by Randi Darren
He’d blend into the background of every other kid at the school like it was nothing at all.
And I even bumped his grades up a bit. Instead of a three point oh he’s a three point five grade average now. Just ahead of most of the students, but not the top.
“I’ll say it again just like I did before, your proposal is impressive. It looks like it’ll make everything easier for everyone,” said David.
Sam nodded at that. It would make everything easier to be sure. The filing system before this point had been lackadaisical at best. Once Sam was done, everything would be very easy to work through and find information.
Except for Mitch.
Sitting there, Sam really didn’t have much else to say to the conversation.
Right now, he was contemplating how to handle the fact that the principal was likely dead and had been replaced.
“Well, I’m going to get back to my work then,” David said. “Oh, by the way, Karen wanted to invite you over to dinner tomorrow night. Bring your wife. My cousin will be coming over as well.”
Okay. That’s a problem then.
They want to get rid of me as well or break into my thoughts.
David wouldn’t have invited me over. He’s about as social as a hermit crab.
Lashing the Doppel with his eyes, Sam waited for several seconds, pushing hard with his mental control.
Slowly, David’s eyes became glossy and unfocused.
Not as easy as some, not as difficult as others. Doppels are an interesting breed.
“You’re not David,” Sam said, pushing down hard on David. There was no point in beating around the bush. He’d have to make sure to wipe his memories of this conversation anyways.
“Not originally,” said the Doppelganger. “But I am now.”
“Explain,” Sam commanded.
“This is a long-term assignment,” David mumbled. “I’m going to be David for the next thirty years.”
“Right. And who were you before this?” Sam asked.
“Jamie Daniels,” David said.
“Jamie?” parroted Sam.
“Jamie Daniels,” David repeated.
“And what was your job?”
“Bodyguard and personal assistant.”
“Uh huh. Personal assistant for who? What was your primary duty?”
“I… don’t remember,” David said, his face turning pale.
Someone’s been mucking around with his head.
“I acted as a bodyguard as my primary duty.”
“Oh,” Sam said realizing that most of the information he wanted was probably gone. “And now you’ll be David for thirty years. That’s quite a long term position. Why?”
“Yes, I’m David. I’m far more comfortable in this type of role than my co-workers. So I was selected for the job,” David murmured.
“I mean, why such a long term position?” Sam clarified.
“I don’t know,” David said immediately and shook his head.
Cleaned again.
“And what are you looking for?” Sam asked.
“Student information. I’m to turn it all over,” David said.
“And who’s that?”
“I don’t know. I’m supposed to leave it at a dead drop,” David explained.
“And where’s that?”
“I don’t know. I’ll be given that information later, after it’s confirmed that I’m not exposed,” mumbled David.
Sighing, Sam put his elbow on his desk and then put his chin in his hand.
“Any other goals while you’re here? Anything else you’re supposed to do?” Sam asked.
“If possible, I’m to bring you in to have you interrogated,” David said confirming Sam’s suspicion.
“And how would you interrogate me?” Sam queried. He was curious how it’d be done. Certain methods would leave him as a corpse and others would be a lot like his own, where he’d never know it happened.
“Planar magic,” David said.
“What kind?”
“Angelic.”
Angelic?
Angelic.
Great.
Real great. Thanks, Miles. Thanks a lot.
You stuck me in the middle of the conflict Eugenia is kicking off, didn’t you?
That means Mitch is far more than meets the eye and this is going to get a lot worse.
“You know the name of the Angel?” Sam asked.
“There’s six of them, I don’t know their names.”
Six!? Fuck!
That’s more than I’d ever care to run across in a millennia, let alone at once.
“Okay. Do you know the names of those you’re working for otherwise? Bosses at the top?”
“No, routine wipe to keep everyone safe,” David said. “Including me.”
Of course.
“Right. Anything else?” Sam asked. He wanted to make sure he knew the extent of the directives given to David.
“If possible, convert the rest of the faculty into replacements,” David said.
“Mmm. Leave the janitorial staff alone as well as Miss Lee, one of the PE teachers,” Sam commanded.
“Leave the janitorial staff alone as well as Miss Lee,” replied David in a lifeless tone.
“Yes. And this conversation never happened,” Sam said with a forceful burst of Essence. Carving out David’s memories with the command and sorcery, Sam leaned back in his chair again, breaking the glamour. “I’ll have to decline on the invitation, but thanks David! The wife isn’t feeling so well lately and we’re thinking maybe she’s having another episode. Ya know?”
“Wha…? I… that… oh. Oh! Yes. Yes, got it,” David said, coming back to himself. “Sorry to hear that. Give her my sympathies won’t you?”
“Of course,” Sam said, smiling at David. “Speaking of, I’ll probably head home in a minute to check on her. She didn’t pick up the phone when I called her a bit ago and I’m a little nervous.”
“Sure, not a problem. Need me to take care of anything?” David asked, opening the door to Sam’s office.
“Nope. Everything’s taken care of,” declined Sam.
***
No sooner than he’d shut the driver’s side door than the door to the house opened.
“Welcome home, Husband,” Decima said from the doorway.
Dressed in a very lovely green dress, she looked like a picturesque housewife today.
Ever since their first time, she’d practically dominated his evenings. Hillary had almost come to blows with Decima when she tried to take every single night with Sam as her own.
It’d been one of the few times he’d actively had to step in and set boundaries down for both of them.
Lady Decimation, the Witch-hunting, Vampire-slaying terror that she’d been, was also now a fan of sex, romance, and intimacy.
Walking up to Decima, Sam was immediately wrapped up in a fierce hug, then she kissed him in a hungry way that he’d come to expect from her.
Pulling him into the house, Decima slammed the door shut and tugged Sam onward.
Likely straight to the bedroom.
“Mm, Deccy, sorry, I can’t,” Sam said using the nickname she’d requested, breaking the kiss and putting his hands to Decima’s shoulders.
Looking up at him with clear desire and confusion, Decima waited for an explanation.
“The Principal is dead,” Sam said. “Replaced by a Doppel. Things are changing at the school fast. I need to get in touch with Irma and Abigail.”
Decima shook her head at that.
“We can’t break silence,” Decima said. “It’s why we haven’t opened any portals or done anything at a planar level lately.
“And we can’t call them, we don’t know if anyone is listening.”
“I know, I’m the one who put that protocol into place, remember? But I have to. I need to make contact with them,” Sam said. He didn’t disagree with Decima, but he had to get in touch with his people.
“Okay,” Decima said and then looked t
o one side, deep in thought.
Oh? You got something, my fair lady Decima?
“Do it in the basement. Open a small portal you can talk through but not walk through. That’ll limit the planar energy. I wasn’t able to pick up on that sort of thing in my youth,” she said, looking up to Sam again. “Just let me move all my purity seals into the basement first. That’ll help distort your trail.”
Sam raised his eyebrows at that.
“A vicar from the Eastern Church was a practitioner of the dark arts,” Decima said, waving away his curiosity with a hand. “There were so many purity seals nearby that it actually muffled his workings.”
Huh.
That’s interesting.
Decima left quickly, likely getting her seals.
Not waiting around, Sam went down into the basement and set up all the prep work he needed to make a very small portal to Irma’s office.
All throughout this process Decima came and went, bringing in cardboard boxes.
A controlled, tight, planar corridor that would barely allow speech through it, let alone anything else.
Dropping another massive cardboard box to one side Decima let out a short breath.
“That’s the last one. Sam… how strong am I?” Decima asked, putting her hands on her hips. It was an odd pose given her lovely dress and styled hair.
“You could probably go toe to toe with Tiffany in a fist fight in her Hybrid and Were forms,” Sam said. “You’re a Human, just… with an asterisk on it. Even have a working reproductive system.”
Decima grunted at that.
“Come get me when you’re done. We’ll make love and talk more about… me. Going back to work,” she said and left the basement.
Hm.
She’s growing.
Good.
Looking at his symbol work, Sam pointed a finger toward it.
Instantly, it all came to life and a tiny portal about the size of a silver-dollar opened up.
“Irma?” Sam asked as he faced it.
There was a muffled response that Sam didn’t quite hear.
“Over here,” Sam said. “By the filing cabinet.”
Once more a response he didn’t hear.
Let’s just wait a second. See if she—
“Oh, I see,” Irma said, much more clearly now. “What happened?”
“Huh?” Sam asked.
“You wouldn’t risk this, or in this way, unless something happened. What’s up, Sammy?”
I love that mind of hers.
“Principal is dead. Replaced by a Doppel,” Sam said. “Six angels are backing them up. Things just got very serious here. You need to tell Miles.”
“Got it,” Irma murmured. “Are you okay? Will you three be alright?”
“Yeah, just going to get dangerous. There’s a few Angelics that could actually kill me outright so I’ll be playing this safe.”
“Good. Too early to make me a widow, you know,” Irma said.
“That’s all I got,” Sam said. “But I needed to get that info to Miles. He needs to know. What’s going on with you?”
“Oh, not much. Just taking more contracts. Alexis is doing a wonderful job in your absence. Though she’s got a number of contracts lined up for you to seal carnally. On top of that, quite a few ‘IOU’ visits you’ll need to collect on,” Irma explained.
“Ah, yeah, I imagine those’ll pile up for a bit. That’s fine though. I don’t sleep much and can just go from contract to contract,” Sam said, already looking forward to such a thing.
“Jes and Inese are still working on getting us prepared for that Facility job,” Irma said. “They’re being forced to move very slowly. After our attacks, I get the impression they’re on the defensive in an extreme way.”
Sam really didn’t like leaving that facility up and running, the house of horrors that it was, but they didn’t have the strength to attack it directly.
“No problems with it?” Sam asked.
“Nope. But ah… Jes is getting very depressed,” Irma said. “I mean, she’s not in danger or anything. That feed tap you set her up with to your personal plane is keeping her alive and well fed. She just…”
“Misses me,” Sam finished. He knew very well that Jes was actually in love with him.
He felt the same for her, oddly enough.
“Yeah. She does. I do, too,” Irma murmured. “So does Abby. Carissa, Stacia, Irene… everyone. Everyone misses you. They wanted me to tell you that when the scheduled communication came around. Though Irene, Stacia, and Carissa are already prepping for their drive for the meet-up. They’re clearly looking forward to it.”
They’d established communications and regular meet-ups to make sure everything was on the up and up, as well as a time for any resources that were needed to be transferred over.
“I miss and love you, Branded!” shouted a voice from the side that was very clearly Aster.
“Ah… Aster, too,” Irma finished, a smile obvious in her voice.
“I miss and love all of you as well,” Sam said. When he’d taken the contract from Miles, he hadn’t considered how difficult it would be to be away from everyone.
“Okay, move over,” Aster said. “Make this portal bigger, Branded, because your cock won’t fit through this. Then drop it down to your hip height on both sides.
“Because we’re going to have ourselves a good ol’ fashioned glory hole right here and now. Bring that chair over here Irma so I can hold onto it and brace myself. You know he gets rough sometimes.”
“What…? I… oh. Yes. I understand,” Irma said.
There was the sound of a chair being drug over.
“Soon as I’m done with him, you get to go next. My idea, I’m first,” Aster said. “Go let everyone else know that if they want a go with the glory portal they need to get over here quick-like.”
Laughing to himself, Sam leaned down a bit and peeked through the portal.
On the other side, Aster was quickly pulling her dress up. As soon as she’d managed that, she grabbed her panties and flicked them down to her ankles.
“Hell, yeah,” Aster said and continued on in a sing-song voice. “Gonna get laid. Laaaaaaaid. Get some Incubus for me.”
Right.
Why not.
Glory hole it is.
“Oh, and Sam?” Aster said turning around and seeming to measure her rear end to the portal. “Don’t ever close this portal. Just leave it open. No sense in wasting an opportunity. Even if we can’t ever make it that much bigger.
“It’s a bit high right now though… drop it down around three feet for me on this side? We can use the desk and the chair to change our height to fit it. Can’t make it too low or Wren won’t get any.”
Struck by a sudden feeling, an emotion he wasn’t used to, Sam had to speak it aloud.
“I love you, Aster. You’re amusing, endearing, and heart-warming in a kinky way, all at the same time,” Sam said.
Freezing up, Aster’s head slowly turned and she looked at the portal.
Her face was bright red, her rear end pointed at him, her eyes slightly fearful.
Then she grinned, the fear fading away.
Reaching back, she swatted her own rear end with a hard crack that left a handprint.
“Don’t I know it? I love you, too, Branded. Now get yourself ready lover boy, cause I really do need to get laid,” she said. “Oh, and uh… I’m packing a few D-cells today. Sorry, not sorry. Was hungry for a snack and was tired of the house current. You’ve got a fifty-fifty shot to find the right hole. Otherwise you’ll have to pull out and try again. Good luck.”
Eighteen - Not a Fridge -
Closing the filing cabinet, Sam leaned his head back and groaned.
“Oh my twisting nethers, I never want to do anything like this again,” he muttered, as he reached up with a hand to rub at his neck.
He hadn’t planned on finishing the filing any time soon, but with the new “principal” asking about it, he really didn’t have any
choice but to get it done. Otherwise, it’d look odd.
And if it looked odd, he was far more likely to draw attention. For someone to look into him.
When that happened, it was almost a guarantee that they’d find Mitch at the same time.
Opening his eyes, Sam let them fall back to the cabinet and then he looked at all the files spread out around him.
“Though… though it really will be a good system once I’m done,” Sam mumbled, still rubbing at his neck. “Maybe I could—”
There was a crash nearby that jolted him out of his thoughts.
Moving to the door, Sam jerked it open and marched into the hall.
Opening himself up to the flow of magic and drawing on a thin thread of Essence, Sam actively scanned his surroundings.
There.
Not far away, Sam could feel two people locked in some type of struggle. It certainly wasn’t sex either. He knew what sex felt like in every possible way with almost every type of being.
Moving quickly, he marched down the hallway of the administration building.
Locker room? Feels like it.
Moving straight to the ladies’ locker room—a small space set aside for teachers to change and leave belongings they didn’t want in the classroom—Sam pushed the door open and entered without a care.
He could hear the rustle and bump of two people struggling with each other, both of them talking at the same time.
But he couldn’t see them yet behind the row of lockers in front of him.
Moving past it, Sam turned the corner and found a very naked Lee wrestling with another very naked Lee.
He instantly knew the one on the ground was the real Lee and the one choking her out was a Doppelganger.
Both Lee’s noticed Sam standing there and went still and quiet.
Then the one on the ground began pointing at the Doppel even as the Doppel began talking.
“Vice-principal Hallsy! This… this… clone? Woman? She attacked me!” said the fake Lee. “What do we do?”
Lee knows I’m not normal and that I know what she is. The Doppel doesn’t.
Doing his best impersonation of a landed fish, Sam stood there with his mouth open. He needed to act the part of a Human confronted with a situation beyond their comprehension.
Especially if he wanted to capture the Doppel and somehow make this situation work out.