Succubus Rescue (The Accidental Necromancer Book 3)

by JG Jerome

  Jack murmurs, “Good job, my Pet. They belong to me. Give them to me.”

  I pick Clarice up and turn her to face away from Jack and Darcie. I tell him, “Jack, if you have a fantasy about fucking on a lawyer’s desk, you can probably take care of that if you hurry.”

  Jack cocks an eyebrow at me. “Good idea, Will. Let’s go, Pet.”

  I tell him, “Not Bernadette’s. It’s not that she wouldn’t appreciate the gesture, but I’d like to not scuff up the circle.”

  Viktorija calls out, “Jared Carlisle’s desk. He’s an ass.”

  “Got it,” I hear Jack call from down the hall.

  After listening to Darcie’s moans and groans, I’m starting to think about taking a turn with Marissa on the conference table, but I hear the critters run in the back door.

  Clarice jumps off my lap, I slide past Susan and out into the hall. I call out, “What did you learn, my critters?”

  All three of them stand there and salute. I think it’s Xerxes who says, “It is Valeran Castle, General. We followed them into a parking field and to a back door. When we got close to the door, it made us feel sick. Hermes,” it points to the scratched comrade with green ooze coming out of the scratches. “Hermes was attacked by an owl while Argos and I were scouting around the building.”

  Hermes growls, “The big fucker just dropped out of the sky. It had a ribbon around its neck, so I held on and bit its head off. I saw more of them, but they were hard to count. They moved all the time. We all came back rather than risk fighting those fuckers.”

  Argos salutes again. “I confirmed it’s the right castle, General.”

  4

  Battle plans

  I open my mouth to speak when I hear a gentle bang on the door. Marissa says, “I’ve got it. It’s probably Monty.”

  I look at Carla. “Honey, are you good with eighteen? This will be a longer battle. There are fourteen floors, and we have to clear them all to ensure we can get back out again.”

  Her grey eyes lock on mine. “What do you want them to do, Will?”

  “Keep the elves away from their armories and create as much chaos in their ranks until I can suck their souls out,” I answer.

  “That’s right!” Monty’s baritone voice responds. “I forgot you can suck out souls, Studley Doright.”

  I look over my shoulder. “Hello, Monty. Are you ready to step through the looking glass?”

  The tall, black man chuckles evilly. “I built the fucking Looking Glaaa...what the fuck are those?” He looks like he’s seen a ghost as he looks at the critters.

  “Those are imps, Monty. Demons. They are great at tracking, fast as hell, and hate elves,” I tell him. I point at my elven zombie. “Lara is an elf. She’s from a royal bloodline, so her ears are longer than average. Based on the roughly twenty-five I’ve seen, I’d say they range from…” I look at Lara. “...4’ to 5’5”?”

  She nods her head side-to-side like an Indian woman. “Ranging from 120 to165 centimeters - your measures translate to that pretty well, Lord.”

  I continue pulling the bandaid off. “Elves are faster and stronger than most humans - about on a par with an elite human athlete.

  Monty is suddenly very serious. “You’re not kidding.”

  I shake my head, “When I told you I’d about been killed, it was elves that did it.” I light a ball of soul energy in my hand to preclude scoffing. The imps look decidedly ill as the ball comes into existence. “Those elves had additional assistance - collars with magical enhancements for speed, strength, and faster healing. I got lucky. Since then I’ve learned how to bring some magic of my own.”

  I dismiss the ball of soul energy, and the imps seem more energetic again. I tell them, “Give me just a second, critters. Carla will pay you for your recon mission. We have another for you and some friends. Get some water, coffee, go outside to relieve yourself, and hurry back here.”

  They snap to attention. “Aye, aye, General.”

  Monty chuckles on that. “General, huh.” I get up and walk over to welcome him.

  I chuckle with him as I shake his hand. “Their choice. They call Carla ‘Captain.’ You bring weapons?”

  He nods, “Yeah. Vest and helmet too. You sounded too strange on the phone not to take it seriously.”

  “Yeah. You can’t tell anyone about this. Not even Monique. We can read her in over time, but I need you to keep this a state secret for now,” I tell him. I point at Jack and Darcie as they come out of an office with a definite glow about them. “Jack’s former employers might ‘disappear you’ if you do.”

  Jack replies, “No, Will. They would imprison you and kill people we care about, but they’d probably just wipe his mind.” He walks up and offers the big man his hand with a grin. “Welcome to my hell, Monty.”

  “Hey, Jack. You’re in on this, too?” he asks.

  “Monty, I used to hunt demons for the Church. I’m one of only two people I know of that they let retire, and I was called back in earlier this year for a special case. Thankfully that’s done, and I’m back to being retired. Bottom line, demons are real and the Church is neck deep in ‘em,” he wraps up.

  “Ho-ly shi-it!” Monty exclaims. “We need to have a long talk at some point.” He looks at me, “So what’s this about you pulling out souls and doing light shows?”

  Remembering what Magnus told me, I tell him, “I’m learning magic. Like Jack said, the Church would either imprison or kill me if they knew about me. I’m afraid what we’re going to do tonight could draw their attention. I really don’t want that, but I don’t feel I have a choice.”

  The big man nods at me to continue. “A very good friend of mine was abducted this evening about dusk. The imps tracked her trail to a building that is known to be the elves first stronghold on this planet. The ‘stronghold’ is the Esplanade condo complex on Camelback. This is the base from which the elves plan to colonize the planet. We don’t think our friend's abduction is related to the invasion; it’s more likely the elves did it in retribution for a recent loss, or a political play from our friend’s royal family.”

  “Your friend is a princess?” Monty jokes.

  I look at him seriously. “She’s a duchess. Her name is Bernadette, and she’s dear to me, Monty. Like one of the ladies you know, you just haven’t met her yet.”

  I hear Viktorija gasp at my admission. “That is Viktorija. The shorter blond is Clarice, Bernadette’s stepdaughter. The tall brunette is Susan; she’s one of my ladies. The gentleman is Luis; he works with Bernadette, Lara, Viktorija, and Clarice.”

  I turn back to Monty from the introductions. “I’m going, Monty. I could use your help. I’m going either way. I can’t leave her to the tender mercies of Duchess Valya Valeran.” Monty looks confused, so I explain. “The resident elven royal.”

  Monty asks, “Just a minute, Will.” He pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts. “You said the elves were planning to colonize here. Why?”

  Lara says, “House Valeran has about 21 billion people on a landmass about the size of Australia. The rest of the planet isn’t that densely packed, but they still have multiples of this planet’s population and the planet is slightly smaller. They are planning to bring 15 billion people to Earth. I expect them to kill off many humans to make room.”

  “Okay,” Monty says. “So we need to shut them down. Can’t we get the military involved?”

  Jack says, “How long do you want to stay in the looney bin, Monty? Until they reveal themselves, the Church is the only institution that knows about them. I really don’t think that we want to count on them to do the right thing. They will let the elves take over as long as they still get to govern the remainder of humanities’ souls.”

  I nod my agreement. “Everything they teach is like a fantasy version of the reality of angels, demons, and even God.” I shake my head and look at Monty. “Monty, I don’t trust the elves not to hurt Bernadette. I need to go, so I need to cobble a plan together. I need to know if you’re in
or out.”

  “In,” Monty says. “What are you thinking?”

  I look at the imps as they run back inside. “Would you be willing to lead squads again, critters? We’re going to be hunting elves.”

  They salute and sound off. “Aye, aye, General.”

  “Good,” I say. “Okay, here’s the plan. I enter the front of the building and disable the security staff.”

  Jack says, “You mean suck out their souls.”

  I cock an eyebrow at him. “Right. I suck their souls out, and reanimate them. I send them to the back door to let the rest of you in from the parking lot. Jack, Monty, Marissa, Clarice, Carla, Lara, Luis, and the critters come along. I raise as many guards as I can. They secure the doors, and any additional come with us.”

  Jack tells Monty, “By raise, he means reanimate their corpses into zombies.”

  I rub my temple for a moment. “We will have eighteen imps with us. We’ll send one squad to each of the first three barracks floors. They will need to keep around two hundred elves from accessing the armories until I can suck their souls out. Once we clear one floor, they move to the next floor until we’ve cleared floors one through eight. We want to keep it as quiet as possible, so the higher floors don’t set defenses or counter attack. Six imps can cause a lot of damage, so there may not be any left by the time I get to the third floor.”

  The imps just grin when I say that. I continue my thoughts. “Carla watches for glyphs as we go that could be wards or traps. Monty watches for incoming threats on one flank, Jack on the other. Any security zombies not covering the doors follow behind us in reserve, but Marissa and Luis will watch our trail regardless. Clarice and Lara are in the center.”

  I press the bridge of my nose and close my eyes for a minute. “Viktorija, you can start to prep the cameras.”

  “Of course, Lord.” Viktorija kisses my cheek and hands me an envelope. “Koree’s notes, love.” She then goes back into the conference room with her phone to get the drone on station.

  I tell my latest lady, “Susan, you will stay here with Viktorija and Darcie. Darcie has been training, but she’s not up for this kind of mission, yet. All three of you have good firearm skills, and Darcie is progressing well on unarmed combat. Watch out for each other and check in with the ladies in Prescott regularly. We’ll check in with you. I’ll call you once the ground floor is secure and as I’m able to afterward. If you don’t hear from us in four hours, then Darcie will take you all to the salon. Go back to Prescott, and the ladies will get you home.”

  She says quietly, “I don’t like it, Will. I’d rather be with you.”

  I look at her for a moment. “Susan, I don’t think you’re ready to watch me kill roughly two thousand people, but that’s what I’m about to do.”

  She slides through the press of people to wrap her arms around me. “Just be careful, Will. I get these are bad...elves, but I just got some hope of a life with you. Don’t take that away from me - from all of us. Come home to us.”

  “I will,” I tell her.

  “Are you sure that you can’t let someone else do this?” she asks.

  “If it were you, would you want me to come get you?” I ask.

  She drops her head in shame. “Of course. I shouldn’t have asked that.”

  I kiss her forehead. “You and Bernadette are the two ladies I’ve known the longest. I can’t leave her out there any more than I could leave you out there.” I kiss her now upturned lips gently. “This is not an easy relationship. It only works because we all love each other, respect each other, and work at it. Welcome to the family, Love.” I let her go after another quick kiss.

  I pull Carla close and whisper in her ear, “Assemble the squads, darling.”

  She pulls my mouth down for a wet kiss. “Yes, Lord.” She winks at me with the honorific before turning to sashay down the hall to her circle in Bernadette’s office. “You have work to do, Mr. James.”

  “Just admiring the view, Ms. Jackson,” I call in response. She leans on the doorjamb to Bernadette’s office and blows me a kiss before disappearing.

  I look at Marissa. “You chose well there, Love.”

  She grins, “Yes, I did.”

  We all glide into the conference room to review Koree’s map. It looks like the 13th floor will be the toughest one. There are wards and something marked as ‘defensive glyphs’ in front of the elevator and stairs. The portal is there, too. That is supposed to be guarded by a squad of twelve soldiers in addition to the Court Magician and his staff. We need to secure that. Everything below that is just a problem of dealing with the number of combatants.

  The royal chambers don’t appear to be particularly well guarded, but Koree said he didn’t have much cause to get up there. That might turn into a surprise ‘shit sandwich’ we have to eat.

  On the ninth floor, we plan to only kill any soldiers in the bordello and anyone that actively fights or tries to raise an alarm. Those girls have been through enough without me killing them for the crime of being forced into sexual slavery. If we can save and recruit the healer, we will do that. Otherwise, all the general’s staff and royal staff will die.

  I ask Lara, “How many do you think will fight.”

  She shrugs. “The madame might. She has Valya’s ear. I suspect the rest are going to be too exhausted to fight even if they wanted to. I don’t think there’s much loyalty, but who knows. My loyalties were conflicted with Valya because I had a better life than many, but she was so cruel. I cut her slack because she brought Maliar’en to Earth - the brothels on Prime are much more brutal than this one. Some of them might fight because they would be dead if they weren’t kept for chattel.”

  “Alright,” I acknowledge her information. We’re as ready as we’re going to be.

  I ask Viktorija, “How long until you’re on station?”

  “Two minutes,” she responds.

  “Okay,” I say. “LD in twenty minutes?”

  Monty says, “Make it thirty. It won’t hurt us, but it gives us time to check all the weapons at a leisurely pace.”

  Viktorija says, “Plus I don’t know what I’m going to find with the drone until it’s on station.”

  “Okay,” I agree. “LD in thirty minutes.”

  Lara looks at me vacantly. “‘LD’ means ‘line of departure’ - crossing out of safe territory. We leave in thirty minutes,” I clarify.

  “Ah,” she says.

  5

  Line of departure

  The critters all arrive in the conference room - all eighteen of them. I show them the diagram. Hermes says, “I think we should swarm one floor at a time. We can clear each floor quickly and move on.”

  Monty nods, “I agree. I don’t like splitting our forces, and I don’t see an advantage to doing that.”

  Argos growls, “We can bite out their voice box. It’s a favorite tactic of ours because it keeps the noise down if we are being sneaky. We are being sneaky - right, General?”

  Monty laughs at the title, but I confirm. “That’s right, Argos.”

  Monty says, “Well, Lord General Studley Doright. I have silencers and additional magazines that should work on your pistols. I see the MP5s have them already. I have about 5,000 rounds of 9mm with me. I’ve also got a Moss 505 tactical shotgun.”

  Jack says, “I’ve got a .12 guage bullpup, a silenced 9mm pistol with a spare magazine, and a folding tanto.”

  I say, “Carla, Marissa, and I all have our Sigs, collapsible batons, knives, and Taser flashlights. No helmets, but vests courtesy of Viktorija. Luis, Clarice, and Lara all have body armor, helmets, and MP5s. Lara has an 18” dirk, and Clarice has that nasty-looking barbed whip. Susan, Darcie, and Viktorija are all armed despite their post being here.”

  Viktorija says, “Marissa, take my MP5. It’s silenced, and it’s really easy to shoot. You can have your pistol as backup. Mistress has a pistol in her safe that I can borrow.”

  Marissa says, “Thanks, Tori.”

  Jack claps me on t
he shoulder. “Go get your head on straight, Will. What you are about to do will fuck your brain even if you are ready for it - I don’t care how easily you can justify it. You’re going to pull the souls out of roughly two thousand people. Make peace with that now. We can’t afford for you to freak out in the middle of it. Have a plan to deal with the energy, too. I’ve seen what happens to an unprepared necromancer, and it is not something I wish for you.”

  I nod and traipse down to Bernadette’s office. Carla is sitting on the floor next to her circle meditating. I sit straight in Bernadette’s desk chair with my hands on the blotter of her desk. I close my eyes and start meditative breathing. I visualize myself walking through the plan, dealing with problems, and killing hundreds of elves at a time. I come up with an idea that might help negate the collared elves. Then I think about what to do if my power well gets too full. The obvious answer is I’ll push growth energy into my team and entropy into the elven corpses.

  After a few minutes, I hear Carla get up. She walks quietly around her circle and Bernadette’s desk. She doesn’t say anything, but I feel the corner of the desk settle slightly under my hand as she sits on it.

  I continue to breathe deeply until I feel a hand on my shoulder. “Five minutes, Will.”

  I look into Carla’s beautiful grey eyes. She adds, “You better go pee before we...LD?”

  I smirk. “Yes ma’am.”

  “Luis and Jack are bringing the trucks around back,” Marissa tells me as I walk into the loo.

  When I come out Viktorija hugs me. “I love you, William James. Come home to me.”

  I smile and tell her, “I love you too, Viktorija Ozoliņa. I will be back with your Mistress if it’s at all possible.”

  Susan pulls me into a wet kiss. “I’ll be fine here, Will. And ditto what Viktorija said. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Susan Rey.”

  Darcie says, “You’ve got enough women giving you wet kisses, Will.” She hugs me closely and kisses my cheek. “Take care of Jack, and bring them all home safe.”