by Randi Darren
Alisa turned to glare at Sam.
“Did he wrong you?” she asked in a growl, her demeanor shifting in an instant.
“No… Grandma. He helped me. He didn’t make me do anything, in fact. I slept with him because I wanted to. Wasn’t part of his summoning or anything,” Abigail said.
“Oh? Huh… huh… okay,” Alisa said, her severe glare slowly fading. “He’s treating you good?”
“Yes, Grandma. He’s treating me very well. He also helped Alison, my cousin,” Abigail said. “I’ve… reached out to everyone in the family. To let them know that your journals were right. Sam said he’d be willing to help them. Because they’re your blood.”
Alisa’s glare faded away completely as she stared at Sam.
“Mm. Good,” Alisa said tersely, still looking unsure.
“Alisa,” Sam said with a sigh. “I asked to see you because I wanted to thank you. The journal you left behind, which Abigail used to summon me, saved me. I would have eventually starved to death without that.
“Is there anything you need? Are you well?”
Watching him, Alisa began to laugh softly. “Well. Well, well, well. I saved you?”
“Yes, Alisa. You did,” Sam said, smiling at her. “I owe you my life, and my current happiness. After my contract ended with you, I was betrayed and imprisoned in my plane.”
“Was that Jena snake, wasn’t it?” Alisa asked with some venom in her voice. “She never liked that we were together. Awful little monster, that she was. Told you she was no good.”
“You were right,” Sam said. “But… are you well? Nothing is bothering you?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m good. Most of my family is with me, even my husband,” Alisa said. “Having known what to expect, I was able to plan accordingly. We have a nice little piece of the after all to ourselves.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it,” Sam said. “I’ll check in from time to time just to make sure you and yours are alright.”
The ghost that was Alisa turned her head partially to one side, looking at him.
“You missed out,” she said finally.
“I did,” Sam agreed.
It seemed like the spirit was contemplating something. Then she suddenly shook her head. “Make sure you don’t say no to Abigail if she tells you she wants a child. Swear it to me. On your name. Or I’ll curse you. Curse you forever.”
I… what?
No! No children. Never.
Sam looked at Abigail, and found himself staring into a living, breathing version of Alisa’s eyes. They shared the exact same hue and shape.
Unable to look at her any longer, Sam turned back to the ghost.
“I swear it, Alisa. On my name,” he mumbled.
“Really? We spent years arguing about this, and you just agree like that?!” Alisa shouted.
“I think,” Irma interjected. “I think it’s precisely because of this that he agreed… just like that.”
Alisa turned her glare on Irma, her face slowly softening.
“You’re his new Imp?” Alisa asked.
“Yes, but I’m… more his wife than First Imp,” Irma said.
Grimacing at that, Alisa shook her head. “I’m leaving. If I hear you’re going back to your old ways, I’m going to haunt you, Sameerixis.”
With a flash, Alisa was gone.
“She… was a lot nicer and gentler in her journal,” Abigail said.
“What you saw was Alisa,” Sam said. “What you read in the journal is how she wanted you to think of her. How she probably thought of herself.”
Abigail took in a breath and then let it out.
“I’m going to go home and make a few calls, I think,” she said, getting up. “I’ll see you two tomorrow?”
Sam and Irma both nodded.
They were expecting paperwork back from the government tomorrow. With any luck, they could start operations and formally be a company.
Not saying anything else, Abigail left, and the front door closed behind her.
“I’m not sure if she’s leaving for my benefit or because Alisa shook her up,” Irma said, her tone nervous.
“Both, probably,” Sam said. “So… you ready to talk to your mom?”
Irma shook her head. Then nodded it. And shook it again.
“I think so? Is she going to be mad at me?” Irma asked.
“I don’t know,” Sam said. “We won’t know till we call her.
“Though to be fair, if she gave her life for you, I can’t imagine how she’d be mad. Upset maybe, but not mad.”
“Her name’s Karen,” Irma said, chewing at her lower lip. “Karen.”
Sam looked back at the portal and then cleared his throat.
“Karen Tiff, I’m calling to—”
There was a flash of light that caught Sam off guard. A form appeared practically on top of Irma. As if it’d already been there.
Before it had even fully formed, it was all over Irma, smothering her in a hug.
“Oh sweetie,” said a woman’s voice as her form solidified. She definitely shared some features with Irma, but she also looked distinctly different than her daughter. “I was never mad. Never ever.”
Oh. She never left. She’s been there the whole time.
Hm.
“Mom?” Irma asked in a choked voice. Her arms came around the other woman’s waist tightly.
“I’m so sorry, sweetie. I didn’t want to leave, but I didn’t have a choice. There just wasn’t one,” Karen said. “If I had to do it again, I’d make the same choice.”
Sounds like I was right. She chose her daughter.
Good mom.
Irma started to bawl uncontrollably; her head wedged in her mother’s shoulder.
Sam snagged the open portal to the spirit plane with his Essence and dragged it with him into the bedroom.
The last thing he wanted was for Irma’s mother to be dragged over into the spirit plane by a random fluctuation. If she’d spent the last twenty years, give or take, hovering over her daughter, she didn’t plan on leaving now.
Karen caught Sam’s eyes as he left, and all he could see was a mother who loved her daughter. She lifted a hand and waved it at Sam as he left, to which he only nodded his head.
Closing the door behind him, Sam walked into his bedroom and sat down on the corner of the bed.
“If I did it right… she’ll have at least three or four hours with her mom,” Sam said. “Which means I just have to babysit this for a while.”
Sighing, Sam leaned back in his bed and stared into the conduit. There wasn’t anyone else he really wanted to talk to that’d crossed over.
“Demon,” hissed a voice from the other side of the portal.
Raising his eyebrows at that, Sam peered into the twisting abyss. He couldn’t see anything there.
“Yes, and yet no,” Sam said. He had no fears of anything that could cross over. He was technically far stronger than the vast majority of what could be found on the human spirit plane. “Planar lord.”
“Demon,” said the voice again.
Laughing, Sam shrugged.
“I suppose. But that’s like calling a Vampire a human,” he said.
“Vile and loathsome monsters, that they are,” said the voice.
“You’re just a fun and optimistic spirit, aren’t you?” Sam said, laughing again. “And how do you feel about Weres?”
“Beasts and animals,” said the voice.
Slowly, a form began to coalesce on the other side of the portal. Though without a name or a summoning, it was slow going.
“Uh huh. Anything you don’t hate?” Sam asked. The spirit was entertaining him, and he didn’t have much else to do right now.
“Humanity, of course. Blessed be we are, for we were the first. First of the children of this world,” said the voice.
“Kind of,” Sam said, shrugging his shoulders. “Technically speaking, all of the Angelics were first. Then the war came and split them. It was fought in such a way that this plan
e’s time and space were shattered and had to be reformed.”
Pointless topic. They wouldn’t even know it anyways.
Once the old one left, everything was reborn through fire and pain.
Your entire existence was rewritten.
“So I’ve discovered. Everything was lies,” said the voice. “Lies upon lies upon lies. Everything that was promised was false. There is little in the after but others and pain.”
“Oh? Managed to get yourself on the negative side of the equation, did you?” Sam asked, peering more closely at the spirit.
Sure enough, he found a great deal of the forming spirit was made of negative emotions and actions. The vast majority of it, in fact.
It would take many centuries for this soul to be cleansed. The process that would do it would take an endless amount of pain and suffering.
With a snap, the spirit suddenly formed, bright red flames flickering up around her.
It was a young woman in her twenties.
Bright green eyes full of anger were set in a pretty face. A short head of black hair fluttered around her as her soul sprang back into what she had once been.
She was dressed in leather armor, with steel plates sewn into it here and there about her person. Most of the armor was fastened into place with buckles and clasps.
At her hip was a long, slim sword with a basket designed hilt. On her opposite hip was a wheel-lock pistol. Fitted throughout her armor, clothes, and weaponry were blessings and seals of purity.
“A witch hunter,” Sam said. “Yeah… I could see your life being a rather unending amount of agony now on the other side. And uncomfortable, too. How many of your victims have you been forced to see?”
“I was misled!” declared the woman, clenching a gauntleted fist in front of her. “Lied to and fed a false bill of goods. And now I shall suffer for all eternity for this deception.”
“Eternity? No. Centuries, yes. How long has it been since your death?” Sam asked.
“I’ve lain in the ground moldering for four centuries,” said the woman, anger and righteousness bleeding out of her.
Damn. Four hundred years and she still looks like she has hundreds to go.
She’ll be there a while.
“Sorry to hear that,” Sam said. “Sounds like you’ll be looking for redemption for a time. Could be worse. There are those who will only find it when the sun in this solar system destroys itself.”
“Bring me across,” said the woman, her determination returning. “I can do right upon this world and cleanse myself of this… evil. I brought it upon myself. I can do right to cleanse it. I can slay villains and… and live rightly.”
Sitting there, Sam considered it.
Truth be told, if he brought her across from the spiritual realm, her soul would instantly be cleansed.
The simple reality was that a vast number of souls ended up going through a reincarnation cycle a few times. And each time they returned to the plane, they shed themselves of all the wrongs and rights they’d done.
Too bad the higher plane would never allow such a thing.
The moment I brought her over, they’d just detonate her soul and send her back into a rebirth cycle.
Though… Miles said he hadn’t heard anything from them in a long time.
Are they gone? Not paying attention?
Might be worth it.
“You would serve me?” Sam asked.
The woman looked extremely displeased with that question, but she nodded her head once.
“If you could return me to life and allow me the chance to reform my spirit, then yes,” she said.
“And if I bound you to me and told you that you must serve me for a period of no less than three millennia?” Sam asked.
“What?!” The woman stiffened.
“The cost to form a flesh golem for you to inhabit is not cheap. Nor would it be legal. It would break the laws and rules of this plane. I’d circumvent them,” Sam said. “I’d literally force your soul out of your own personal hell, defy the heavens, invoke the planes, and risk all I have.”
“What… what would be my duties?” asked the woman after several seconds, apparently considering the idea.
“Mercenary,” Sam said. “We plan on operating as a mercenary company. Primarily to rob, kill, and extort criminals.”
The anger that had been in the witch-hunter’s eyes shifted to look far more like eager fanaticism.
“And to sleep with me,” Sam said, making sure to extract the full measure from the woman. “You would be mine. My woman, my soldier, my mercenary.
“I would feed from you. Have you carnally. Whenever I wanted, however I wanted, in any way.
“Your body, will, and strength would be mine until you served your terms of service. At which point I’d free you to do as you saw fit.”
Looking rather disgusted again, the woman seemed to be considering her options.
“Your woman?” she asked.
“Yes, my woman,” Sam agreed.
“If you think I’ll let you mistreat me, I’ll kill you first. I died virginal through choice and to remained pure for my god. I managed that through being very lethal. I’m quite proficient in killing even your kind, Incubus. I’ve ended planes and planar lords before.”
What…? Wait… wait.
“Though… I agree to your stipulations. So long as you treat me equally and with kindness as your woman, and so long as you treat me as a dutiful commander, then yes. I’ll be your woman and soldier,” she said.
“What’s your name…?” Sam asked, suddenly feeling very strange. There was a witch hunter even he’d known of once upon a time. One who had indeed killed planar lords and had been a scourge while she lived.
“Lady Decima Vera, third of the order, first amongst the gentry, and last of the Vera line,” said the woman.
“I knew you,” Sam immediately said, pointing a finger at her. “We met once. You were chasing a friend of mine the month previous.”
“Did I kill them?” Decima asked.
“No… he got away from you. He was a planar lord like me,” Sam said, shaking his head. “Said he set fire to a library or some such.”
“Ahh… yes.” Decima nodded. “I do remember that encounter. I halted in my advance to help evacuate the building.
“And what is your name, Demon who will become my man and commander?”
“Sameerixis,” Sam said, curious to see if she knew of him. The world they shared during the period she lived had been a wide and open one.
“The Carnal One? Torment of Lust?” Decima asked, looking shocked. Shocked and like she was second-guessing herself. “Sameerixis Fidenis Xilin Fisch?”
Sam felt a vibration in her words. Like someone had rung a bell near his head. She knew four of his eight names.
The number of people who knew so many of his names could be counted on one hand, and most of them Sam had killed himself.
“That’d be me, Lady Decimation,” Sam said, using her own moniker.
Turning her head to one side, Decima looked to be considering her options.
Then she shrugged her shoulders and looked back at him.
“Fine, I’ll take you as my man. I’ll submit myself to your desires befitting a wife and woman of this era. As well as to have you as my commander, Sameerixis, though I’ll not bear you a child. If you ever insult me or my honor, I’ll end you and your plane. Are we in accord?” Decima asked.
“We’re in accord, Decima, though call me Sam,” Sam said.
“You may address me as Wife, Decima, or Vera,” Decima said, lifting her chin fractionally. “I await your end of the bargain, husband Sam.”
“I’m not going to be your husband, Decima,” Sam said.
“If I’m going to be your woman, I’ll be your wife or not at all,” Decima said decisively. “It would be immoral to have relations outside of wedlock. I’ll do no such thing. I’ll not stop you from going outside our marital bed either, for I know your nature.
&nbs
p; “As to our marriage, you may forgo a ceremony, but you’ll provide me the contract, blessed appropriately, and a ring befitting a wife of this age.”
Feeling like this might be a bad idea, Sam sighed, looking at her.
“It’d only be a marriage on paper,” Sam muttered.
“That would be acceptable and would hold to my beliefs. Contracts are contracts, after all,” Decima said.
Sam looked away and down to the side. Then he nodded.
Decima would be beyond useful to have in his employ. She was one of the scariest witch hunters of her time, if not all time, and had become a legend. Her strength, knowledge, and mind had been the definition of danger.
So much so that he’d stayed far, far away from her. Their sole meeting had been a brief encounter of minutes that was on accident.
From what he remembered of her, she’d died from wounds suffered while exterminating a vampire coven to the last. Though she’d been very old when it happened. Rumor had it at the time that she’d been eighty-four.
Sam firmed up his choice and leaned to one side. He began to use far more Essence than he’d thought he would be using today. If this entire month.
He began forming a flesh golem from what little Life Essence he had available and modeled it to be an exact clone of Decima.
And that makes nine.
Though… let’s just put a few insurance policies in the golem in case she decides to be a problem.
Can’t have her ruining my fun, after all.
Twenty-Nine - Backpedal -
Leaning away from the flesh golem, Sam let out a slow breath. It’d taken the work of hours, and far too much effort, but it was done.
“How are you aware of my… my… my nakedness,” Decima asked in a strange whisper.
Lifting his head up, Sam looked at the portal, which was starting to fade again. He’d already had to stop once to slightly repower it so it wouldn’t close.
By my twisting nethers, that was a lot of work.
Going to feed from her hourly until she passes out. Then wake her up and do it again.
“I’m not,” Sam said. “I mostly guessed based on what I could see. I take it this is appropriate?”
“It’s certainly close. Though I do not think I have that— Actually. It’s fine,” Decima said. “Quickly. Get me out of this madness incarnate. I look forward to trouncing evil once more. This time with the truth of the world behind my blade and pistol.”
