Den of Iniquity

by J G Jerome

  Carla nods and whispers, “As certain as anyone can be at the end of one life and the beginning of another. Please proceed, Will.”

  I tell her, “Carla, when I lock Sidney into you, I will scribe a glyph at the attachment point. This glyph will lock Sidney inside you, but also it will mark you as mine forevermore. It is the only way I know to do this.”

  I hear her murmur, “Good.”

  I cock an eyebrow at her response but let it go. “Sidney Aloicious Beauchamps, Carla Sydney Jackson, begin your new life together as a new person,” I say with just a touch of drama.

  I touch the point of connection with a smidgen of entropy and then I push Sidney’s soul into that spot at the base of Carla’s skull. There is just a little hesitancy, and then Sidney slides into Carla. She gasps as Sidney takes up residence. I withdraw the entropy energy and flood the area with growth energy. Then I summon the pure energy and inscribe the glyph that marks Carla Jackson as my property and locks Sidney Beauchamps’ soul inside her.

  I kneel behind her and wrap my arms around her. “It is done, Carla.”

  She slowly begins to sob. Marissa and Rebecca are kneeling in front of her immediately.

  Marissa cups her cheek. “What’s the matter, honey?”

  Rebecca hugs her shoulders, leaning in to comfort the crying woman.

  Carla hiccups and gasps before answering. “I’m overwhelmingly happy at finally being a woman. At the same time I’m very sad over how I hurt you - for missing that wonderful life you pictured for the two of us together. I’m remembering all the times I was callous when you needed me, and I hate that I did that. I’ve hurt a lot of other people and never cared. Now I’m sorry for much of the pain I created.”

  Rebecca asks, “Not all of it?”

  Carla shakes her head. “No. Some of them deserved worse than I dished out. I regret not doing more in a couple of cases. There was just no value to me in hurting them more. It would have helped others avoid pain - sexual harassment and assault cases that I defended the company against. It was my job, but there are two bastards I saved that should be in jail. There are tons of minor hurts that I inflicted on classmates and colleagues over the years. It was like they were no more significant than furniture.”

  I lean forward and kiss the crown of her head. “Carla, some wrongs can be righted. Others you can’t. Really what you can do is ensure that you do better every day.” She nods, and Rebecca kisses my cheek and nods her agreement.

  “Marissa? Rebecca? Will you two stay here and comfort Carla?” I ask.

  I hear an immediate “Of course” from Rebecca with a simultaneous “Yes” from Marissa.

  I get up and give each of my lovers a warm kiss. “Thank you, my precious loves.”

  I look at the remaining zombie in the room. She is sitting on a cushion in a half-lotus with her hands on her knees. Audrey whispers to her and walks up to me. She wraps her arms around my neck to kiss me.

  “Husband, I have had her meditating since you told Carla to start,” Audrey informs me. I look at Josie. She nods to me, and I beckon her over.

  I open one arm, and Josie slides in to collect a kiss. She murmurs into my ear. “That was so hot to watch. It’s supposed to be difficult. You made it look easy.”

  “We can talk through what I did later. Maybe we can discuss it with Babette,” I say.

  Josie giggles, “Don’t tell Bernadette. She’ll be brokenhearted that you want her for her memories.”

  Audrey chimes in. “Right? You’ll have to fuck her multiple times to make it up to her. Maybe all of us together.” She gives me a lascivious grin.

  I ask Josie, “Do you want to open Erica up? I can feed you power if you run low.”

  “Yes, William. I would like that,” Josie answers. Erica’s eyes fly open, but Josie doesn’t notice. “Bernadette said it had never been done. It would be cool if I could be the first to ever do it.”

  I kiss her gently as I watch Erica’s reaction. “Put just a little touch of entropy on it for just a minute. That may be enough to make it open on its own. If not, then we pulse pure energy into it. If you get concerned, just raise your hand. I’ll take over at that point.”

  Erica starts to get up. I scold her, “Sit your ass down, young lady.” She looks at me like I hit her. “Sit down. Go back to your breathing exercises.”

  She pouts, “But, Will! I want you to do it. Audrey says you are hugely powerful. That's what I need, isn’t it?”

  I shake my head and kiss my two lovers. I release Audrey and Josie, and take up a kneeling seiza posture in front of Erica. I tell her, “Think about that for a minute, Erica. If it required all that power, would babies be able to do that? I think not.” I give her a moment to contemplate my words. “Josie is a fully trained and qualified necromancer. We can’t call her a ‘master’ simply because she hasn’t completed a master-level work. This should qualify. On the other hand, I have completed at least three master-level works, but have no training at all. My lovers and friends are educating me on the job. Theoretically, Josie is more likely to do this easily.”

  Rebecca surprises me by kneeling in front of Erica next to me. She says, “Erica, if you are planning to be a part of our family, you need to learn to get along. William generally has a very good reason for doing what he does. Each of us has strengths. Mine is witchery, and I am very good at it. Josie is a strong, talented, multi-faceted crafter. Marissa is our fitness expert and the most fierce warrior of our group - maybe more so than William. Audrey is a talented sorceress and warrior. William’s gift is power, intuition, and a healthy mixture of wisdom, knowledge, and skill. He’s the glue that pulls us all together and makes us stronger as a family. If you become a force that tears us apart, you will never be more in this family than an acquaintance. Do I make myself clear?”

  Erica bows her head, appropriately chastised. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Rebecca says to me, “This one needs a firm hand. We all like it, but she needs it. Don’t slack up on her.” Erica gasps at Rebecca’s comment. Rebecca gives me a wet kiss. It almost seems like she’s excited by the prospect. She looks me in the eye. “Fuck me hard tonight, husband. I’m getting quite wet watching you work.” She gives me another quick smooch. “I’m going to go back to sit with Carla and Marissa. I love you, William.”

  “I love you too, Rebecca.” I look at Erica. “Back to meditation breathing, Erica. The more relaxed you are, the easier this should be for you.”

  I reposition myself behind Erica. Josie joins me while Audrey takes my place in front of her roommate. I place my hands on Erica’s shoulders. She doesn’t flinch, but I find her fairly tense. I rub my palms together to generate warmth and lay them on her shoulders again. Slowly that helps her relax.

  I encourage her, “Deep breaths, Erica. Four count in. Four count out.” I warm my palms again as she does what I ask. After applying them to her shoulders again, I sense they continue to relax. I squeeze her trapezius muscles gently before doing the palm heating again.

  I nod to Josie and open my second sight. Josie holds her hand over the small kernel of the soul seed.

  She says, “Just a little entropy.” I see the dark energy passing from her hand into the little kernel and then stop.

  I tell her, “A little more, beloved.”

  Josie gives about half-again as much to the small kernel, and I nod. We watch the kernel for about a minute, but nothing changes. “Okay, give it about the same amount of pure energy,” I instruct. Josie follows that instruction. It reminds me of a clam just starting to open - a miniscule loosening of the four petals of the seed.

  Josie says, “I think about twice that much again.”

  I say, “You may be right, but I think the less we do the stronger it will be.”

  “Okay,” Josie acknowledges. She gives it a small pulse.

  No change. She pulses it again.

  It opens a little more. She pulses it again, and it cracks open to reveal the tiniest pulse of light. I didn’t know what to exp
ect, but this isn’t it.

  I say, “It’s like the angels drained too much out of it.”

  I hear Rebecca call out, “Angélus Gwenéfron, please attend me.” I prod the small soul seedling with my senses. It feels very weak - not like something that is about to burst forth.

  34

  The counsel of angels

  Gwen shows up in all its glory. The seven foot tall, muscular, androgynous beauty has plenty of clearance under the ten foot ceiling. Gwen looks down on Rebecca as she slides in for a hug.

  Rebecca looks up at the angel’s face. “Gwen, would you take a look at what Will and Josie found?”

  Gwen steps around Erica and kneels behind us with its head poking between our heads and peers down at Erica’s neck. Its huge breasts press into my back.

  “This is a soul-less?” the large angel asks in a rich contralto voice.

  I nod, “Yes. She has a soulseed, so we thought we might open it up to see if her soul would grow. There was apparently no energy in it. That’s roughly the amount of energy we pushed into it. If I saw a plant seed that looked like that, I would say it’s sick.”

  I massage Erica’s shoulders to try to keep her relaxed as we discuss her condition.

  I look at Gwen, and it purses its lips in thought. I can almost hear the gears grinding. Then Gwen murmurs, “Angélus Micháelis, attend me.”

  An even larger angel appears in front of us. This one has four wings. It is just as androgynous as Gwen, but has smaller breasts and bigger pecs. A deep basso voice says, “How may I help, Gwen?”

  Gwen points to Erica’s soulseed. “Would you look at this, please? I think I know what this is, but I’ve never seen anything like it. I need your expertise, Mick.”

  The giant angel walks around and looks over our shoulders. I feel its hot breath on my neck as it bends over. I explain, “We pushed a touch of entropy energy into it to soften it, and then gave it little pulses of pure energy.” I light a little ball of it in my finger tip.

  Mick comments, “That’s probably the only reason it sprouted at all. In case you’re wondering, the entropy didn’t hurt it. It’s a common theorem among our kind that simply weakening the hull of the soulseed would cause it to sprout. In this case, there was nothing inside to sprout. Your pushing energy into the seed caused the remaining nub at the bottom to start to grow again. Essentially, you created a new soul. It is slowly getting stronger, but I don’t think it will last without further intervention.” It looks down at me. “Don’t use life energy. Use the soul energy like you just did.”

  I turn to Josie and she nods. She reaches up and pushes three small pulses into it. It looks like it helps. Mick points at the small ball of energy I’ve been holding in reserve in my left hand. I hand it to Josie, she absorbs it and pulls up a new ball of energy roughly the same size. I can see she wants this to be her accomplishment. I encourage her. “Go ahead, Josie.”

  Josie pushes the energy into Erica’s nascent soul sprout. It absorbs it, dims, and then shines stronger. I tell her, “The same amount again. Apply, observe, then repeat if you think it’s needed. You have this, love.” Jose smiles shyly at me and pulls up another ball of energy. She pushes it into the new soul - another dimming and then obvious physical growth.

  I encourage her, “One more time? Whaddya think, my love?”

  Josie grins and nods at me. She pulls up a ball of the same size and slowly pushes it into the nascent soul. It dims again and then it flares and disappears. Erica gasps. At first, I’m concerned. I reach into Erica and give a gentle tug. She gasps again. Slowly the corona of a soul becomes apparent.

  I hug Erica’s shoulders. “Congratulations, Erica. You have a brand new, never used, soul. Nurture it with care.” She sobs and leans forward to wrap her arms around Audrey.

  Audrey looks over the shoulder of the weeping young woman. “Thank you. Josie, that was awesome. I saw her soul take root and then flare into a corona.”

  Rebecca, Marissa, and Carla all come over to congratulate Erica. They all hug Audrey and Erica first, then Josie, and finally me. Gwen and Mick each get a hug while they are still kneeling; it’s easier for all of us to reach them at that height. I get up and offer Josie a hand. The two angels stand too as I pull her into a loving hug and passionate kiss.

  I tell her, “Josie, I am going to thoroughly reward you for that awesome performance.” She attacks my mouth to give me a hint at what she would like for a reward.

  I look up at the two towering angels. ‘Damn!’ Mick is at least a full foot taller than Gwen.

  “Okay, my friends. You want to clue in the floundering necromancer in the room?” I ask.

  Gwen looks up at Mick. He nods, and Gwen turns to Josie and I. “Her soul was eaten by a devourer. It’s unusual that they leave the seed. There is a greater imp lord that calls devourers to whatever plane he’s infesting at the time. He instructs them to eat them like this, to create more soul-less children. These empty seeds are attracted to fetuses just like a full soul seed, but they won’t sprout. The result is more soul-less children. Soul-less children cause their parents exponentially more chaos in households than normal children. It’s not as if the percentage of soul-less are not increasing exponentially here due to population growth. Regardless, the imp lord feasts on the results. He’s been here.”

  “Hmmm...it wouldn’t be Xranalazny, would it?” I ask.

  Mick says, “Ye-e-essssss! It is a plague upon living peoples everywhere.”

  I explain, “I think it is back on its home plane, but trying to get back here. It has cut some kind of deal with a succubaen royal to get back here. Their agent here notified me, so we have built a team to summon it next weekend.” I draw my finger across my throat.

  “What’s your plan?” Mick asks.

  I look around. “Not even here, Mick. Apparently it has agents everywhere.”

  The huge angel grabs me by the shoulders, and we suddenly blink somewhere else. We’re standing on a high mountaintop. The sun is up, but the sky is still purple. There is a small circle to the side of where we arrived that is reminiscent of the summoning circles Audrey draws. The huge angel sets me in the circle, and then Mick and Gwen join me. Mick mutters a cantrip and there is a whirling of darkness and light around the circle.

  Mick says, “Sorry, human.”

  “William,” I extend a hand.

  He shakes, “Micháelis. Please call me ‘Mick.’”

  Gwen says, “This is essentially like your faraday cage, but for sound and thought waves. Nothing can get out. No one can hear in. What is your plan?”

  I frown for a minute. “We have an elderly man with dementia. I’m going to pull out his soul and hold it to the side. I’ll resurrect him when we’re done. Once we have the guy in the circle, we’ll summon our target into a circle within a circle, bind him to the old man, and wrap him in pure energy - I understand they don’t like that. Then the Hunter on our team will shoot him in the head while I press his soul up into the head. I have three lesser imps to hunt down any split-offs he casts out. I am wary of trying to suck the energy out its soul. I got the impression that can be tricky with greater imps.”

  Mick frowns and says, “It is tricky, but your choice of host is good. Also, sending lesser imps after split-offs is a good tactic. They can eat them, and split-offs won’t survive.”

  Mick sighs heavily. “If it were almost any other greater imp, your plan would work. Wrapping them in soul energy would kill them. The soul energy of greater imps, and the lesser imps, is out of phase with most beings. If you try to absorb it, it will likely destroy your ability to hold energy.” It pauses a moment. “Xranalazny is a special case. It set itself the task to travel to every known world and sow its own special brand of chaos on each. Its minions must harvest a minimum of one million souls on a world before it will consider moving on. Once that is done, he brings over millions of a predatory race. It has done this to and with vampires and shifters. It has attacked elven and succubus worlds. It takes a special del
ight in turning devourers loose on a population.”

  Gwen says. “Xranalazny is able to feed off the fear of its attackers to give it strength in battle. It can sprout its claws and barbed tail once it has completely moved into a host unless it is bound in soul energy. It is able to move its soul anywhere in a host’s body, so the normal destroying the head tactic won’t work. Pushing it into the head before shooting it is a good idea, but it will likely worm some break-aways past your screen. Its consciousness will go in each one. Plus, Xranalzny has been shot in the soul and survived to return home.”

  “In other words, Xranalazny is the trickiest of all known bastards,” I say.

  Mick shakes its head absently, “No. Luke has that honor.”

  I cock an eyebrow. “Luke,” I repeat as Mick is lost in thought. “As in Loki? As in Lucifer?”

  Mick nods as it wargames in its head. “Sadly, it’s not available to help. It is playing the role of evil incarnate in a different dimension. It’s rather a full-time job.”

  “Hm! I thought it was playing that role in my world,” I observe.

  Mick looks at me for a moment. “No. Luke just got things started there. Your race is quite good at creating its own Hell. Luke was done after Dante’s Inferno. You all took over from there. Luke rather holds Dante in awe.”

  Mick continues, “My agents have gotten wind that Xranalazny's next act is to be the coup de gras - something new and even more vile than what it has done to date to wrap up its reign of terror. Then it will make a play to become the Supreme Lord on its planet - what you might call a Planetary Emperor. My sources say that is the first step, before taking over the sector of space that is home for all beings that travel to your world. Apparently your world will become the ‘royal hunting reserve’ for Xranalazny’s minions.”

  “Holy shit!” I murmur.

  Mick responds immediately, “I’ve always thought that was a strange statement, but I agree with the sentiment.”