Succubus Rescue (The Accidental Necromancer Book 3)

by JG Jerome

  Raul nods and asks, “How big is the property?”

  Alöise says, “It is two adjacent medium-sized lots combined into one.”

  Koree adds, “The property across the alley may be available for expansion. My team rented it while we were pulling surveillance on the Mistress.”

  Raul gives him a hard look, so Koree explains. “I remember you from working for Duchess Valeran. The Lord’s imps killed me. He resurrected my body and sent me to infiltrate and gain knowledge. I am what they call a zombie on this planet.”

  Darius says, “Yeah. Us too. The boss brought us back to life without souls.”

  Alöise says, “Um...maybe. William Darling, look at their auras.”

  I do. They both have a very weak corona around them, which indicates they have souls, plus strong ropes of soul energy leading back to me. Erica’s is brighter, but theirs is strong enough to be a complete soul. I look at Lara, but I don’t see a corona. I get up and walk behind her to look at the glyph I drew on the back of her skull. She helpfully bends her head forward and lifts her hair out of the way. There is a small halo around the glyph that wasn’t there when I drew it on her. I caress her elegant neck before checking Koree’s skull. He has a similar halo.

  I ask Alöise, “How about Vanessa?”

  She shrugs, “I haven’t looked.”

  I think about it for a minute before looking at Alöise again. “I have an idea. Maybe you, Josie, and I can discuss it after we finish this meeting.”

  She smiles gently, “Of course, Darling.”

  I address Alöise’s head of security. “Luis, do you have enough weapons to arm twenty more people?”

  He shakes his head. “We have twenty, including the two at your house.”

  Alöise murmurs, “I have a contact. I can get a couple more crates.”

  Raul asks, “Can you get Heckler & Koch MP7’s? It’s a smaller round, less recoil, easier to control. It’s a great close protection weapon.”

  Jack, “It also has specialized ammunition. An MP5 uses standard 9mm Luger rounds, they can be fit with silencers. I personally prefer the full MP5, but since we’re talking about fighting inside the house, maybe go with the MP5K. The barrel is half as long. Will’s friend can probably get us silencers if Bernadette, er...Alöise, can't get them from her supplier.”

  Darius asks, “Aren’t you the woman that was killed at the Esplanade?”

  Alöise says, “I am. I can tell you more if you swear loyalty to my Lord Husband.”

  Raul says, “Ma’am, it’s all I can do not to grovel at his feet and call him Master. I count myself lucky that he treated us like victims and lets us call him Boss instead.”

  Darius nods seriously and adds, “I’d like to think I have a choice, Ma’am. Sadly, I’m pretty sure I don’t.”

  Raul responds, “Ma’am, Darius and I are in. I’m fairly certain that the remainder of my crew will be too. We met at my apartment last night and talked it over. None of us understand what is going on, but we’re all pretty convinced that fighting for your husband is our best chance of survival and most likely the side of right.”

  Alöise nods and looks at April. “How about you, young lady?”

  April says, “My fate and my future are tied to Jack and Darcie. I saw what you looked like in William’s bedroom. I’ll keep your secrets, ma’am.”

  “I am Alöise Pascal,” Alöise says seriously. “You may call me Alöise, April.” She looks at the two security professionals. “You gentlemen may also address me so. My staff generally call me Mistress. You are right, Darius. My host died, so my soul went home to my natural body. Unfortunately, my sister had locked my body in her dungeon. Shryl’s, too. My Lord Husband rescued me and brought me home.”

  Alöise stands and drops her dressing gown before shifting to her natural form. “My given name is Alöise Ravissement, first in line for the throne of planet Ravissement, one of the seven planetary homes of my people. You would call me a succubus. When Shryl returns, you’ll see the differences between a common succubus and a royal like myself.”

  “I’m here, Your Grace,” Shryl says as she and Vanessa walk into the room. The visitors gawk at the two beautiful demons.

  I check Vanessa with my second sight. She has a halo in about the proportions you would see in old religious paintings, but not a full corona. That fits with my hypothesis, but it doesn’t explain how Darius and Raul have full souls.

  I turn my attention back to the conversation at hand. “Succubus. They are dimension travelers - ‘demons’ for short. It’s considerably different than what the Church and popular lore would have you believe. Imps and greater imps are more like what you might expect, but also different.” I tap my hands on the table. “Back to the question at hand. Raul, your thoughts on MP7 are sound, but I’m a fan of simplifying the logistics around ammunition, too. My family all shoot 9mm pistols and AR-15 style rifles. We’re still working to figure out shotguns, but we are leaning toward smaller loads to make controlling the weapons easier. For that reason, I like the sound of MP7, but from a practicality perspective I’m going to say MP5’s. Yours are MP5K’s, right Luis?”

  He smiles mildly. “Yes, Lord. The Mistress and I agreed on them after test firing both for the reason you mentioned - a shorter barrel for a little more maneuverability inside a building.” He looks at Alöise. “I’d recommend three cases, Mistress. I’d rather have spares and not need them instead of the other way around.”

  Alöise nods her agreement as T’os says, “Lord, we can give them a handful of the magnetic rifles, too. They would be advantageous for rooftop security.”

  “I’ll say,” Jack quips. “Warren has equipment to measure muzzle velocity. He set it up before we did the test firing on those things. A standard 7.62mm Nato rifle has a muzzle velocity of roughly 800 meters per second. An M-16 or AR-15 firing 5.56 mm Nato rounds reach a muzzle velocity of roughly 1000 meters per second. An M1 Abrams tank with a 120mm shell reaches about 1700 meters per second. Those elven rifles were consistently firing 1900 meters per second. The one that fired the most was consistently exceeding 2000 meters per second by the time we finished.” He frowns and adds, “If you’re worried about collateral damage, I’d go with something else.”

  Darius says, “M-14s. They were the preferred weapon of the Marine Corps marksmanship teams long after the M-16 became the standard combat weapon. They’re very reliable.”

  I smirk. “I hate to agree with the jarhead, but he’s right. They are good weapons.”

  Darius smirks back, “Semper fi, ma…” His smirk disappears as he has an internal struggle before spitting out, “Boss.”

  I look at him. “Darius, I command that you refer to me as Boss rather than Master. Do I make myself clear?”

  He visibly relaxes. “Thanks, Boss.”

  “Raul, you too,” I command.

  Raul nods, “Thanks, Boss.”

  I add, “To both of you, when you can bring yourselves to do it, I prefer Will or even William to any title. I suspect you will be there soon.” I look at Alöise’s security chief. “You too, Luis.”

  “Yes, Lord,” the dour Hispanic man says with an uncharacteristic grin.

  I give him about a second’s worth of hairy eyeball before he chuckles at me and continues. “Ruger Mini-14’s are good, too. They use the 5.56mm NATO cartridges. If you want 7.62mm, they make a Mini-30 as well, with the same basic form factors. But remember the ‘keep the logistics simple’ principle. The 5.56mm is probably fine for our needs.”

  Jack says, “Agreed.”

  I tell Luis, “Call Monty and have him come here. We can get recommendations from him. Here’s his number.” I pull up the contact info and slide my phone to Luis before asking, “What else do we need to discuss?”

  Josie says, “I have the security door for the basement ready. I thought I’d install it in the basement now if that’s okay.”

  I nod my agreement. “Sounds good, Josie.”

  Josie says, “Jack, I’ll have you
rs by next weekend at the latest if Warren gets the doors done. I gave him the measurements and standards yesterday.”

  “Great,” he responds. “Darcie and I were discussing this. I think we need five more of those small frames sets and a roll-up crawl passage set. I want to ensure that Darcie, April, Felicia, Maddy, and Chelsea have them at all times. When Candice joins us, she’ll need one too.”

  “Roll-ups?” Josie asks. Jack nods his agreement.

  Alöise says, “Get Candice’s ready too, Josie. She will be ready shortly after New Year. Charge me for it. It will be her graduation present.”

  Candice sniffs, “Thank you, Mistress.” She has tears of joy running down her pretty face.

  Luis says, “Jack, why don’t you walk around with us? You can tell Raul and Darius about the Church while we inspect the site. Based on what we did Friday, the Church is probably the more imminent threat than the elves.”

  “Okay,” Jack says. He looks at me. “You agree with that assessment, Will?”

  “Yeah. We probably gained ourselves some time with the elves here in Phoenix, but I don’t know for how long. I’m still worried about other cities. Regardless, I agree with Luis, and I think your buddy in Chicago is a menace I’ll need to deal with shortly,” I agree.

  Jack stands, “Let’s go, men. We’re burning daylight, and I have women that need my attention.”

  We all chuckle at that.

  “Um,” Audrey says, and we all stop. “Josie, Carla, Chiara, T’os, and I discussed how we can get the imps here quickly. Carla is going to cover this week when I need to be in class.”

  Carla says, “I don’t have any site visits this week, so I’ll just bring my computer here. Tori can get me set up with network connectivity.” The Latvian beauty nods decisively at Carla.

  Audrey continues, “Erica and I will stay overnight in the suite all week, and we’ll put a permanent circle on the floor there tomorrow afternoon. During the week, Carla will negotiate with the critters to get some on stand-by, and Chiara and T’os will work on building an artifact to summon them on demand against a pre-defined contract. It will take a couple of weeks to build and test, but it appears do-able.”

  Chiara adds, “We have a plan to ensure all of our elves have a ward that will keep the imps from attacking us.”

  “Good, Chiara. I know we talked about it, but I haven’t been focused on it like I should be. Thank you,” I say encouragingly. She blushes and nods. “Anything else?”

  Nothing comes up. “Okay. Let’s get to it,” I say to wrap things up.

  25

  Lleandra

  I get up from the table. “Alöise? Josie?” They both give me their attention. “Might I have a private conversation with the two of you?”

  Alöise, ever the Mistress of the House, nods with a gentle smile. “Of course, William Darling. In my office.” She looks at the sexy mulatto zombie. “Vanessa darling, please bring coffee service to my office. Just mugs of coffee, not the ceremony. Have Adelina accompany you.”

  “Oh good,” Vanessa responds. “I’ve got a long way to go on the ceremony. Tanu hasn’t certified me yet. I’ll have Christina and Yelena prepare it while I fetch Adelina.” Vanessa starts on her errand as Alöise, Josie, and I make our way toward the office.

  Jack asks, “Adelina Suarez?” Alöise nods. He continues, “I wondered if that’s who that was. I didn’t know she was such a sexy young thing.”

  Darcie purrs, “Do you need more women, Master?”

  “No, Pet. It was just an observation,” he tells her. “How’s Michael Foster doing, Bernadette?”

  “It’s Alöise, Jack. Get used to it,” she gives him a fierce stare before relaxing. “Michael is doing fine. He’ll graduate in May next year. I arranged for his mother to get a good job, and the lawsuit finished three weeks ago. She will get a rather nice settlement. Michael has been on my roster to valet cars for the last two months,” Alöise says.

  Jack says, “I was going to call and thank you for that, but given your recent nuptials, I need to think about how best to do that.” He smirks.

  Alöise waves dismissively at him. She says as we parade down the hall toward the parlor, “I was happily surprised when I met Adelina. She just turned eighteen Friday, so she moved in today. She is still trying to finish high school but will graduate this May. We will start indoctrinating and training her now, but we’re going to start her slowly. Unfortunately, she had some bad experiences living on her own, so I doubt she will ever become fully-fledged entertainment staff, but we’ll see. She likes to dance - she was a cheerleader in junior high and the first two years of high school. She’s pretty enough to draw clients if she decides she can do that. She is interested in going to college, so she will be with us for a while.”

  Jack, Darcie, and April hand out hugs before heading up the stairs.

  Rebecca kisses me quickly. “I’ll go back with Carla to get them home safely. I want to check with Warren about our charges.”

  I squeeze her trim little bum. “Okay, Mama Bear. I love you.” I kiss her again before she skips up the stairs.

  Carla captures my mouth. We break the kiss, and she says, “I’m going to the townhouse to bring some more things to the house. I’m afraid the townhouse is going to be more of a closet than my home. Maybe we put some elven staff there, too. With my bed and the guest bed, we could probably accommodate four of them there. More if we put in some bunk beds.”

  “Sounds good, Mrs. James,” I tell her.

  Marissa says, “I’m going with them, Lord Husband. Love you!” She kisses me quickly and dashes up the stairs.”

  Lenore, T’os, and Chiara follow her up the stairs saying, “Goodbye for now, Lord.”

  Susan kisses me. “I’m going to go back to Chicago to get ready for work tomorrow. I plan to be back for dinner but if not, come through and kiss me goodnight, Mr. James.”

  “I’ll do my best, Mrs. James,” I assure her. She sways up the stairs, looking down at me with a warm smile.

  Audrey, Erica, and Lara each kiss me before going upstairs to figure out how and where to put the circle. I don’t see Clarice anywhere, but Mica is behind me with his pad and paper.

  Alöise reminds me, “If you’re looking for Clarice, she went to her room to pack it out.”

  Alöise leads us through the salon to her office, which is next to the parlor off the entryway.

  I close the door and we all sit in the chairs in front of her desk.

  “Please, explain to me the process to create a zombie as it was told to you,” I ask my wives.

  Alöise says, “I can only remember what Babette discussed with you. I have a lot of her memories, but…”

  Josie says, “They should be hard for you to access now since you’re not sharing her brain.”

  Alöise nods, “I can remember telling you to just pour life energy into a recently dead corpse. I remember talking about making a ghoul with you, I remember her life as a child growing up in the brothel and the experiences she shared with you. She was thinking about the process, basically - energize and bind - as she spoke to you. That’s about it, Darling.”

  Josie says, “It’s really that simple. You grab the corpse with your will, infuse it with life energy, and bind it with the glyph. I thought everyone used the same glyph until Babette told us differently.”

  “Always, life energy?” I ask to confirm. Then there is a knock on the door.

  Josie says, “Yes. Always.” Alöise rises and glides to the door.

  Tanu sticks her head in. She says in her slightly sing-song speech, “Please pardon the intrusion, Mistress. There is a Mr. Magnus here to see you.”

  She opens the door, and we all stand. The magi that is known only as ‘Magnus’ walks in. I knew him as Chief Sergeant Jonas Hadad when I was fighting in the desert.

  Alöise says, “Welcome, Magnus. My husband is here, too.”

  He exclaims, “Ah! William is here, too! And you’re married to him? How wonderful!”

  A
löise purrs, “It is my pleasure to claim that honor; although, Josie has been his wife longer.” She waves a hand toward Josie to indicate who she’s talking about. “She is his fourth wife. I’m his sixth.”

  Magnus keeps his eyes on Josie as he walks into the room. He says absently, “William, I have your books.” He walks up to stand in front of Josie. She’s wearing boots, so she is currently just slightly taller than he is.

  Magnus says, “Mrs. James, it is my pleasure to meet you. Would you please be so kind to release your power? Let me see it?”

  I step closer to her and drape an arm around her waist. She looks at me for confirmation, and I nod in return.

  Josie releases the bonds that cache her magical energies deep in her well. Magnus sharply sucks in a breath quickly and holds it for a moment. After he releases it he asks, “Where and when were you born, child?”

  Josie answers, “1876 in Colorado, shortly after they became a state. My pa was the thaumaturge at the Golden Fleece mine near Lake City. My ma died when I was eleven. I died in 1891 in Prescott until my husband brought me back to life.”

  Magnus cocks an eye at me. “You raised her and gave her powers back to her?”

  I shrug. “Yes. I just strengthened her enough where she could create a body, then I started strengthening the body.”

  Magnus squints at her. “You’ve learned necromancy, but you were a thaumaturge before?”

  Josie says, “Yes,” and I nod.

  Magnus asks, “Did your mother have talent? Powers?”

  Josie shakes her head, “Not that I know of.”

  Magnus muses. “I suspect she had faith magic. Most magi are born from parents with faith magic on one side and one of the remaining schools on the other.” He shrugs. “It doesn't matter, Mrs. James. May I know your given name?”

  Josie nods, “Yes, sir. I was christened Josephine Helene Carroll. Helene was my grandmother. I go by Josie Carroll most of the time; although, I’ve recently begun using Josie James. I haven’t legally changed my name to James, yet. Soon. Very soon.”