerixis, forgive me!” said an entirely different voice now. The Elemental thrashed back and forth beneath him.
Her entire body became little thicker than a puddle of water, stretching out below him in every direction.
All of her struggling was for naught. So long as Sam had his hands—or his fingers in this case—on her, she wouldn’t be able to escape him.
With so much power flooding into the Elemental, Sam was finally able to find the point where it was coming through the planar tears. There was no way he could really miss it.
Grasping at it with his Essence, Sam diverted the entirety of it. He wrestled the massive influx of power away from the Elemental.
And into himself.
In the moment that he made the connection, a shuddering ripple went through him scouring his insides and his mind.
As soon as it hit the core of his being, his true name and his new brand, it came to a world-breaking stop.
With a shattering pain throughout his body, part of the Essence fled away from him.
Then it went back the way it came. It returned down the Essence channel and through the tear and back onto the plane where the Elemental had come from. From there, it began to spread out further and further.
Storming across countless planes, it made contact with Elementals, Imps, Demons, Angels, Deities, and far too many others to name. The entirety of the old brand that had been Sam’s was being overwritten by his new one.
As if it were a garment being dyed by a much richer color, nothing of the old one was visible afterward. Spreading further and further throughout the expanse of the universe.
Onward it went, ever re-writing his old brand, forcing it to bend to the new one. Resetting it and adding the changes to it.
After all, the old brand was a limited version of his new one.
There was one strand, however, that hit a dead-end. One that no amount of time or power would likely overcome. A location that, for whatever reason, was completely beyond the limits of existence.
Everything from that point down was converted. Everything except for that one point. That line slowly decayed.
Dying away.
Vanishing into nothing.
Leaving behind only a vague feeling that something had been missed in the takeover. Then, even that was gone.
Once his consciousness had taken in the vast change that’d just happened, Sam dragged in a shuddering breath. His entire sense of the planes had just shifted in an incredible and unexpected direction.
I think I just… took over Jena’s entire operation. No… not Jena.
This… Water Elemental?
Though there’s something else going on here. It felt like there were two tracks. One that belonged to this Water Elemental, and another.
But I can’t feel it now. It’s been lost in the wave of changes.
Gone was the power the Elemental had been using to fill the old brand. She was little more than a stiff, unboiled spaghetti noodle now. All it would take was him pushing, even gently, to shatter her apart.
He even knew her true name as he held her in his hands, the new brand firmly in place.
“Erv Patricia Brodny Neera, I command you to show your true self and submit to me,” commanded Sam while pushing at her brand.
In a rush, the spread-out water began to condense. At an amazing speed, it pooled into itself and built back into a body.
>
A very naked body without a blemish on it.
Judging from what he could see, she was rather short. Perhaps smaller than even Tiffany, if he stood them side by side. Except this Elemental was built with a very full figure.
Beneath Sam was a bright-green-eyed beauty with strong features and a thick mane of unruly, curly, red hair.
Her eyes were wide and dilated, staring up at him in true hysterical fear. Fear that death was upon her and the end was very near.
“I submit, my Lord Sameerixis,” whimpered Erv the Water Elemental. “I’m sorry for deceiving you. I was only doing what I had been instructed to do by Jenaphila.”
“What? She told you to do all this?” demanded Sam. His hands were still holding her quite firmly and he wasn’t going to let her go. She was a line of information that he desperately needed right now. “To try to kill me by trapping me in the Void?”
“No. No, she— no, she left instructions that if you survived that I was to kill you. The Void was my choice because I didn’t want to kill you,” Erv said, shaking her head quickly. “I haven’t seen her since she gave me my part of the business to run. She only contacts me through messengers, if she does at all. I haven’t seen her in person since after-after we conquered Hell. I’ve been in my position since then.
“I haven’t seen her since, I swear it. She retreated to serve someone she called Zeus. Her master. She-she was unlikely to ever return. I only get messengers or notes from her!”
He knew all of that was the absolute truth.
With his hands on her material body, his Essence clutching her brand, and having used her true name, there really was no alternative for her.
“And where is that? Where does she serve this, ‘Zeus’? Because I have business with her yet,” demanded Sam.
“I-I don’t know, my Lord Sameerixis, please, forgive me! Don’t harm me. I have only ever done as I was directed to. Forced to. She held your old brand and her ownership of me was forced,” pleaded Erv. “I have… had no alternative.
“Not until this moment. In fact, you fed on me several times in the distant past when I volunteered to join the feed harem. You didn’t really know me, though, and it was more of waiting in line for you to have me and then move on to the next.
