by Randi Darren
Alternatively, he could try to track down Hillary, have her grab Mitch, and then get the heck out of dodge through a portal.
Deciding on both, Sam left the room and started heading towards his car. All the while, he was on the lookout for Hillary.
There were a few students wandering the campus but, by and large, it was empty. Everyone should be in classes or leaving.
Unfortunately, he didn’t spot Hillary. A strange and ugly burning sensation that started as an ember was quickly growing into a full on bonfire in Sam’s gut.
I underestimated them a bit. I just thought they were probing.
Doppel Lee was so full of Life Essence, there’s really only one way she could have gotten it.
Exiting the campus and into the parking lot, Sam felt his breath catch.
Sitting in cars all along the street and in the few available parking spaces were parents. Waiting for their kids to get out and take them home.
Not everyone was human though.
There were a number of Planar and Angelic beings spread out amongst them.
Sam knew for a fact that they didn’t belong here.
Mostly because they didn’t tend to have children.
Ever.
The number of Nephilim in the world could practically be counted on two hands even though the number of Angelics was in the low thousands.
Reproduction wasn’t something they did, or could even typically do. It took strange one-off situations, magical artifacts, or an incredible amount of luck for an Angelic to catch a pregnancy, or impregnate someone.
There were no Nephilim in Sam’s school.
This is more than anything I ever thought it was. Damn.
I’m behind on this one. I got careless.
Very, very careless.
Getting into his car while looking as inconspicuous as possible, Sam could only lament his mistakes at this point. If regret had a name, it was his.
Settling into his seat Sam looked over to the car parked next to him.
It was a Lich.
A woman in her early twenties with dark hair and dark blue eyes.
Noticing his gaze, the woman turned toward him and gave him a flirty smile. Following that she gave him a little finger wave with one hand.
Well.
That just makes everything worse.
A Lich.
Here.
Waving back at the woman and trying to look like a man who didn’t know how to deal with someone flirting with him, he started his car, put it in reverse and pulled out of the parking lot.
That’s the last thing we need. A Lich.
Working with… working with Angelics.
What the hell does that even mean?
“Hey.”
The voice came from the back seat.
“Don’t turn around.”
Glancing into the rearview mirror Sam found a woman he didn’t know laying down in the back of his car. He couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary through the mirror.
But that didn’t mean much. It was difficult to see through magic while looking through a mirror.
“Hillary?” Sam asked, hopeful.
“Yep,” replied the woman. “I’ve got Mitch in the car, too. He’s unconscious but back here. Down where your feet normally go.”
Sam nodded and then laughed softly, relieved.
He’d been feeling nervous for Hillary. Keenly so.
If she died too far away from him, he wouldn’t be able to retrieve her body and get her back to rights. Let alone put her soul back in place.
“Something happen to you?” Sam asked, his nerves melting away rapidly.
All he had to do now was get home and they could just leave.
Doubly so, since he’d taken care of all the evidence of their existing at the school. There would be nothing anyone would be able to find to determine their address from.
“A lot of people who didn’t belong wandering through the school,” Hillary murmured. “A lot of fake people, too. People that were acting off enough that I’d swear they were replaced with Doppels.”
“Probably were,” Sam agreed. “Lee’s dead. Got replaced by a Doppel. Doppel killed herself after I caught her.
“There was also a Lich in the parking lot along with a number of Angelics.”
“Wh-what? A Lich? No way! I thought they were super rare and stuff,” Hillary said.
Glancing into the rearview mirror Sam found himself looking at the “young human” version of Hillary now, having apparently shifted back into a more comfortable form.
“They’re indeed ‘super rare’ as you say. They tend to show up when there’s going to be a massacre. Or if they’re hired,” Sam added. “But the hiring part is pretty damn rare. Hiring a Lich is like asking them to nuke your organization when they’re done with your task. If only to protect their own interests.”
“What’s the plan then?” Hillary asked, sitting upright in the chair. Then she seemed to think better of that and crawled into the front seat even as Sam kept driving.
“Get the hell out of here,” Sam explained intelligently. “Rip the glory portal open wide and step on through. Be done with all of this. By the way, how’d you put Mitch out?”
“At first? Choke hold,” Hillary said, pulling the seat belt across her front and buckling it in. “Then I just hit him with the injection Decima gave me.”
“She gave you a what?” Sam asked, glancing over to his passenger.
“Sedatives. She got them from Wren before we left, I think. Or Tiffany. Dunno,” Hillary said with a shrug of her shoulders.
“Well… I’ll have to thank her. She prepared better than I did, it seems,” Sam muttered.
“She always does. I mean… it’s Decima,” Hillary countered. “What do we do about the golems?”
“Activate them and bring them along,” Sam said. “Might need them to settle Mitch elsewhere.”
“Yeah. Yeah, probably that,” Hillary said. “Poor kid. He’s a nice guy.”
Sam grunted at that, pulling them around toward a main street that’d get them home quickly. There was likely less traffic right now than when he normally drove home.
“No idea why Miles wants him safe,” grumbled Sam. “But I swear I’m going to make him pay me extra for this.”
“By the way, what exactly is he paying for this?” Hillary asked. “You said this could have been for like six months or something like that.”
“Uh,” started Sam, unsure how to admit they weren’t actually getting paid. “Any kids I have, the Curator will be a godfather to. Even kids I have with others besides Irma.”
Glancing to his side, he saw Hillary shake her head in confusion.
Then she sat up straighter.
“Oh. Got it. Yeah. Okay,” Hillary said, nodding her head. “I agree then. If we have kids, he’ll be their godfather. That’s fine.”
“You want kids?” Sam asked somewhat incredulously. Hillary had never even mentioned the idea of kids. The idea of her ever having kids seemed impossible to Sam.
Mostly because of all the kinky fun they had together.
“I mean, eventually. Not anytime soon,” Hillary said. “I’m barely twenty, ya know? But I figure by the time I hit twenty-five I’ll want to start trying.”
Letting the silence take over, Sam refused to respond to that.
He still didn’t actually want to have kids.
At all.
***
“—then I drove off with Hillary and Mitch,” Sam finished explaining to Decima as he carried Mitch into the house.
“That is the worst news I’ve heard in a very long time,” Decima declared. “A lich.”
“Like, I know of them, but not a lot about them,” Hillary said. “What do I need to know since it feels like we might fight this one?”
“They’re… well, if you ever hear of a zombie apocalypse, or a zombie attack that eats a city, it’s a Lich. Bubonic plague? Lich,” said Sam. “Spanish flu in World War One? Lich.”
“Okay, so, what do we do? If you couldn’t handle them, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t,” Hillary complained.
Sam walked into the house and started straight down into the basement.
“We leave, that’s what we do. Remember? Not playing around with this,” Sam said. “Go get the golems real quick and we’ll get to gone.”
“Going!” Hillary said, her steps receding.
Clicking her tongue, Decima followed Sam down the stairs.
“I was enjoying being a homemaker,” Decima murmured. “I was even learning how to properly cook dinner.”
“Yeah, won’t lie, your food is actually pretty good,” Sam said. He hadn’t expected her to have a decent hand at cooking.
“Had to learn on the trails with whatever I had on hand,” Decima said as they entered the basement proper and went toward the large room the glory portal was in. “The hard part was figuring out how to make my cooking work with modern herbs and applia—”
Sam and Decima stood side by side, staring at the glory portal.
Or where it should be at least.
It was gone.
There was simply nothing there where it should have been.
“Here,” Sam said, turning to Decima and passing Mitch off to her.
Moving quickly to the spot the portal should be, Sam felt around for it. There was a distinct impression that a portal had been here.
But only because he knew what to look for and because it was his own Essence.
Reaching out for his personal plane, Sam figured he’d just pull it open again. Except he couldn’t reach it.
A wall sat between him and his personal plane. One that was fashioned out of the will of what felt like hundreds of Angelics.
“I… think we’re going to have a problem,” Sam remarked. “The way to the planes are shut. Closed by the Angelics. Probably the same ones looking for Mitch. We have to get out of Miami by normal means.”
“Sam?” Hillary called from the top of the stairs.
“Yeah?” he replied, looking at Decima.
“The Golems. They’re dead. It’s like… it’s like they just ran out of energy,” Hillary said, her footsteps moving down the stairs quickly.
“I’d say that’s exactly what happened,” Decima growled, adjusting her grip on Mitch and casually moving him up over her shoulder. “Because the planes are shut. Which means the energy feed they were being given was likely cut away as well.”
Shit.
I hope Jes is alright. I hope it didn’t lock her out of my plane.
“What? The planes are shut? What d’ya mean?” Hillary asked, coming into the room. “Oh, fuck me.”
“As much as I’m sure Sam would like to do that, we must pack, and leave,” Decima commanded. “As soon as possible.”
“Shit, can we really just leave though? Doesn’t our meet-up happen the day after tomorrow?” Hillary asked.
Damn, I forgot about that.
Irene, Stacia, and Carissa are already en route.
“Yes, and we’ll meet them at their hotel tomorrow night where they stop,” Decima said. “Now go do what I said and get ready. You pack everything we need for a road trip, Hillary. Sam, you get everything we need that is small enough to go with us and not take up too much room. Make sure you get our IDs and the like.
“I’ll start smashing gear and equipment. We can’t leave anything behind. Nothing that could tie it to us. I’m glad I prepped the house as a firetrap. It’ll make it much easier to ensure we don’t have anyone coming after us. I’ll go put Mitch in the car. He’ll be out for several more hours.”
Running a hand through his hair, Sam stood there as Decima and Hillary left the basement.
He had a problem that he didn’t want to bring up, but that he knew he’d have to at some point.
His connection to his plane was being blocked, which meant he couldn’t pull on his surplus of Essence.
Right now, he was feeding passively on the Prime itself, but that wouldn’t last. Nor would his current store of Emotional Essence.
There would need to be a conversation very soon about getting him fed today or tomorrow. Because he couldn’t afford to starve right now.
With his plane blocked off, he couldn’t draw on his stored Essence.
That meant for the first time in a very long time, Sam was particularly vulnerable right now.
Mortal, even.
If he died without being able to return to his plane, that would be the end of the Torment of Lust.
Starting to feel like I got swindled.
Swindled and sold something which was supposed to be easy and is incredibly difficult instead.
Damn it all, Miles.
Twenty - Back Seat -
“Uncle Sam?” Mitch asked from the backseat.
“Yeah?” Sam replied, glancing into the rearview mirror as they drove along the road. Evening was falling fast and they were burning up the miles.
Getting far and fast from the last known location of a Lich.
“They’re really dead?” asked Mitch for the second time on the trip. Unfortunately, it was also only about the third time he’d spoken.
The boy was clearly in a state of shock or denial.
Possibly both.
“Yes, Mitch. They’re dead,” Sam murmured.
Flexing his hands, he wasn’t really sure how to deal with Mitch. He seemed like a pretty friendly but subdued kid. Like any number of mortals he’d met.
There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about him either.
“Who killed them?” pushed Mitch.
“I really don’t know. I honestly wish I could tell you more, but I really don’t know a lot of the details,” Sam admitted, deciding to lean towards the lie right now. “Your parents called me up and asked me to come out. They thought something weird was going on, but they didn’t know what. So I came.”
“You’re… not really a vice-principal?” Mitch asked.
“Not really. I’m more of a mercenary. Your parents asked me and Aunt Decima to come watch over you while you were at school,” Sam said.
Glancing to the person sitting next to Mitch, he got a small nod of her head. Decima apparently approved of this story.
Hillary was next to Sam in the passenger seat, dozing against the window. She’d been the one who had driven them out of the city during the middle of the night.
She was still paying off those hours spent behind the wheel right now. Trying to sleep the entire time after Sam and Decima had taken over driving.
“And… Hillary?” Mitch asked.
“Learning how to be a mercenary,” Sam lied expertly. “She’s also older than you think.”
Mitch nodded at that and then looked out the window, falling silent once again.
Sam thought momentarily about turning on the radio but the last time he’d tried all he’d gotten was static.
They were on the far outskirts of civilization right now, passing through small and medium-sized cities and towns as they flew across the state.
“I think that’s it,” Decima murmured, lifting an arm and pointing toward a sign distantly on the horizon.
“Really? Huh. Made a lot better time than I thought,” Sam said, turning his eyes toward the glowing sign far down the road.
“You’ve been speeding,” Hillary mumbled, shifting around in her seat. “Almost the entire time. You’re lucky we haven’t seen any cops.”
Looking at the speedometer, Sam found that Hillary was right. He really was speeding.
Considerably so.
He couldn’t express how mildly unnerved he was at his depleted Essence reserves, however. Nor could he really add to them, not with Mitch present.
As soon as they got to the motel, he could indulge himself in a feast of f
lesh and top his tank off, so to speak.
At least enough so that he didn’t feel like a wild animal. Like he could actually resist ravaging Hillary in the passenger seat repeatedly and pulling on all the reserves she held inside of her.
Once he did that, though, Hillary would be useless for a day or two. Taking it from her would more or less put her down for a while.
And right now, they couldn’t exactly afford her not being active.
Sam and Decima needed her and her abilities as a Doppelganger.
Taking a lot more time than he wanted, Sam eventually pulled into the parking lot of the motel. It had exactly the look you’d expect from such a thing and spanned two floors.
“Yeah, this is it,” Decima said, her eyes glued to the address of the entrance as they drove past it.
“And you just happened to know they’d be here,” Sam murmured, swinging the car around into a parking space.
“I insisted, actually. I like to know everything that’s going on with an operation. Just in case something happens,” Decima grumbled.
“Just like it did,” Mitch added.
“Exactly,” Decima said with a sharp nod of her head and a smile for the child. “It’s only paranoia if it’s unreasonable. Otherwise, it’s caution.”
Sam couldn’t help but smirk at that.
Decima was definitely paranoid.
In this case though, she was actually right to have planned the way she had.
“Well Miss Paranoid, how are we going to find them, then?” Sam asked, putting the car in park.
Scoffing at that, Decima reached into the pack at her feet.
“Honestly, Husband, if I’m not able to find a Witch of Irene’s power within a hundred yards of where I stood… well—” Decima laughed at that and pulled her hand back out with something in it. “I just wouldn’t be able to pride myself on my history.”
Opening her hand, Sam saw she had an odd looking purity seal in it.
Two purity seals.
One laid within the other. The one on top seemed to be moving slowly, almost like a compass.
“You’re a Witch-Hunter? Witches are real?” Mitch asked, his voice sounding even more stressed now.
“That I am,” Decima said, watching the purity seals. “And Irene, one of your uncle’s girlfriends, is a very powerfully strong Witch.