Incubus Mini-Boss (Rise of an Incubus Overlord Book 2)

by Jack Porter

  I didn’t know whether I should clear my throat or otherwise announce my presence. It was only Azrael’s caution that prevented me from doing so.

  “Just wait,” he advised. “Standard display of power. By ignoring you, he is telling you that he is far more important than you, and that his time is much too valuable to bother with you.”

  I nodded to Azrael’s assessment. I didn’t speak out loud, but thought my response to him.

  “Yeah, I get it. It’s this sort of shit that’s been pissing me off all my life.”

  “And we will readdress it,” Azrael said. “But for now, let him play his games.”

  I acknowledged the demon’s wisdom and used the time to study my surroundings.

  As well as the rich carpets and art on the wall that the waiting room boasted, Dario had filled his office with books, sculptures, and other curios. His desk provided a home for several items—an elegant pen holder, a beautiful, unnecessary table lamp, and a crystal ashtray that looked as if it had never been used. Behind Dario was a full suit of armor, and next to that on the wall was a collection of short swords displayed under glass.

  There were no windows, and no plants to soften the decor. It was, in my view, an office put together to highlight the power Dario had over his visitors. There weren’t even any chairs for his guests to use. The skinny man Dario currently spoke to had no choice but to stand awkwardly in place as they talked.

  I finished my inspection, and still had received no acknowledgement that I even existed. Despite Azrael’s caution, I couldn’t help but grow angry. I thought I’d left behind the days where high status assholes could look down on me. My own status was higher now than that of Chad and his cronies, but it was still the same.

  It turns out that all I had done was shift the goalposts a little.

  Chad could no longer look down on me. Sure, he was dead, but even if he weren’t, my own status was higher than his had ever been. But this douchebag? This Dario Gambetti hadn’t even glanced my way, and already he was proving at least as much of an ass as Chad had been.

  And I was sick and tired of it.

  “Don’t,” Azrael cautioned again, but I didn’t care. I glanced at each of the guards, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and sniffed to voice my contempt.

  “Is this Gambetti dude always this bad at sticking to a schedule?” I asked with overt scorn in my voice, just loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “I would have thought someone of his status would have been better than that.”

  Just like that, the office plunged into silence. My words had earned a scowl from each of the guards, but to me, they were nothing. Of greater importance was that Dario Gambetti finally acknowledged my presence. He was glaring at me as if I had insulted his manhood.

  The skinny guy didn’t seem to know what to do. He looked between me and Dario with an uncertain expression, as if wondering if he should continue or not.

  As for me, I grinned impudently back at the high-status man.

  Perhaps my brazenness did the trick, or perhaps Dario had his own reasons. Either way, a ghost of a smile appeared on his long, narrow face, and he dismissed the skinny man with a casual flick of his hand.

  “We are done here,” Dario said. “You can go.”

  The skinny man hastily collected the papers he had brought with him and made his way past me to the door, offering a frown of disapproval as he went.

  I resisted the urge to poke my tongue out at him, and waited until the door shut behind him.

  Dario Gambetti sat back in his chair as if noticing me for the first time. He was thinning on top, but made up for it with a heavy jaw, and while not physically intimidating, he still managed to convey considerable personal power.

  I said nothing, just waited him out. And finally, he spoke.

  “So,” he said. “And you are…?”

  As if he didn’t know. This time, I didn’t need Azrael’s insight to tell me this was just another move in his pathetic power game. As if he needed to remind me of the gulf between our respective statuses.

  I bit back on my impulse to call him on his shit. “Simon Kingman,” I said. “Here at your request.”

  “Yes,” Dario replied. Yet there was some uncertainty to his response. For the first time, his power game cracked just a little.

  “The hitman.” He pursed his lips as if thinking about things. “I didn’t think you were this… tall.”

  All at once, I understood his confusion. Whatever information he had on me hadn’t taken into account the changes Azrael had made. Dario had expected a short, dumpy, ugly little dude with thinning hair and a complexion made up of acne and boils. Instead, I stood before him a lean, attractive man of a bit more than middling height.

  I didn’t look the same as I had. I doubted I would even be able to use my old passport.

  “I’m still me,” I said. “So, how about you tell me why you invited me here?

  Chapter 9

  He didn’t answer my question. Not exactly. He just stared at me with a quiet smirk twisting his lips. “No matter,” he said finally. Then he switched gears. “Megadeath #4 was this Syndicate’s best hitman,” he began.

  “Apparently, he wasn’t,” I interjected. I was still pissed at his power games, and wanted him to remember that I bested the man.

  Gambetti continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “His absence will leave quite a gap in our organization,” he said. “One that I’m not sure we can easily fill.”

  The Syndicate boss was still pissing me off. The way he spoke, it sounded as if it was my fault. As if all he cared about was that Megadeath’s demise had created a problem for him.

  “What did you expect me to do?” I asked. “Roll over and die?”

  Gambetti didn’t even blink. “In essence, yes,” he replied. He paused for a moment, as if giving me time to let his answer sink in. But then he continued, “You weren’t the first competitor to come out of nowhere and attract Megadeath’s attention. He had taken out a vendetta contract on others in the past, and always he had emerged the victor. We thought the same would happen again. But it seems he underestimated you. As did we all.”

  “No shit,” I said flatly.

  Gambetti nodded as if I had said something pertinent. He took a deep breath. “Of course, he wasn’t the first to take the Megadeath name. He inherited it from his predecessor, whom he killed.”

  Another pause. It was as if he was waiting for me to say something. “So, what? You want me to take his place? Become Megadeath #5?”

  Gambetti didn’t say a word. He just looked at me, as if silently evaluating me. I wondered if that’s what this meeting was about. A job interview. At the same time, I couldn’t help but think about my quest for status. Was this my leg up? Was this the next step?

  Or was it merely a distraction?

  I couldn’t help but think that Megadeath #4 had reached the top of his particular ladder. Sure, maybe he had wealth and the respect of his peers. But his skill set was specialized. And, as had been shown, there was always someone new coming along who could knock him from his pedestal.

  Either way, it turned out Gambetti wasn’t looking at me as a replacement for Megadeath after all.

  “No,” he said succinctly. “I don’t believe you have what it takes. Megadeath #4 spent his whole life training to be the best. But you?” He gestured toward a manila folder on his desk. “I’ve read your file. I know who you are, and where you have come from. There is nothing in your history to suggest the type of focus and dedication required to do what Megadeath did for us.”

  I stared at the file on the desk and wondered what sort of information was in there. More importantly, how had Dario Gambetti come across it?

  All of a sudden, I recalled that somehow, Megadeath #4 had found my apartment. How had he done that? Did he have access to a file like the one Gambetti had?

  Was my entire history, including where I lived, open knowledge throughout the Syndicate as a whole?

  Yet that wasn’t the most salie
nt point Gambetti had made.

  “I still beat him,” I said. “Him and his men.”

  Gambetti didn’t look pleased about that truth in the least. “Yes. But given your history, I put that down to luck more than anything else. I would expect a different outcome nine times in ten, if we could set up the same scenario again.”

  I admit it. I didn’t like Dario Gambetti one bit. He was like a more sophisticated, more sure of himself version of Chad, and I wanted to see if I could change his expression by ramming my fist into his teeth.

  Instead, I returned to the main point. “Why have you asked me here?” I repeated.

  “You defy expectations. On paper, you are nothing. I wanted to see if that matched you in person.”

  I found I was clenching my fists at my sides and grinding my teeth. “And?”

  “There’s something about you. A hidden capability. You are more than you seem. An anomaly.” His voice suddenly hardened. “And I don’t like anomalies. At least those who come out of nowhere. I don’t trust them.”

  As if dismissing me from his thoughts, he flicked a glance at Tweedledee and Tweedledum at the door.

  “Dispose of this, if you would,” he said succinctly. “Try not to make too much of a mess.”

  Chapter 10

  He gave the order suddenly, with a hint of malice. I had a moment to stare in shock. Never in a million years would I have expected such an outcome for this meeting.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe I wasn’t cut out to replace Megadeath #4. But I was still a decent hitman, in my own way. In a matter of weeks, I had chalked up a decent handful of kills made to order, and gotten away with them clean.

  Surely, that made me an asset as far as the Syndicate was concerned? Surely, to throw me to the wolves was to add insult to injury, to leave the Syndicate short not just one hitman, but two?

  My moment of shock was quickly followed by a snarl of anger, and I decided then and there that Dario Gambetti would pay the price. But first, I had Tweedledee and Tweedledum to take care of.

  “Move!” Azrael bellowed in my mind.

  Chapter 11

  He didn’t need to tell me twice. At Dario’s word, Tweedledee – the slim, scary-looking guard – and his body builder companion had both drawn a matching pair of handguns, and were pointing them my way.

  Yet perhaps their intention wasn’t to blow holes in me within Dario’s luxurious office. Doing so would put his carpets, his artwork and collection of items at risk. Perhaps they intended to march me to some out-of-the-way spot where they could more comfortably introduce hot pieces of metal to the inside of my skull.

  Either way, this hesitation allowed me to act.

  Even as I spun about to face them, I was already lining up for a kick. I knew how close the guards were by the small sounds they’d made in stepping toward me, and, thanks to Azrael’s physical improvements, had the coordination and strength that I needed.

  My first spinning kick caught Tweedledee a stunning blow on the back of his hand, sending his gun flying in much the same way that Michael Moss had done to me with his metal pipe.

  In an ideal world, Tweedledum would have been close enough to kick at the same time. But he was just out of range. Worse, my sudden move altered any plans he may have had. Instead of ordering me out of Dario’s office, he twitched, pulling his trigger.

  The silenced gun coughed, and if I hadn’t thought to put on my thin, fabric-like bullet-proof vest before heading out, it might have been enough to end me. As it was, I felt the punch of the bullet as it caught me low, beneath my ribs and off to the side.

  Such was the force of the bullet that it added to my spin. If I’d been my earlier self, it would have tangled me up, and I would have ended up in a heap on the floor.

  But now, it was like everything happened in slow motion. I gritted my teeth against the sudden pain, or it may have been no more than anger. In any event, I used the momentum and stepped into the spin, turning around once again, but with Tweedledum’s position more firmly in mind. Once more I kicked out, and Tweedledum’s gun went sailing just as Tweedledee’s had before.

  Only then did I bring my spin to a stop, to confront both guards, now without their guns.

  But that didn’t mean they were weaponless. Already, Tweedledee had drawn out a nasty, curved knife from somewhere under his jacket. Tweedledum was still shaking his hand as if I’d done some damage, but that didn’t mean I had the luxury to wait and see what he might do. I thought about the collection of medieval weapons Dario had on his wall, but they were too uncertain a goal.

  “No time!” Azrael seemed to agree, and I put them out of my mind. For all I knew, they could have been welded in place, and even if I broke the glass to get at them, I might not have been able to use them.

  Instead, I used my unexpected speed to my advantage, dropping low under Tweedledee’s first sideways slash, and kicking out with my foot. I connected hard with an ugly, powerful strike directly to his kneecap.

  It did the trick. I felt the joint give away under my effort and didn’t need Tweedledee’s screech to tell me I’d hurt him badly. As he started to collapse, I turned my attention to his larger, slower companion, and launched a kick at his nads he would never forget.

  I put everything into it. Didn’t hold back in the least. And with my newfound strength, coordination, and gleeful malice at causing harm, I did my level best to launch him into the stratosphere, with his balls leading the way.

  I swear I lifted all three hundred pounds of Tweedledum’s muscular frame a foot and a half into the air.

  It was the most satisfying kick to the nads I had ever delivered, and Tweedledum’s strangled screech as he reached his apex was the icing on the cake.

  In just a few seconds, both Tweedledee and Tweedledum were on the floor, the fight all but done. Of the two of them, Tweedledum had it the worst. While Tweedledee was grasping his knee and groaning in pain, his curved knife forgotten, Tweedledum was heaving up his breakfast onto the carpet. He had turned a sickly shade of yellow mixed with green, and had brought his knees up to his chest.

  I had been kicked in the balls enough to understand the sickening pain that came with it, and even though I was the author of his current torment, I felt a touch of sympathy for him.

  But not enough to prevent me from stepping over to Tweedledee’s discarded gun, picking it up, and shooting both him and Tweedledum twice in the head. Then I turned back to Dario Gambetti, aiming Tweedledee’s gun at his face.

  With a snarl of righteous anger twisting my lips, I pulled the trigger, shooting repeatedly, nearly emptying the entire magazine.

  I wanted to kill him. Wanted to see his brains splatter all over the suit of armor behind him, and be damned to whatever consequences came from that.

  But something strange had happened. Instead of his face erupting into a mass of flesh and bone, a purple nimbus of power appeared all around Dario Gambetti, like an egg made of energy, big enough for him to sit within. It looked like a force field of some sort, and it blocked my bullets completely.

  “What the actual fuck?” I said out loud.

  It was Azrael who provided the answer. “It is a field of divine protection. See the amulet he is wearing.”

  I stepped closer to Dario, keeping my gun trained on his face, my expression full of anger. Yet I heeded Azrael’s words. “You mean he has demonic help as well?” I asked him silently.

  “Not necessarily. Such items can hold an enchantment, good for one purpose only. Most likely, our friend has been gifted this amulet by someone more powerful. Someone who does have access to a demon.”

  “How does it work? How can I kill him?”

  “It is a divine object. While they have limits, if I had crafted it, it would stop an anti-tank missile.”

  There were a whole bunch of questions wrapped up in Azrael’s words, but I didn’t have time to ask any of them at that moment.

  Instead, I focused on Dario Gambetti. Despite his apparent immunity to my bullets,
he had turned deathly pale. He sat in his bubble of divine protection and stared down the barrel of my gun.

  “I would advise against inviting your other guards in, if you don’t want to lose them as well,” I said, putting as much contempt and hate into my voice as I could. At the same time, given that Azrael was no help at all, I tried to answer my own question.

  How could I kill this son-of-a-fuck?

  I watched as Dario’s expression betrayed a range of emotions. There was fear there, but also spite and a tinge of hatred. I wondered what I would do if Gambetti drew a gun and shot at me. Would he be able to do so from within his divine shield?

  Would I be a sitting duck for his efforts?

  I didn’t know. Perhaps he didn’t know, either. In the end, he chose a different option. His face twisted into an ugly smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and he brought his hands together in a slow, ponderous clap.

  “Very good,” he said. “It seems I have been mistaken. Perhaps you are better suited to the role than I thought. Perhaps the information in your file is outdated.”

  Despite myself, I saw the end of Tweedledee’s gun start to waver. It seemed that Dario wasn’t going to call in more men for me to kill.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I said.

  For a moment, we stayed as we were. Me pointing a gun at Dario, knowing I couldn’t shoot him through his shield, and Dario just sitting there, staring back at me. The only change was that Gambetti’s normal color had returned. He was no longer afraid for his life.

  He felt in control once again.

  “So,” I said. “Now what?”

  Gambetti sat back in his chair, once again the high-status boss dealing with a subordinate. “Now, you put your gun down, and we’ll both pretend like this never happened, or that you have passed my little test. Whatever lie you can live with.”

  The smug bastard wasn’t even trying very hard. We both knew that it hadn’t been a test. Dario had wanted to get rid of me.