Courts and Cabals 3

by G. S. D'Moore

  I’d killed before, and sure as shit would do it again; probably in the next hour or two. But there was a difference between killing because you had to, and fucking enjoying it. When I ripped that man’s arm from his body, and his blood splashed all over me; I’d been on cloud nine. I was so fucking amped. It was the most thrilling thing I’d ever experienced. That was saying something. I’d lived an interesting life. Hell, I’d watched a pixie drip my cum into a succubus’s mouth.

  The fire and lightning burned through me like crack, adrenaline, and chocolate. My cock was harder than when Night tickled my tip with her tongue ring, and I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to go from one guy to the next; clawing, slashing, ripping, beating them all to death. I wanted the world to burn while I made smores with its ashes.

  “That’s fucked up, I know,” I told myself. I just didn’t understand why it happened here, now, and how to stop it from happening again.

  The first step was obvious. This was tied to my Aesir gifts, so I shouldn’t use them again. Of course, that was easier said than done. I was in the middle of a siege. The only thing needed to make this whole shitshow something of medieval proportions was a few trebuchets. Not only was my ass on the line, but so was everyone else’s; Butters, Night, Ariana, Thomas, Ivanna might already be dead, and don’t forget quiet Lucia. I could hear Thomas’s youngest quietly weeping to herself, and that didn’t even take into consideration all the innocent civilians.

  “And Skella,” my brain reminded me. “Ugh, her too.” I really disliked the buddy fucker.

  Here was a good place to insert a quote about power and responsibility, but Spiderman could suck my dick. This shit was harder than a comic book. I was between a rock and god’s own hard-on, but what else was new.

  “Me?” Butters was the first to respond to Thomas’s bloody finger.

  “No, the six-foot-tall woman standing behind you. Of course, you,” he snapped.

  Butters visibly flinched at his tone, and a growl escaped my throat. She was my Butters and I didn’t like people treating her like that. Thomas turned his glare on me, but now I knew what I was capable of. I didn’t look away.

  From one second to the next, Thomas suddenly looked very tired. He gave me a small nod, and turned back to Butters. “Yes, you, young lady. Please come over here,” he probably put a little come-hither into his voice because she practically ran to him. That, or she just wanted to help.

  “Here is what I need you to do,” he looked deadly serious. “My daughter’s been shot . . .”

  “No shit, sherlock. Tell us something we don’t know,” my brain rolled its eyes.

  “. . . the bullet punctured her coronary artery,” he tapped a spot on Ivanna’s chest, and she didn’t even flinch. His explanation became more hurried. “When I say go, they’re going to remove the towels and I’m going to pull open her chest. I’ll connect the severed artery, and you’re going to use your fire magic to cauterize it.”

  “Wait, what?” Butters had looked ready to help until then.

  “Cauterize,” he repeated. “We’re going to burn them together to stop her from bleeding out.”

  I didn’t know much about medicine, but common sense told me this wasn’t going to work. With her sports medicine background, neither did Butters.

  “Sir, the risk of me barbequing her alive, infection, and so many other things tell me this isn’t a good idea,” she replied professionally. She was in the zone now.

  Thomas looked like he wanted to snap at her, and yell that they didn’t have time to argue about this. Instead, he took a quick breath. “You’re looking at this from the wrong point of view, young lady,” he gave her a smile that had more than a little oomph in it. “You’re used to working on humans. My daughter is not human. If we close the wound, she will heal with time. Trust me on this.”

  Butters looked like she wanted to say more. Instead, she looked at me.

  “What do you want me to say?” I thought, and almost said it out loud, but that wasn’t why she was looking. Despite all the shit that had rained down on her head, she trusted me more than Thomas. If I gave her the go ahead, she’d do it.

  I just nodded. It seemed the fastest way to get this rolling. Butters might be right in the end, but we had to try. Thomas could also be right. I’d seen a succubus get double penetrated by a pair of swords bigger than most cars. If anything could heal from a little gunshot wound, it was someone with the blood of Venus Venitas running in their veins.

  “Okay,” Butters rolled up her sleeves, and next thing I knew, there was more blood flying through the air.

  I’ve seen and smelled a lot of things in my life, but one that sticks with you is the scent of burning flesh. I can’t even describe it. It’s your own unique smell, with its own particular brand of nastiness. Pray to the gods that you never have to smell what I smelled as Butters soldered Ivanna back together with fire, willpower, and a father’s fathomless hope.

  I shit you not, it worked. It worked the way Frankenstein put his patchwork monster together; which was probably just some necromancer who got caught in the act and some guy wrote about it. Whatever the case, Ivanna stopped bleeding like a stuck pig, and started screaming. That hit me harder than the blood all over me.

  She screamed even harder when her father pushed the flesh of her chest together, and Butters applied her battlefield surgery skills a second time. Ivanna’s hands lashed out to stop the mage, and thank the gods she was weak. She could have knocked Butter’s block off if her father didn’t intercept her. Then, as a matter of principle, I’d have to kill the imp and undo all Butter’s hard work.

  “She needs to feed,” Thomas stated, and Ariana nodded.

  “Who do you think?” she’d grabbed her sister’s feet and kept her from punting anything through the wall. “Ramirez, Tobias, Mendez . . .”

  “Mendez,” Thomas confirmed.

  “With me, Cam,” Ariana gripped her sister’s ankles like she was about to pick her up.

  “Okay, I guess we’re doing this,” I’d seen plenty of ER, Scrubs, Grey’s Anatomy, you name it; and they always said to stabilize a patient after major surgery.

  I replaced Thomas at the blonde’s head, and gripped her under the shoulders. I swore she lost a few pounds of blood, but her weight was nothing with my troll strength flooding through me. I shuffled backward toward one of the back rooms with Ariana giving directions. Halfway there, the imp reached out and caressed the cheek of one of the armed clients.

  “Could you help us, Mr. Mendez?” she gave the older man a pouty look that would make any mortals will crumble.

  Mendez followed us slack jawed. At least he held the door open so we could get Ivanna into one of the gym’s fuck rooms. That’s what they were. They might be set up like a typical massage center, complete with table lotions, candles, and soothing music; but that wasn’t fooling anyone.

  Something pulled at my memory and made me stop in my tracks. I could feel it on the tip of my metaphysical fingers, but when I reached for it, it felt like someone drove a railroad spike into my medulla oblongata.

  “Motherfucker,” I winced as I went to place Ivanna on the table. Ariana helped and we laid out the battered blonde like she was going to get a bloody Shiatzu.

  “Thanks, Cam, you can go,” Ariana stated firmly.

  “What, really?” I asked.

  “Yes,” her eyes were hard and direct. “Go wait outside.” She put a little extra in the statement.

  I’d felt this type of succubus magic in the air before; most notably, when Xamira had hit me with a haymaker back at St. Vincent’s that made Viagra seem like tic-tacs. Ariana’s was much more subtle, but it was doing the same thing. It told me to listen to my dick and not my head, and a man’s dick hung on to every word a succubus said like it was the voice of capital G god. It made me shiver to think what someone like Venus could accomplish with that type of power; which made me realize I really didn’t want to know how deep the cabal matriarch’s claws were into things, or ho
w she got them there. Ariana was only an imp, but that was enough. I’d seen enough of her power to know she could make saints kneel and eat her out if she wanted.

  “Sure,” knowing the magic was working gave me a little resistance, but I was more worried about Ivanna. The blonde needed healing, and the longer I sat here protesting, the closer she got to death.

  I headed into the hallway, turned, and nearly had the door shut in my face. About thirty seconds later Ariana emerged. I tried to get a look into the room behind her, but she blocked my view. Things were uncharacteristically silent.

  “Let’s go,” Ariana tugged on my elbow.

  I resisted, even when she sent a pulse of magic into the air, I just gave her a hard look that said, “don’t do that again”. I had a very bad feeling in my gut.

  “Now,” Ariana’s grip tightened. “Please,” she wasn’t the begging type, and sheer surprise allowed her to pull me farther down the hall.

  Now, I knew something was wrong. “What?” I was stupid enough to ask.

  Ariana gave me a hard look before responding. “Are you part of this cabal, Cam?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I held up my hand. My mark blazed on my flesh. I could see it whenever I wanted now thanks to the Frankenstein mixture of magic rolling around inside me.

  “I’m not talking about a nice little social club where you get to fuck one of my aunts and make tons of cash while chilling in a Vegas lounge. I’m not talking about high rollers, fast cars, or loose woman. This isn’t about making it rain in the strip club, or eating porterhouses with NFL stars while their wives can’t wait to fuck you in the bathroom before dessert. I’m talking about the greater cabal, La Familia, and everything that represents. The safety it provides our kind. The security; physical, financial, and everything in between. That doesn’t just happen. It is earned, fought for, bled for. Anything worth as much as that is worth the battle to maintain it. Are you a part of that?”

  “Of course I am,” I fired back, my temper rising.

  I knew I owed everything to the cabal, including my life. Lilith had saved me twice. Her mother once. Hell, their legal team alone had kept me from spending the next decade as a UN science experiment. Even Marcella hadn’t turned out to be so bad. Dani was a fucking rock star, and if Xamira wasn’t watching this through some satellite uplink I’d give my left nut to charity. Not Charity, the high-price call girl who prowled the Vegas strip, but something worthwhile; like service dogs for veterans. I don’t know what good my nut would do them, but I’d figure something out.

  Ariana watched me closely and nodded, satisfied. “Ivanna was on the brink of death,” she deadpanned. “Another minute and she wasn’t going to make it. We cut it as close as close can be. Coming back from that has a terrible cost for an imp. We aren’t full-blooded succubae. We don’t have their power. Lilith could bounce back from an injury like that with a little horizontal tango. For us, it requires more.”

  “Oh,” I saw where this was going.

  “A life for a life,” she saw the recognition in my eyes. “My sister will bring about Mr. Mendez’s death. It’s . . . not pretty when we pry the life out of someone. It’s one of our greatest powers, our enemies worst fear, but a terrible process. Despite all of that, it will save her. She’ll hate herself because of it, but we do what we need to in order to survive. For the cabal.”

  Now I got why she asked me if I was in it to win it. I’d just become an accomplice to murder. Not a kill in the heat of battle. I’d led an old guy by the hand so he could be eaten alive by a nearly-dead, starving, supernatural predator. Don’t get me wrong, there were worse ways to go than death by succubus; but, apparently, death by imp wasn’t something to write home about. He’d wouldn’t even get to die with a smile on his face.

  I gulped, and felt like I was going to be sick. Ariana watched me swallow it like a man as I rationalized it. “We’re going to get hit again by the Tikals. What’s a better resource: a bad-ass imp, or a sexagenarian with heart issues?”

  “Okay,” I took a deep breath and didn’t look back at the room or the silence it represented.

  As I turned back to Ariana, I heard a crash from the front. I didn’t even think. I ran toward the sound of violence. I guess that’s just who I was now. Old me would have shit a chicken if he saw me now. I didn’t run toward the gunfire. I wasn’t one of the few, the proud, the marines. They might get tons of ass in those fancy uniforms, but I was in it to save my own skin. You didn’t survive in a supernatural world you still didn’t fully understand by throwing yourself in the way of every bullet, sword, and spell that came your way.

  “Fuckin’ A,” I growled.

  New me was willing to put myself in harm’s way for some things. Above all, I protected what was mine. That could be money, property, or women; but if you were mine, I protected you. That feeling had always been there; I’d just never been able to help my friends before. Now, with the Aesir power trying to burn its way out of my mind; that feeling of marking my territory had grown an order of magnitude. I could hardly deal with anything looking cross at me and mine.

  Honestly, here and now, I didn’t give a shit about Thomas or the civilians. I cared first and foremost about Butters and Night. They’d had my back since they ran me down, and that meant something to me. I fought for people who would fight for me; which was why Skella could suck my dick. Not literally. I didn’t know where that mouth had been, and it had probably spewed so many lies, and thrown so many people under the bus, it would give me some type of Karma cooties.

  I wanted Ariana to be safe, but I knew she could take care of herself. Ivanna too, once she pieced herself back together. I wasn’t sure Lucia was even going to fight when the Tikals burst into this place. She struck me as the lover, not a fighter, type. All of this meant, that when I burst back into the main gym area, that I was going to prioritize the protection of certain people. Some were going to die, there was no getting around it, but I’d do my best to protect me and mine.

  As I came back into the main area, fists up and ready to throw down, I kept the Aesir part of me under lock and key. The troll strength should be enough to get through this . . . hopefully.

  “Lift with your legs, not your back,” Thomas sounded like Richard Simmons giving a jazzercise class.

  The racket wasn’t from the second wave of the attack. It was the first wave of defense. Thomas was balancing a treadmill on his shoulder like it was a roll of gift wrap; while gesturing the rest of the people like a conductor guiding a retarded orchestra. A bunch a fifty-year-olds trying to move dumbbells, weigh racks, and equipment to block the entrance into the gym was actually a little funny.

  I put my fists down and shared a grin with Ariana before going to join Butters and helped her move a Smith machine. The two-thousand-dollar, all-purpose rack was going to go from training people how to squat properly, to hopefully tripping up some Tikals as they tried to invade the building. Together, Butters and I laid in on top of an elliptical to bar the way in front of the metal shutters.

  Part of me wondered how well it was going to hold up after the Tikals got through the wards and metal barrier. If what they had could tear those defenses to shreds, then what good would the equipment do to stop them? I pushed the thought to the back of my mind. It was important that people had something productive to do, even if it wouldn’t do anything to stop the coming horde. This wasn’t time for defeatism. That shit spread like a cancer.

  I opened up my mind a little to the Aesir power. If I wanted to counter fear, that was the magic pill. From what I knew about the power, quit wasn’t in its vocabulary. Certainty flooded into me, almost to the point that I grabbed Butter’s ass as we walked back to lug more barrier material. I instantly wanted to challenge Thomas to a bench press competition. The only problem, there probably wasn’t enough weight in the entire gym to get me to max out.

  “I could dominate him, and everyone would see it. I’ll show them all I’m the strongest, smartest, fastest. They’ll have no choice but to b
ow to me and suck . . .”

  “What are you doing?” Butter’s voice snapped me out of the power trip, and allowed me to lock back up my Aesir self.

  “What?” I shook my head and looked at her. Night was standing right next to her with an almost identical, quizzical expression.

  “Just now, you were doing something. I don’t know what it was . . .” she frowned.

  “It felt like a pull to me,” Night offered. “Like you were suddenly the center of gravity, and I had to be closer,” she smiled, and I couldn’t help but glance down at her pierced nipples that were straining against her shirt.

  “No,” Butter’s shook her head. “Have you ever felt like you were standing too close to a nuclear reactor?”

  “I can’t say that I have.”

  “That’s what it felt like.” From her tone, I couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing, and I didn’t get to ask.

  “Look sharp, people,” Thomas’s voice cut through the room as he shouldered a bicep curl machine into the last, big open space the enemy could squeeze through. “Here’s what’s going to happen. They’re going to come at us with normal guys first. They’re going to blow out our wards, rip down these shutters, and rush us. If you feel bad about shooting at them . . . don’t. These are murderers, drug dealers, rapists. When you hear those stories on the news, these are the guys that make it happen. Don’t hesitate. Five pounds of pressure on that trigger, and you’re going to make the world a better place.”

  The incubus was putting a little extra mojo in his words. The female clientele were leaning in towards him. Even Butters and Night were unconsciously nodding in agreement. Maybe this was the gravity-type thing Night had been talking about? Could I be just as influential? I almost opened my mouth to try, but I saw Ariana out of the corner of my eye, and she shook her head. I respected her enough to follow her lead.

  “After the humans will come creatures from your worst nightmares. The Tikal Cabal is home to some of the nastier creatures this side of the Atlantic. If you see a Nosferatu, whatever you do, don’t let their tongue touch you. Aim for the blood sack. It’s a big, bloated mass, and you can’t miss it. If you find yourself against a shifter, especially a skinny woman, hold the trigger down until its empty, and put every round you can into her center of mass,” he slapped his chest, which made a few women swoon. “I know headshots are what you see in the movies, but it’s hard as hell to hit a regular moving target. Trying to shoot them in the head is pointless. They aren’t going to sit still while you try to blow their brains out. I you find yourself up against a naga, in the name of all the gods, don’t . . .” he never got to finish.