Den of Iniquity Read online

  “They may be stolen plates,” Jack says. “He’s a slippery bastard. You live in Prescott, too?”

  “Yes. I just sold my property on Cortez and Aubrey to Lafayette, and we’re going to be moving into a lovely craftsman on Mount Vernon in about six weeks,” I tell him. “We just finished all the contracts two weeks ago. Let me introduce my family.” I turn to my ladies. “Rebecca Silverstein, Marissa Tomlinson, Josie Carroll, and I believe you know Audrey.”

  The ladies all step forward for handshakes as I mention them until we reach Audrey. She says, “Hello, Uncle Jack” and gives him a hug.

  Jack turns to the young lady in the suit. “This is my Pet, Darcie Conroy.”

  Darcie offers her hand. “Please call me Darcie,” she says with a bright smile as we shake. “It’s a pleasure.” All the ladies give her hugs. I step around to Steven as Jack watches the whole interaction before returning to catch me watching. I get the definite impression that he’s very protective, maybe even jealous, of Darcie.

  I pump Steven’s hand. I whisper, “Good to see you again, Dad.”

  He whispers back, “We need to see if Bernadette has a dojang.” I snicker, and his normally stoic expression cracks into a slight smile.

  I ask Bernadette, “Do we need a cone of silence?”

  She smiles, “Interior room, but we will drop the curtains on the doorway.”

  Clarice walks back into the salon and closes the heavy curtains to the anteroom.

  She reports to Bernadette, “All clear, Mistress.” Bernadette kisses her on the forehead and caresses the girl on the back. Clarice sashays through the entrance and drops the drapes.

  “Okay,” I say. “Shall we talk through the plan, Bernadette?”

  Bernadette nods her assent. “Please review for us, William Darling.”

  “Alright,” I respond. “Basically, Audrey will draw a circle around Vanessa to contain Shryl. Then I pull Shryl out of Vanessa as gently as possible. Then Audrey banishes her, while I ensure that Vanessa survives by binding her to me. After that, we break the circle, and we’re done.”

  Steven says, “Banishing a traveller that you didn’t summon counts as a master-level work, Audrey. This will be your second.”

  She nods, “Yes, Father. I am aware.”

  “Anything else,” I ask.

  Jack says, “No. Steven and I are here for moral support - build a bit of a team dynamic before we deal with the next task.”

  I look at Audrey, and she nods at me. I turn to Vanessa. “Vanessa? Are you ready?” I hold a hand out to her, and she gets up to rush to me.

  Vanessa hugs me tight. She looks up at me. “I’m scared, Will. I don’t want to go. I’ll miss being this version of me...both of us will.”

  I tip her chin up and kiss her gently. She’s shocked by the intimacy, but quickly opens her mouth and devours mine. Eventually, she stops to take a breath. I tell her, “If you both wish it afterwards, we can join you back together.”

  She gives me a hopeful look. “Really?” She releases me and launches to Bernadette and hugs her tightly. She implores Bernadette, “May I, Your Grace? Truly?”

  Bernadette kisses her and Vanessa sighs into her mouth. The mistress of the house finally releases her mouth and answers. “Darling Shryl, your family has served mine faithfully for centuries. Having you here has been an unexpected pleasure. I will welcome you back with open arms.” Bernadette pauses to let Shryl and Vanessa absorb that comment. “I don’t want to send you away, darling, but I must. I need you to get an audience with the Queen. Tell her what I told you. Not Gabrielle - you have her version of the story.” Bernadette pulls her close for a hug. “Be safe, Shryl. You are precious to me.”

  Vanessa murmurs into Bernadette’s breast. “As you are to me, Your Grace.”

  Bernadette nods to me as Vanessa pulls away. I wrap the young woman in a one-armed hug. I ask, “Where should she sit, Audrey?”

  Audrey grasps Vanessa’s hand. “Come with me, sweetie.” Audrey places Vanessa in the center of the semi-circle. “Please sit here, Vanessa. Sit and relax as much as you can, dear. It will take me a bit to draw the circle. Okay?”

  “Sure, Audrey. Take your time. I don’t want this to go wrong,” Vanessa says.

  “It won’t, Vanessa. We’ll get Shryl safely home, and take good care of Vanessa,” Audrey assures her. She kisses Vanessa’s forehead before going to a box beside the exit to the anteroom. Audrey draws a circle with salt around Vanessa. Despite drawing a large circle in salt freehand, the circle looks perfect to my eye. She follows that by drawing a variety of symbols outside the circle. She finishes with another circle around the symbols to create a circular ribbon of symbols.

  Audrey then points to the floor behind Vanessa on the circle. I sit on the floor, and Audrey draws another pair of concentric circles outside of herself and me. The symbols are different, but I have no idea what any of the symbols in either circle mean. I keep breathing slowly and deeply to center myself.

  Audrey finishes drawing the inner circle of the outside pair. She walks the outside pair of circles checking her work. She does the same with the inside circle. Audrey walks around the circle to stand next to me. She tips my chin up and kisses me gently. I look up into her eyes as she asks, “Are you ready, Lord Husband?”

  I smile, “I am, Lady Wife.” She smiles at me and walks around the circles to take a seat facing Vanessa.

  Audrey says, “Vanessa, we are ready. Are you?”

  Vanessa nods. “Yes, Lady Audrey.”

  I say, “Okay, Vanessa. Here we go. Just sit, relax, and breathe deeply, sweetie.”

  I follow my own advice and open my second sight. I see a glyph where Shryl is bound into Vanessa’s brain. It looks sloppy, but it is full of life energy. I reach out with my will, and absorb the energy out of the glyph. When the glyph is gone, I reach for Shryl and gently tug her soul towards me. She struggles against me, but I continue to gently tug until she slides out of Vanessa. Vanessa slumps to the side when Shryl’s soul leaves her body.

  I look at Shryl’s transparent body - leathery wings, tail, red flesh, tiny little horns poking out of her hairline, and she has the killer body of a Playboy playmate. She’s beautiful.

  I hold Shryl with my mind and nod to Audrey.

  Audrey addresses Shryl, speaking a series of phrases in a guttural language I don’t recognize. Shryl pops out of existence with a sound like a champagne cork releasing.

  I stand as I look at Audrey and point at Vanessa. She nods and reaches out to break the circle with a finger.

  I step inside the circle and scribe my glyph onto the base of Vanessa’s skull before I push life energy into her.

  Vanessa gasps. I kneel next to her and pull her head to my thigh. I gently caress her cheek to comfort her as she grasps my hand and holds onto it like a lifeline. “You’re okay, Vanessa. I’ve got you, and you’re safe. You’re surrounded by people that care for you, sweetheart.”

  She rolls over and crawls up into my lap. I slide to sit on my ass rather than my knees and cradle her as she sobs. “I feel so empty. It felt right to have Shryl with me. I’m all alone now, and I just feel wrong.”

  “Honey, you’re not wrong. You are who you have always been. Now you have memories from Shryl that you can leverage to connect better than you could on your own. We will always be here for you - me, Bernadette, your friends here, and my family.”

  Clarice and Viktorija come in from the entry. The kneel on each side of Vanessa, kiss her, and hug her.

  Clarice whispers, “Come on, honey. Let us help you back to the dorms.”

  “Okay,” Vanessa sobs. I help her stand, and the ladies guide her out.

  11

  What comes next

  After Vanessa leaves, my ladies and I join Bernadette, Clarice, Steven, and Jack in Bernadette’s office. Clarice closes the door and uses a tablet to drop the cone of silence.

  Bernadette sits behind her desk. She says, “Sending Shryl home was just a small problem. I have a
much bigger one.”

  She pauses for a moment to collect her thoughts as we all wait to hear what she has to say. “Just to be clear, I am a Duchess of the royal line of Luxure of the Succubaen people. We have seven planets in our empire. Each planet has a queen of the preeminent family on the planet. On my planet the royal family is the Ravissement family. The queen of each planet is subject to the Empress, who is fortunately based on a different planet than mine.”

  She continues, “I am the fifth of twelve daughters - the sixth of fourteen children. My second-eldest sister is the queen of our planet as the eldest died in a duel with a greater imp lord. The current queen is one of the more sane royals I know. The remaining sister between Queen Alafair and myself is the Archduchess Gabrielle. Gabrielle was the fourth sister, but killed the third to be named Archduchess and heir to the throne. Queen Alafair has been reigning for almost 18 years and she has no children, but she is fair and reasonably compassionate. The Archduchess is a raving lunatic. She has been killing off relatives for years - sisters, cousins, even my elder brother.”

  She taps her lips as she considers what to share next. “Someone in my family has made an agreement with a greater imp lord named Xranalazny. I suspect it’s Gabrielle; however, Queen Alafair is apparently supporting her in this or Shryl would not have been sent here. Shryl is from a common family that has been serving mine for over a millennium. The Queen would have to be involved for Shryl to come, or Gabrielle convinced Shryl that the Queen was behind it. Succubaen politics being what they are, either is a possibility.”

  Bernadette gets up and walks around to the front of her desk. She runs her hands down her torso absent-mindedly before perching on the edge of her desk. “Xranalazny was on this planet before and claims he has unfinished business. I know who killed him…” Jack raises his hand “...but greater imps are hard to kill at the best of times. Lords are even more difficult. Jack’s effort just killed the host and sent it back to its home dimension and planet. Apparently it has cut a deal with my family to have me find a host and summon it back.”

  I ask, “It? Are these greater imps like angels? Androgynous?”

  Jack says, “It’s more like they are neuter. They are equally comfortable in a host of either gender so long as they can create enough chaos to feed upon. I’m not sure how they procreate.”

  Bernadette says, “My first attempt was a suitable host, but he went feral. Jack had to put him down. Despite how plentiful zombies have become as the population has risen, it’s hard to find a specimen to order. I don’t know what its agenda is, but Xranalazny has a cambion, a child born here from its host’s body. The child is coming of age soon, so I’m sure that defiling and twisting the child is part of its plan. I happen to know the child is a delight, and I don’t want that thing anywhere near its progeny.”

  She pats her hair. “Jack and I have discussed a plan to end this. First, I find a male host. The more frail the better. Secondly, we summon Xranalazny and push it into the host. Third, Jack shoots it in the head.”

  Jack adds, “Greater imps are creatures that feed off chaos. Almost every aspect of their existence has evolved to create more chaos. They thrive by doing the unexpected, creating strife, and feeding off the emotional pain caused by it. “

  Audrey says, “That’s kind of true of most travelers. Other than the elves, they all seem to feed off some type of emotional energy.”

  Bernadette nods and Jack says, “True. Greater imps are probably the most dangerous. I’ve heard it said that devourers are, but I’ve always found them fairly straightforward creatures despite their vile nature. I’ve heard stories about greater imps being able to move their souls around in their hosts body. Hunters have gotten the head shot, and still the wily fuckers come back. To do this, we’ll need to summon it, put it in its host, secure the host, then push its soul into the head so that I can disrupt the soul with a bullet.”

  Jack points at Steven. “So I need a sorcerer to summon, bind, and trap it in the host.” Then he points at me, “Then I need a necromancer to wrap up its soul and push it up into the host's head next to the brainstem where it connects.” He points at himself. “Then I will cap the bastard and send it to Hell.”

  I ask, “Would it be helpful to have an angel here? They consume soul energy. Couldn’t it just suck the energy out of Xranalazny’s soul?”

  Jack laughs, “It’s not that easy to find an angel.” He quickly gets serious. “The Church teaches that the few people that knew how to summon them have died. Even if we could get one, we would need an experienced angelic warrior. Greater imps and angels fight regularly. I read that angels can eat an imp or greater imp soul, but greater imps also find angel flesh a delicacy. It’s apparently the one thing they like to eat more than the fear and anguish caused by their own chaotic machinations.”

  I look at Bernadette. “How much are you planning to spend on this?”

  She gives me a puzzled look, so I continue. “I was thinking we cruise nursing homes looking for a relatively fit dementia or Alzheimer patient from a poor family. We offer to pay his family cash to let us use his body for scientific research, or pay off his medical bills. I pull his soul and bottle it. He becomes my zombie. We capture Xranalazny, kill it, and maybe I can even resurrect the old person into a body, rejuvenate him slightly, and then send him back to his family.”

  “Oh!” Bernadette chuckles. “I was thinking you wanted paid. I should have known better. I could put in a few hundred thousand dollars for that. I even have a charitable agency that would do all the communications and deliver the money. That would work.”

  The Grand Dame looks at the others in our group. “Shryl is going to deliver a message to Queen Alafair that we lost the host but are currently searching for another appropriately impressive specimen. I told them I would send word through the sorcerer in New York that has been their messenger when we are ready.”

  “How does that work?” I ask.

  Bernadette smiles at me indulgently. “He works for a bordello in New York that caters to gentlemen and ladies of a certain financial strata. He calls succubae of both genders regularly. I’ve confirmed that he is willing to pass simple messages back for me - for a nominal fee, of course.”

  “Of course,” we all chuckle in response.

  Bernadette claps her hands together. “I like this plan. Steven, any concerns?”

  He shrugs, “It’s as good as any other plan I can conceive.”

  “Audrey?”

  “No, Bernadette. I think it is fairly sound. It would be nice for some poor, sick old person to benefit, too.” My Kitten is such a sweet girl!

  “Jack?” she asks.

  Jack grimaces, “I’d feel better if we had a necromancer with experience fighting a greater imp lord.”

  I release a macabre chuckle. “Yeah, Jack. I agree. Any idea where to get one?”

  He frowns, “I don’t think they would let him out for this. Plus they would want to know all the details and send an observer. I don’t think we can afford that.”

  “Can you think of a way I could practice?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. Bernadette gives me a considering look. I think she nods to me, but the motion is nearly imperceptible. I may have imagined it. Then Bernadette claps her hands together. “Done. I’ll have my agents get busy on the search. We will have to be ready to do this quickly.”

  With that, Clarice manipulates her tablet, and the cone of silence lifts.

  Bernadette hugs Audrey and me at the same time. “What are your plans for the afternoon, darlings?”

  I tell her, “I’m going to go train with Master Hiromatsu. The ladies are coming along to train, too. We will be back by dinner time, but we plan to eat Indian immediately after training.”

  “Okay,” she says. “I look forward to your return.”

  I kiss Bernadette tenderly, and then I escort the ladies upstairs to grab our training gear.

  12

  Training with Master Hiromatsu

  S
teven hugs Bernadette. “Until next time, my friend.”

  Bernadette smirks, “Are we friends, Steven?”

  Steven shrugs and tells her, “I committed to Lidia that I would not engage in what you expect from true friendship, Bernadette. But, I will protect your secrets and do what I can to protect your life here. It appears my daughter and her husband are rather connected to you.”

  Bernadette smirks, “You and Lidia should come to the show tonight.”

  Steven frowns, “I’ve been warned that I should avoid it as my daughter will be on stage with her husband.”

  Bernadette teases, “She is magnificent, Steven. She has given herself completely to William, and audiences respond to their shows like no others. If you should screw up your courage, I might be able to arrange a private viewing. No one would know. I’m fairly certain Lidia would enjoy it.”

  Steven is gobsmacked for a moment. He frowns. “I don’t think so, but I’ll let you know if we decide differently.”

  Bernadette touches his shoulder. “I know Lidia misses the scene. You were regulars on the LA scene until Audrey was old enough to ask questions. Come to another show. I’ll put you on the email list. Just watch for a message from Red Tail Productions - password will be what’s most precious to you.”

  Steven says, “Family.” Bernadette nods. Steven kisses her cheek and leaves.

  Jack pulls Bernadette into a hug and gives her the wet kiss she expects as a hello from her friends. He cups her full left breast. Looking down into her eyes, he just smirks at her.

  “What?” Bernadette says.

  “You’re getting rather attached to that necromancer,” he says.

  Bernadette says, “I admire him greatly. He is kind, compassionate, and affectionate by nature, yet I am confident he will kill anyone who threatens those he cares about - family, friends, innocents. I’m pretty certain his definition of ‘innocent’ is quite liberal compared to yours.”