None More Black

by Williams, Brett

  “Thank you, Daddy.” She pressed lips to Brant's cheek and he wondered if she'd leave a mark with the black lipstick she wore. Recently, due to his occult activities, she'd adjusted her attire, hell, her entire look, to accommodate his newfound interest. He knew that was her way of competing for his attention, his affection.

  “Like my hair?” she asked.

  “I was just about to comment on your hair,” he said, which wasn't true. He had noticed the change and did like how the platinum blonde coloring had been renewed, along with the added shock of jet black instead of her regular vibrant colors. She combed through her tresses with black-painted fingernails in response. He added: “I love your new hair.”

  Katie smiled, bounced on her heels, said, “I knew you'd like it.”

  “I do. Very much. You're beautiful.”

  And he meant it. It had been a rough month, with much studying and rites and spell-casting. And then the week-long trip to Santa Fe and the fiasco in Des Moines.

  Shit, Brant thought, I need a break.

  But not a break in the conventional sense. Just a few days to relax. A chance to lie in bed and listen to the screams of the women in the basement and Jenna next door in her mirrored room, and a chance to be pampered by his loving daughter.

  But a few things needed to be addressed.

  “Be a dear and pour me a drink,” he said as he sat down on the made bed and propped a pillow behind his back.

  “Jack on the rocks?”

  “Sounds great, sweetie.”

  She poured the drink and brought it to him. “You're so tense,” she said.

  He sipped the drink before setting the glass on the nightstand. “I am,” he agreed. “Suck my cock while I think.”

  She gladly went to work undoing the fly of his shorts and removing his penis. It was in her mouth when he mused, “We've got to do something about the housekeeping.”

  Katie stroked as she said, “I can do it, if you like.”

  “No way. You have enough things to do around here.”

  “Really, Daddy, I don't mind.”

  Brant urged her mouth down to his stiffening cock. “I won't hear of it,” he said. “Jenna should be doing it but she's nearly worthless, except for her cries that put me to sleep at night.”

  Brant thought silently for a moment before musing aloud: “Perhaps Fat Witch or Skinny Witch might be interested. Hell, maybe Sassy, although I'd prefer she wasn't around as often.” All three had part-time jobs, didn't they? They'd each hinted about, now and again, an opportunity to earn extra money much like Brainy and Goth Witch did, by helping in the library. Perhaps if he somehow combined the research with a few hours of housekeeping shared between two or three of them each day, he could work something out.

  He expressed the idea in short to Katie, that if she approached them with the opportunity in an off-hand way, they might see it truly as an opportunity and not a slap in the face of being offered menial jobs. Katie agreed to approach them during their next visit and Brant, pleased with himself, turned his attention back to the pleasure he was receiving...

  He loved Katie. He truly did. Young, beautiful, attentive, useful, resourceful, and dedicated. Personality-wise, they clicked. They shared hobbies, enjoyed much of the same music, the same restaurants, and where they didn't exactly click, Katie proved to be very supportive. Brant couldn't see another woman fulfilling him in the same way. Evelyn had come close, but not this close.

  Yes, he loved Katie and felt a rare stab of guilt at having engaged in relations with the coven, even if it didn't mean anything. Simply spell-casting and a little recreational fun. The coven knew that. So did Brainy, although Brant assumed she might be growing attached to him.

  A tough nut to crack, Brant knew this of himself, but once he allowed someone worthy to crack his shell, they saw another, much softer side.

  Unless they fucked up, and then he'd shut them out.

  Like he had with Evelyn.

  A rare pang of guilt struck him in that regard also. While married they had discussed at length her getting the BMW when he bought a new car. If he knew her (and he did), she'd yet to trade off her clunker for a newer vehicle. No, she'd wait until the divorce had been settled, which, due to a comment Brant had made to Elliot long ago, whatever lawyer Elliot had sicced on Evelyn had prolonged the proceedings.

  It wouldn't hurt him to give up the car. And besides, with everything Katie did for him, she deserved something better. Something newer, perhaps something sporty.

  That being decided, he sighed with relief and truly enjoyed the oral pleasure Katie was bestowing upon him. The way she accepted a substantial portion of his massive length, the way her hair tickled his thighs and scrotum as she worked up and down on it, the way she looked at him and tried to smile with her mouth full, until he simply couldn't last any longer.

  “Mm...” Katie licked her lips. “Yummy in the tummy. Protein for baby.” She giggled.

  “That was wonderful, baby. Get your book of Daddy's Rules. I have a few I'd like to add.”

  “Okay,” Katie exclaimed excitedly. She skipped across the room and retrieved the journal from the dresser. She returned to bed, curled up beside Brant with the book and its pen and opened it to the list of rules. The journal had been decked-out in glitter and decoupage.

  “What's my new rule?”

  “Rules plural.”

  “Ooh...” Katie shivered with excitement.

  First new rule:

  No eating in the car

  “No eating in the car,” Katie repeated as she carefully inscribed the new rule in a looping, girlie font.

  No lending the car

  “No lending the car.”

  No drinking in the car

  No driving after having been drinking in the car

  No leaving the car parked in the driveway

  “...No leaving the car parked in the driveway,” Katie mumbled as she finished jotting down the rule and filling that page of the journal. “Daddy, question: I understand why you might not want me to loan the car to Jenna or someone. But why do you care if I eat or drink in it or park in the driveway?”

  “See, sweetie,” Brant tucked a loose strand of Katie's hair behind an ear, “these rules don't apply to the car you've been driving. They apply to the new car you'll soon be—”

  “Oh Daddy, oh Daddy. I can't believe it. Really? A new car?”

  She hugged him, kissed him, kissed him again.

  “What kind of car?” she asked.

  “I don't know. We'll decide that later. Maybe after lunch.”

  “Oh, Daddy!”

  Again with the hugs and kisses.

  33

  A magnifying glass hovered inches from the motherboard. The motherboard, along with others exactly like it, had arrived by FedEx Next Day delivery minutes before. He'd been tracking the shipment's progress on-line and was waiting eagerly when the delivery van pulled into the driveway. But now, sitting at his desk in the sun room, Brant Wilson closely inspected the first of the boards manufactured on request by Intel.

  At first glance the motherboard appeared to be any other mass produced commodity hardware component. But electronic components often featured extra, non-functional “graffiti” circuitry, such as a tiny or sometimes microscopic caricature placed on the board for fun. Or perhaps a designer's initials etched into the board. All of this, of course, soldered right to the board, same as the electrical pathways that brought the component to life. Sort of an Easter Egg for bragging rights, something fun that only a select few people, at least those not looking, knew was there.

  Brant had been privy to many such personal marks left behind on computer components during his tenure at Silicon Solutions. This time, however, the etchings served a purpose. Brant checked that all six, various arcane symbols of occult origin, were accounted for. But the one that most interested him was the inverted pentagram near the communications controller. This one was instantly noticeable to the naked eye. It needed to be, considering what
Brant planned to do with it.

  Brainy had drawn extra vials of her virgin blood before Brant gladly took her virginity in the rite they performed with the coven all those months ago. The blood had been kept in a dorm-size refrigerator in the basement, along with the various herbs, oil, and minutiae their spell-casting called for. One small vial of the bodily fluid awaited him on the desk, as did a fine-point paint brush the kind that a hobbyist might use for small figurines or fine details of a model airplane.

  Brant began reciting Latin which would, in association with the custom software code Derek Smith had compiled for him, interface with the other side. In other words, open an information superhighway into the dark chasm of the supernatural that Kasas had offered as a mere rickety one-lane bridge. What Brant Wilson aspired to do was create, in co-located clustered power and availability, amounted to the Golden Gate Bridge to the occult. He recited softly:

  “Aperi, Domine, Kasas sponsor, porta... Uiam de notitia inter regna...”

  He dipped the tip of the paintbrush into the open vial of virgin blood. And then he carefully and painstakingly began to color the inside of the pentagram.

  He'd completed “painting” this motherboard and reciting the needed Latin when he noticed his pregnant daughter standing very patiently and quietly off to the side.

  “I didn't want to bother you, Sir,” she said.

  “It's okay. Now is a good time.”

  Katie smiled, stepped closer. “I almost left, thought I might email you instead, but..”

  “Go ahead, sweetie. Tell me.”

  “The others in the coven, I just spoke with them. They are willing to accept the housecleaning duties, for a price.”

  Brant, mildly perturbed but fulling trusting in his assistant's judgment, asked, “Is the price fair?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Do you believe you could negotiate them down?”

  “Not me. Maybe you.”

  Of course I could, Brant thought.

  But his time was too valuable, and in the grand scheme of things it didn't matter.

  “Good job, sweetie. Make it so.”

  “Thank you, Daddy. Think I'll earn a sticker for this?”

  A sticker?

  “That's right. A sticker. For your journal.”

  “You said if I filled the page you'd take me dancing.”

  The reward seemed vaguely familiar and fully appropriate.

  “Yes, a sticker. Remind me later and we'll place it in your journal.”

  “Thank you, Sir. Is there anything you need while I'm here?”

  “No, I don't suppose there is. Just make sure the TV is off. I don't want any video games or music videos or anything annoying taking place until I finish what I'm doing.”

  “You can count on me,” Katie said.

  “I do. Every single day. And you never let me down.”

  “That's the sweetest thing you've ever said.” Katie kissed his cheek. “Sure you wouldn't like a bottled water, coffee, or something stronger?”

  “Not now. Maybe later. Thanks, babe.”

  Katie waltzed away and Brant turned his attention to the other motherboards to perform the same spell-cast on them. Once he'd finished, not trusting anyone else with the task, he informed Katie to make travel arrangements to the other sites. The motherboards, along with their custom software, would need to be installed. He'd do it himself, with Katie by his side.

  But first, he'd set up the Austin interface server.

  The kid he called “dude” appeared busy inside the console room. There, the twenty-something had access to a personal computer with multiple flat-screen monitors and the terminal console of various servers. With root access the kid lived and breathed and ultimately controlled, much as God supposedly controlled His domain, the computing universe of anyone seeking access to the domains housed beneath this roof.

  Brant didn't stop to say hello. The kid – Brant certainly saw him as a kid – frequented his McMansion enough that a brief hello seemed uncalled for. Not that Brant bowed to such cultural niceties as a greeting, but he did realize their place within society.

  He went straight to the locked room just outside the main server room. The comm or communications “closet.”

  There he found what he was looking for. Namely a locked server rack filled with not the motherboards of servers but a caged woman. A mere street whore, he, along with Brainy Witch, had connived and entrapped within the confines of a metal “cage” designed to house computing equipment.

  “How's it going in there?” Brant asked with a rap of knuckles against metal.

  “Let me out, motherfucker. You piece of shit, where the fuck am I?”

  “Don't worry.” Brant set aside the box containing the custom motherboard.

  “Easy for you to say,” the prostitute said. “You aren't locked inside a room the size of a coffin.

  First of all, it wasn't a room, Brant thought. Sure, coffin seemed an accurate description, assuming the coffin stood upright and featured metal mesh for ventilation on all sides. But not only could she see out and breathe fresh air, she could stretch her legs and address her captor. Namely Brant Wilson.

  “Yes,” Brant agreed, “easy for me to say.”

  He reveled in the screams of the woman as he revealed a long, gleaming blade, a ceremonial dagger he bought off eBay, for this specific purpose. He tauntingly rattled the sturdy mesh by dragging the weapon across it. Then he began to cast the spell...

  “Accipe sacrificium ...” Accept this offering, Brant began. Accept the offering, empower the enclosure with screams of the cursed! Annoint metal with blood of the diseased!

  He spritzed a concoction of oils and decaying plants: wilted rose, juniper, wolfsbane, orchid... as he circled the enclosure.

  “Aperite portas inferni a, Domine Kasas... Accipe sacrificium!”

  Brant slipped the rack key from a nearby hook and used it to unlock the front panel. The whore, cut and scraped from sharp metal edges inside the enclosure, turned to face him. “Don't you fucking dare,” she warned.

  But her warning went unheeded. Brant, enjoying the fright in her eyes and terror in her screams, popped the latch to allow access. Various crossbeams for support would prevent easy escape but otherwise the woman could duck under and step out if not for Brant and the dagger blocking the way.

  In an upward motion, Brant slashed with the blade. The woman, trying to avoid certain contact, twisted and huddled toward the rear of her cage. His forearm hit a crossbeam as the point speared into a thigh, an arm, and then, thanks to a thrashing, hysterical drug-addicted street whore, her lower abdomen.

  Flesh parted with each jab and Brant saw it all – the skimpy skirt and short top exposing her midriff left little to the imagination. Blood splattered the walls, Brant's arm, the entire inside of the enclosure and dripped through to the floor below.

  “My offering, o' Kasas,” Brant said as she became a dying heap of gore. “Through blood, death, sex, and magic, I give you what you wish. Aperite mihi portas!” Open the portal for me.

  A heaviness of atmosphere filled the room. The server rack suddenly surged with static electricity before it quickly dissipated.

  Satisfied with the outcome, Brant wrestled the body from the rack. The body would need to be dismembered, obviously, and for that reason Brant had also brought a package of heavy duty garbage bags, duct tape, and a hacksaw. He'd have the dude in the console room dispose of the body in an incinerator across town, part of Kasas' holdings managed by Elliot and his associates. The same place that had been used to dispose of bodies left from the grand opening party.

  The dude, very loyal and a bit absentminded, proved very useful sometimes. Especially now that he'd bought himself a truck. After the body had been tended to, and the dude rewarded with cocaine, Brant could turn his attention to installing the interface server in the rack. So much remained to do:

  Dismember body

  Bag body parts

  Strip out of clothing

 
Bag clothing

  Wash up

  Dress in clean clothes

  Instruct the dude what to do

  Only then could Brant turn his attention to setup and configuration of the server. Once live on the network, he'd be able to remotely administer it from home.

  He rolled up his sleeves and got down to business.

  34

  “Holy shit, we're in!”

  “No fucking way.”

  “Yes way. Look.”

  Becky peered over Gary's shoulder as he navigated links on the KaosKansas.com website.

  “What happened?” Becky asked. “Links are opening like nobody's business.”

  “How the hell should I know? Other than the promise of new content and a web cam girl screwing a dark figure, nothing has changed in weeks.”

  “Except now those links that wouldn't open...”

  “Now they open.”

  “I'm surprised you didn't give up.”

  Gary shrugged. “Old hobbies die hard. Besides, those scripts I wrote, they've been running daily. I just check the logs, which I set to automatically email to me. But I admit, my new hobby does keep me pretty busy. ”

  “Is that what I am to you, a fucking hobby?”

  “No way, I was just kidding. You are not a hobby. You're my girlfriend.”

  “We do fuck a lot,” Becky admitted. “Though I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm your girlfriend.”

  Gary turned his attention from the screen to Becky. “Tell me you're joking.”

  “I see you more as my alcohol connection and regular fuck buddy. Is that a problem?”

  Gary, feeling dejected, nearly agreed that it wasn't a problem. But it was, and he told her so: “I have feelings for you, Becky. And I believe you have them for me, too. When you say things like that it hurts.”

  “Don't be a crybaby, Gar. I love you, darling. I was only teasing.”

  “Thank you. I love you, too.”