by Randi Darren
Didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen again, though.
“Alright. What’s the codeword for ‘Hey beautiful Cambion, come in here so I can ravage your lovely self in front of this Imp’? Cause that might happen,” Sam said, staring at the big hitman.
Wren smirked at that and quirked a brow. “How about—”
“How about we fuckin’ move, huh?” Tiffany said, her voice a growl. She must have been in her hybrid form.
Shrugging his shoulders, Sam walked over to the first door and knocked twice.
“Enter,” called a voice from inside.
Smiling, Sam entered and immediately smashed the woman down with a glamour.
Being an Imp, her resistance to such a thing was very minor. She crumbled like a soda can under a truck tire and collapsed onto her desk.
Let’s hope the whole thing will be this easy.
***
Moving floor to floor, Sam, Wren, and Tiffany rounded up all the valuables, information, and paperwork that’d be useful to them.
There was no end to the amount of extremely sensitive information they kept digging up.
Jenaphila’s local contracts, contacts, acquisitions, bank accounts, storage locations, other members’ information, council’s doings, and a good number of laptops.
Those alone were quite expensive. They were the new ones that even had CD-ROM drives in them. As far as Sam knew, that model had just barely come out.
“How the fucking hell does someone get to be this pretty?” Tiffany asked, laying a hand on the Imp woman’s face. “I mean… Stacia is pretty. Like, real pretty. Even I’m not bad looking. Or Wren and Irene, for that matter.
“But holy fuck. This one is right up there with Jes.”
“Imps are blessed creatures that are and aren’t human,” Sam said, turning away from Tiffany and back to the safe. Rotating the dial on it, he brought it around to the next number the woman had said. “Wait till you see Irma. She makes this woman look plain.”
“Irma’s your… uh… wife?” Tiffany asked, reaching down into the woman’s pockets and looking for anything to take. “The one on the phone that one time?”
Wren was going through filing cabinets trying to disturb as little as possible. This was the last office on the floor, which was just above the security floor, and so far they’d done it without a hitch.
It’d be obvious someone had robbed them, but the who and why would be missing. Sam had wiped the memories of every single person they encountered.
“Close enough,” he said, finishing the combination and pulling on the handle.
Inside the safe were stacks of cash with bank bands on them.
“Hey, Imp, what’s the money for?” Sam asked as he started to pull it all out.
“Local bribes,” the Imp woman said immediately. “We have a weekly courier that comes from Headquarters.”
“Who the hell keeps a thousand dollars in cash on them?” Tiffany muttered, pulling out the money and then stuffing the woman’s wallet back in her purse. “Didn’t even have a thousand in my bank account till I got this job. I mean, that’s just stupid.”
Sam dumped an armful of money into the cart and went back to the safe for more.
“And where’s Headquarters?” he asked. He was sure it was somewhere on the laptops, but he really didn’t want to have to go digging around in them for information.
“Las Vegas, Nevada,” the Imp said.
“Vegas? Awesome,” Tiffany said, still rummaging through the woman’s purse. “When do we go? I’ve always wanted to go but just never had the time.”
“Or the money,” Wren said, closing a cabinet drawer.
“Yeah, or the money. I only got the pack leader job ’cause Wren recommended me for it. Especially being a Were working for Vamps,” Tiffany said. “Never really been good at much.”
“Seem pretty good at being a mercenary,” Sam said as he dumped more money into the cart. Walking back to the safe, he peered into it and didn’t see anything. “Is that all that was in here, Imp? No other safes and just money in this one?”
“No other safes, but there’s more in that one. There’s a false bottom. It’s where I keep my insurance,” the woman said.
“Insurance?” Sam asked, reaching into the safe and tapping at the bottom.
“Hey, tell her to help me get this ring off her. It’s stuck,” Tiffany said from behind him.
“Stick her finger in your mouth and suck on it,” Wren said. “Saliva will help get it off. Good lubricant.”
“Look, just because you want to slather the boss’s knob doesn’t mean— Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Tiffany said, going quiet. “Oh! I got it. You were right. Crap on a cracker, that was on tight.”
Pulling at the edge, Sam felt the bottom of the safe give way and come out from its slot.
There at the bottom of the cubby was what looked like a small journal.
Sam pulled it out and flipped it open.
“…his knob. I make a little extra by pawning rings and things,” Wren said. “Dead don’t need it.”
“Oh. That makes sense. You still wanna gobble his cock down though, don’t you?” Tiffany said. “Shit, I didn’t even see she had a necklace. Bend over, you big-ass Amazon, you’re too damn tall.”
Taking in a slow breath, Sam stared at the picture in his hand.
It was a black-and-white photo he immediately recognized.
Jena had it taken on a different plane, years and years ago. He’d honestly thought it lost to time.
Never thought it would travel to a different plane entirely.
In the center of the photo were Sam and Jena. She was hanging on his arm and leaning her head against his jaw.
They looked like a couple.
“This picture,” Sam said. “Do you know who’s in it?”
“I only know three people in it. Two are council leaders. New York and California,” the Imp woman said. “The third is, of course, Mistress Jena.”
“Who’s the man?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know,” said the Imp. “No one does. The very idea of Jena being in a relationship is against everything she says.”
“What else is in this little notebook?” Sam asked, feeling unsure of what to do with the photo.
“Notes. Things I can use to protect myself. Mistress Jena makes people vanish sometimes,” the Imp said.
“Would you ever consider working for someone else?” Sam asked.
“In a heartbeat. I’m too high up and too exposed now,” said the woman. “People at the top vanish.”
“If you knew the man in this photo was an Incubus, and was once Jena’s master, would you work for him?” Sam asked, flipping the photo over. It was dated, written in Jena’s hand. There was a little heart after the date as well.
She used to be so cute.
“If he didn’t make people vanish, yes,” said the Imp.
Nodding his head at that, Sam put the photo in his pocket. For whatever reason, he wanted to keep it.
After putting the little journal back into the safe, Sam put the bottom back in place and then shut the door.
Moving to the desktop, he pulled over a piece of paper and started to write on it.
It was a mailbox Irma had set up in Saint Anthony just in case.
Sam turned to the Imp and made her face him.
Staring into her eyes, he found Tiffany had been right. She really was a beautiful specimen of Imp. With dark green eyes and bright blond hair. Her figure was also quite full and lovely.
She was only a tiny fraction below Irma in his personal opinion.
Pressing both hands to the sides of her head, Sam dropped a memory deep into her mind.
One that would stay with her but would be too cloudy for anyone else to see. Even if Jenaphila herself came looking.
“You know me. I am Sameerixis. The man from the photo. And I took that photo from your safe. I was Jena’s master,” Sam said. “If you want to know more, write to the address on your desk. If you d
on’t wish to know anything, burn the address and you’ll forget this memory forever.”
The woman blinked slowly.
“I understand,” she said in an almost dead tone.
“Good,” Sam said, breaking contact from the her. “Alright, let’s go to the sixth floor. We’re not done yet, and this’ll be the tricky one, I think.”
Twenty-Four - Adapting -
Sam was waiting in the maintenance room for floor six. Wren and Tiffany were with him.
They were waiting for Jes.
Every person they spoke with knew that there was security on the sixth floor, but no one could say what it was or what to expect.
It left them without any type of actionable information.
Without knowing what was on the floor, what the protocol was, or even what to expect, it was best for Jes to go in first. Unfortunately, the security guards she’d dumped in the closet hadn’t known anything about the sixth floor or that there was even anyone there at all.
“I don’t like it,” Tiffany said in a growl.
“Which part?” Wren asked.
“Any of it,” Tiffany immediately responded.
“To be fair, I do agree with the boss,” Wren said. “Going in with guns up is great for a quick in-and-out. We’re not going for that, though. Jes going in first is the best possible answer.
“She can glamour them up or modify her approach if she needs to.”
“Don’t like it. What happens if she dies?” Tiffany asked.
“She shows up on her plane, I open a portal to her plane, and she walks back out,” Sam said. It really was rather simple.
“Doesn’t feel right. Death can’t be that easy,” Tiffany said.
“I mean… you died. You said you remember being a soul. So isn’t it that easy?” Wren asked.
“I… yeah. Yeah… shouldn’t be, though. This feels broken and wrong and… no,” Tiffany said, shaking her head definitively. “And stop backing up the boss. He’ll bed you even if you argue with him.”
“True—and to prove a point, care to drop your pants and let me have at it, Tiffany?” Sam asked, looking at her. “Always fun to argue and then have sex.”
Rolling her eyes, the Were pointed a clawed finger at him. “I’m in my middle phase right now. You don’t want that.”
“I don’t?” Sam asked. He’d lain with Weres in their middle phase before. The sex tended to be rather physical.
“You do?” Tiffany asked, sounding confused.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Sam said, then sighed.
Jes had been gone for ten minutes.
Sam’s mind couldn’t seem to settle down. It also kept throwing awful scenarios at him. Scenarios he didn’t even want to consider.
No matter how many times his brain went back to them as if it did really want to.
The door clicked and swung open.
Wren and Tiffany had their weapons up in a flash.
Jes stood there with a smug smile on her face, her hands on her hips.
“All done,” she said. “It took some doing, but… they’re all done.”
“What’d… you do?” Tiffany asked. She sounded nervous but curious.
Sam didn’t want to know the answer, but he had to know it.
“I just glamoured them,” Jes said with a shrug. “The hard part was getting them to tell me how to get through all the security one step at a time.
“Rather tedious, honestly. Though it was a good idea I went. Every guard in there was a man.”
“Oh,” Tiffany said, sounding curious but unwilling to push.
“What?” Jes asked, looking at her curiously. “Oh. Oh! No, no, no. I’m Sam’s. He’s the only man I’ll ever take to bed or feed from. I don’t mind partaking of you girls here and there, but I’m just not really into women. I just want Sam, and only Sam.”
Smiling, Jes looked at Sam.
He couldn’t deny he felt undeniably better for having heard her. Heard her and believed her completely.
He hadn’t expected his base reaction to the thought of Jes feeding on another man to be one of anger and hurt.
The very idea of it hurt him—his pride and his very soul, it felt like.
“Yeah,” Sam said, then grinned at Jes. “So, what is it exactly?”
“Security office. It was just full of weapons, and a single computer. It just had monitors on the cameras, the same ones we disabled, and basic information. There really wasn’t much there. It really just felt like a rapid-response team,” Jes said. “I dumped all the weapons onto my plane. I figured the Essence expenditure would be worthwhile. Guns would just take up too much space in the crates.”
Wren grunted and nodded at that. “Smart.”
“So we’re done with this one? We can move on?” Tiffany asked.
“Yep! It’s all taken care of,” Jes said. “We just need to—”
The lights shut off and then kicked back on, but they had a strange tinge to them. A second later, a massive buzzing alarm sounded. One that practically made it impossible to even hear his own thoughts.
Sam tapped the elevator button, and the light turned on.
He was thankful for that.
Except when he looked into the elevator, he had an extreme and immediate feeling of unease.
All the traps and security measures put in are active.
Sam pointed at Tiffany and Wren, then pointed at the elevator. Then he pointed at himself, then Jes, and indicated the stairs.
The two armed women nodded and got into the elevator with the pallet mover.
Jes and Sam bolted into the stairwell and started taking the steps down as fast as possible.
Hitting the ground floor, Sam found Irene and Hillary, sheltering something on the ground between them.
Fuck, they’re UV lights, aren’t they?
Moving over quickly to the two women, he saw Stacia beneath them. She was screaming almost noiselessly given how loud the alarm was. Her skin was smoking and blackening even as she lay there.
Sam held a hand out over Stacia and snapped his fingers. A dark shell of Essence formed around the three women, blocking the light instantly.
He was a stingy man and wouldn’t spend Essence if he didn’t have to, but Stacia had been in clear agony.
Irene’s soul was crackling like static electricity, but it seemed the least concerned for the situation. Making eye contact with the soul, Sam pointed at the back door they’d all come in from.
With a nod, the soul ducked down into Irene’s body.
Getting to her feet, Irene began dragging Stacia up. Hillary fought her for a moment, then realized the situation had changed. In a second, she had morphed into a massive female ogre, slung Stacia over her shoulder, and sprinted off for the rear door.
The dark shell of magic went with her, Irene chasing both of them.
Following along behind, Sam wasn’t sure what to do or how to handle the situation.
Absolute worst case, he could just zip everything and everyone through to his plane. The problem was that if Jena came to look, she’d immediately know it was him.
It was bad enough that Jena would probably find portal residue from Jes, but at least she’d never actually seen Jes’s brand.
It’d just be a nameless planar lord or lady who’d attacked her.
Up ahead, Wren and Tiffany were lugging the crates around and into the back of the big courier truck.
Out here in the loading bay, the alarm was much quieter. To the point where he could actually hear the clatter and clank of the pallet mover across the cement.
“Forget the van,” Sam shouted. “Everyone in the truck.”
“Tiffany, Wren, Hillary, and Jes—in the truck,” Stacia called out in a pant from inside the truck. “Sam and Irene in the truck cabin.”
No one argued. There was no arguing with the simple fact that Stacia was probably the smartest person in the group, outside of possibly Irene.
Stacia was the only reason they’d been as successful
as they’d been. The sixth floor had been an unexpected curveball.
“You drive,” Irene said, brushing a hand over her chest. Instantly, her outfit changed into that of a courier’s, matching Sam’s.
Moving around to the front, Sam popped the door open and clambered in. They’d made sure to get a truck that operated much like a regular vehicle.
Just in case someone else had to drive. Like what was happening right now.
Turning the key, Sam pulled the truck into drive but didn’t take his foot off the brake. Turning to look at Irene, he shifted his view to her soul.
“Stick your head through the wall,” Sam said. “They done?”
Irene’s soul immediately pushed its head through the divider, vanishing up to the stomach.
“I hate that you do that,” Irene muttered.
“She likes me interacting with her. Especially after I took her to bed with me last night,” Sam said with a grin. He’d spent a few hours just cuddling and fondling Irene’s soul. Seeing what he could do to it.
On top of that, he’d even managed to partially feed on the witch despite her being in a different room. Her orgasm had been that intense.
Irene’s soul came back into the cab and nodded.
“Great,” Sam said, letting go of the brake and then driving away from the building quickly. They needed to get out and away as fast as possible.
Easing out of the alley, Sam turned onto a main street and started heading away from the building.
“Need to get to the secondary,” Irene said, looking at the road ahead of them, her eyes rather wide.
“Yeah. Good thing Stacia’s so damn smart,” Sam said, gassing them through a yellow light. “Having a backup truck to offload to was brilliant.”
As they moved further and further away from the building, Sam started to feel better.
“What wasn’t so smart was running that light,” Irene muttered. “There’s a cop behind us.”
“What? You’re joking,” Sam said, looking in the side-view mirrors.
Sure enough, there was a patrol car behind them. The lights weren’t on, but if they saw Sam blow through the yellow, there was a distinct possibility they’d try to pull him over.
“It’s going to be difficult to glamour a policeman with something basic,” Sam said. “My understanding is they tend to report what they’re doing and for what reason before they do it. At least, that’s what happened on other planes that were ahead in tech for a while.”
