by Randi Darren
Incubus Inc. 3
By Randi Darren
Copyright © 2021 Randi Darren
Cover design © 2021 Randi Darren
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means - except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews - without written permission from its publisher.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2021 Randi Darren
All rights reserved.
Dedicated:
To those who know me
Books by William D. Arand-
The Selfless Hero Trilogy:
Otherlife Dreams
Otherlife Nightmares
Otherlife Awakenings
Omnibus Edition(All Three)
Super Sales on Super Heroes Trilogy:
Super Sales on Super Heroes 1
Super Sales on Super Heroes 2
Super Sales on Super Heroes 3
Omnibus Edition(All Three)
Monster’s Mercy Trilogy:
Monster’s Mercy 1
Monster’s Mercy 2
Monster’s Mercy 3
Dungeon Deposed Trilogy:
Dungeon Deposed
Dungeon Deposed 2
Dungeon Deposed 3
Omnibus Edition(All Three)
Swing Shift Trilogy:
Swing Shift
Swing Shift 2
Swing Shift 3
Omnibus Edition(All Three)
Right of Retribution Trilogy:
Right of Retribution
Right of Retribution 2
Books by Randi Darren-
Wild Wastes Trilogy:
Wild Wastes
Wild Wastes: Eastern Expansion
Wild Wastes: Southern Storm
Omnibus Edition(All Three)
Fostering Faust Trilogy:
Fostering Faust
Fostering Faust 2
Fostering Faust 3
Omnibus Edition(All Three)
Remnant Trilogy:
Remnant
Remnant 2
Remnant 3
Omnibus Edition(All Three)
Incubus Inc. Trilogy:
Incubus Inc
Incubus Inc 2
Cultivating Chaos:
Cultivating Chaos
Cultivating Chaos 2
One - Stagnant -
Sighing, Sam shook his head as he stared at the long burnt ruins of a home. Very little of it stood. The vast majority of it was blackened and collapsed in on itself.
“I don’t understand. What’re we doing here?” asked Irene as she waddled up to what had once been the front door.
Her dark copper hair was bound behind her head in a short ponytail at the moment. Halfway through those red locks, her hair shifted to black and remained that color all the way to the tips.
No matter how long or short her hair was, half was always red and the other half black.
She was the living amalgamation of what Caer the Lich had blended together between Irene’s original body and Caer’s own.
Many of her current features resembled Irene, but there was an alien beauty to her now. It was especially present in the cheekbones and eyes.
Turning her head, the lovely woman looked at him with raised eyebrows. Her odd mismatched eyes watched him, waiting for a response— one dark blue, one light blue.
Both gazed at him.
Her disembodied soul was swimming around through the ruins of the home behind her. The original Irene-head looked through the wreckage while the Caer-head looked at Sam.
It was almost as if Caer was the one who was interested in the conversation, not Irene.
I do wonder how much control Caer has. Or if she’s just a passenger with a voice and not much else.
“Just some furniture,” Sam explained vaguely, holding his hands out in a “what can I do?” gesture. “Should be in the bedroom.
“Even if I can just find a bit of it, I can restore the rest of it. That’s all.”
“We can get a bed anywhere,” argued Caer. “Why find a broken one just to restore it?
“Besides, I like the one we have right now. It holds our hips and back well. Especially for when you visit us, husband.”
Irene nodded her head, agreeing with Caer.
As of late, the Irene soul didn’t speak that much unless Irene wasn’t being honest. She seemed to enjoy letting Caer speak for both of them unless it was something she disagreed with.
Grinning, Sam shook his head. He didn’t want to explain himself quite yet. Since they’d fled Florida in a panic, away from Caer no less, he’d been patiently waiting for this opportunity.
“You didn’t have to come with me,” Sam said, stepping over the entry and into the burnt ruins of the home he’d briefly shared with Hillary and Decima.
“I wanted to,” Irene said simply, looking back into the mess that’d been a house. “Besides, it’s fun to go out and show off what you’ve done to me.”
Laying her hands on her rather large abdomen, Irene caressed her belly.
Looking at her from the side, she looked like a capital B. Her overwhelming figure and distended stomach made her profile quite different.
“I’m so excited to be a mom,” said Caer, then laughed. “You promised me you’d let me hold her.”
“Yes, yes, I know, I know,” Irene’s soul responded, reaching up with the arm she controlled on their two-headed soul to pat Caer’s cheek. “It’s your body and your baby, too. Of course, you can hold our precious child.
“Besides, you’re not who you used to be anymore. Your soul has definitely changed.”
“I know, right? Then again, as a Lich, I was never supposed to be able to have children,” said Caer, reaching up and taking Irene’s hand in her own. It looked odd, but they were effectively holding hands, but with only one body. “And how could I not change? Your soul is so blessedly light. It just… knocked all the darkness right out of me.”
Irene rolled her eyes as her soul seemed to be complimenting and talking to itself. In an odd way, it almost felt to Sam like flirting.
“Ignore them,” Irene said in a soft voice. “They get lovey-dovey like this and then they’re no good for anything.”
Snickering, Sam slowly walked through the broken, shattered frame. Thinking it over, he wasn’t quite sure what to say.
Irene had certainly gotten quite comfortable with herself in the eight months since they’d escaped Jenaphila’s facility.
“Do they make out with each other? Cause it feels like they should,” he murmured, trying to pick out where the hall that led to the bedroom would be.
“No, thankfully,” grumbled Irene. “Feels odd at times. As if I’m in love with myself.”
“I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that. Though, you trust Caer that much now?” Sam asked, turning once he’d found the exit from the hall.
“After what happened in the cage, everything changed,” Irene said, following him. “Caer helped me through it all even when my half of our soul wanted to just give up.
“That and it feels like our souls keep blending further and further. I’m not sure anymore where she begins and I end.”
Frowning, Sam didn’t like the sound of that. He didn’t like what it could possibly mean for who Irene once had been.
Maybe I should make that golem for Caer after all?
Something just like what I did for Decima. Protection from betrayal and everything.
“I could make Caer a body,” Sam offered as he found what he was pretty sure was the bedroom doorway.
&
nbsp; “What?” asked Caer as their soul appeared, coming up from the ground below. As if it’d been in the basement. “A body? But… I’m going to be a mom. And what would happen to us?”
Caer’s hand reached up and grabbed Irene’s soul hand, clutching it within her own. To which the Irene soul responded by holding tight to Caer’s hand.
“I mean… I don’t know, actually,” said Sam, coming to a stop as he considered it. “It’s possible you’d just have one soul still, but two bodies. Though it’s also possible that you’d separate into two souls again.
“Regardless of that, I’m afraid I can’t change you back, Irene. You’re stuck like that unless you can figure out how to use your own magic to fix yourself up.”
“No,” murmured Caer in a pained voice. “We’d need to find bodies to use. Living bodies. Then carve them up and use pieces to build a new body.
“In the end… I destroyed both my body and Irene’s to make the one we have now. The original two bodies were destroyed.”
“Okay, make the golem,” Irene said with a nod of her head. “But maybe after the birth? Still too much going on.
“Besides, aren’t you busy bedding and impregnating Cambions? Would you even have time to make a body for Caer?”
Sam stood in front of what he was fairly certain was the bed he’d shared with Decima. There was the burnt lump of material with what appeared to be a spring sticking out of it.
It could only be a mattress in Sam’s mind.
“Only the Elders and up. Everyone else is responsible for themselves,” countered Sam. “With all those Incubi showing up though, that’s not that hard for them to manage for the Cambion girls.
“Besides, I’d feel weird about breeding soldiers who were my children just to die for my cause. I’m not as heartless as I used to be.
“As for time, yes. I have a great deal, actually.”
Ever since they’d mostly disconnected from the material plane, he’d spent the majority of his time feeding, or waiting to feed.
Right now, all he had was time.
There were no contracts for Inc-Suc to take or work on at the moment. All the work they took was out-of-country and far away from where Jenaphila operated. Most of the contracts they accepted were government work that had clear lines to who made the contract, as well.
They were doing their best to lay low and stay off Jena’s radar. After attacking the site, an unexpected chain reaction had occurred.
Thousands upon thousands of Imps became Essence starved, entire corporations imploded, the power grid of the United States nearly went completely dark, and Jena went on a murderous rampage.
Inese, the one who had once been known as the Amazon, brought news often. News and Imps she thought would be useful to their organization. Once Irma gave her approval on them, Sam bedded, branded, and contracted them into Inc-Suc.
The amount of control they were gaining throughout Jena’s empire was ever-increasing. Even as it all came crumbling down.
“Then… yes, please,” said Irene. “It would be nice for Caer to have a body to hold our baby with. Though… what… would she look like?”
“Whatever I want,” answered Sam as he got down on one knee. Laying his hand on the melted, burnt hunk of material, he started to call up his Essence.
“Could you make me look like how I used to?” asked Caer. “We could… that is, Irene and I could look like sisters if that were possible. Then I could be Aunt Caer. Or something.”
Nodding his head, Sam didn’t reply. Instead, he steadily poured Essence into what he believed was the mattress. Filling it up to determine if it was what he was looking for.
“Wait, if you made her a body like that, could she have children? Can Decima get pregnant? You said it’d be just like her body,” questioned Irene.
Ignoring her, Sam focused on his task.
A whole minute passed before he felt confident that he was indeed looking at Decima’s marital bed. It’d been burnt nearly to nothing given the firetrap that she’d created out of the house.
When it’d come time to flee with Mitch in tow, she’d set the trigger off. The entirety of the house went up in a flaming blaze.
He’d only heard her lament the loss of her marital bed once, but he’d heard it. It had remained stuck in his brain ever since.
Carving off a sizable chunk of Essence, Sam began to force the melted lump back into shape. Into shape and repaired, using whatever he could of the materials nearby to do it.
In the span of two minutes, a bed sat in the room.
Not wanting it to sit there, where it could pick up the smells of smoke and soot, Sam casually dropped it through a portal.
He’d clean it up, get sheets on it, and then stick it in the apartment Decima lived in. Her current bed could be removed at the same time and sent off to a warehouse.
“Whew. Yes, I could easily make Caer look like she had in life,” Sam said, getting up into a standing position. Turning to look at Irene, he smiled at her. “Wouldn’t be much of an issue. Though I do wonder if you’d lose your Lich powers, Irene. And you wouldn’t be able to cast Witch magic, Caer.”
“That’s okay. But… would you make love to me?” Caer asked, gliding up close to him. She stopped only a few inches away from him, staring hard into his face. “Because I’m in love with you. I’m not really sure how it happened but… I do. I love you.
“And… may-maybe give me a child, too? That way Irene and I can have two babies? One for each of us?”
“Oh! Yes. I want two children, too. If you had one, and I had one, that’d give us two,” Irene’s soul said, agreeing with Caer.
Grinning, Sam felt his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth.
“Fine,” he said, freeing it with a burst of effort.
He’d already put kids into a number of now-pregnant Cambion. On top of that, Abigail was also pregnant.
Knocking Caer up wouldn’t be an odious task either.
“For now, let’s head back,” Sam said. “I did what I wanted here. Beyond that… honestly I don’t want to be here.
“This whole place feels wrong, Caer. I can’t believe you did this.”
Wincing, Caer hunched her shoulders and moved away from Sam. She looked both ashamed and upset.
“I didn’t know any better. I’ve been alive for a long time, Sam. Nearly as long as you,” Caer said as an excuse. “I couldn’t do something like this again. Ever.”
Looking around at the neighborhood, Sam felt sad. He hadn’t lived here long but it hadn’t been unpleasant either.
Everything was destroyed.
Houses were burnt down, bowled over, or split apart. A few were intact and stood as if in direct counterpoint to what’d been done.
Those were few and far between, however.
For much of the city, this was the state of affairs.
There were also a great number of Elementals running around here. All had been released by Sam from the facility when they broke out.
Before the whole building had been flooded with high levels of radiation.
“Right. Time to go,” Sam said, then tore open a portal back to his own plane. He needed to get back to the warehouse and get to work on that bed.
Not to mention a body for Caer.
“Oh, that’s fair. I’m supposed to meet with Stacia and Irma anyway. Weekly meeting to figure out what Jena is up to,” said Irene with a soft sigh. Then she reached over and laid a hand on Sam’s back. “Did I mention I love you? And that I’m very excited that we’re having a baby?”
Forcing himself to smile at Irene, he met her eyes and nodded his head minutely. He found that even though he’d agreed to have kids, he wasn’t quite ready for it either.
To Sam, it felt as if he was rushing towards a cliff. Sprinting right at it. Without knowing whatever might be on the other side or how far the drop would be.
It didn’t matter though.
His choice had been removed from the equation after he’d gotten into the red
cage with Irene, Abigail, and Aster.
Then he’d agreed to give the Cambion Elders their own pregnancies. He needed an army and that meant giving in to their demands.
“I love you, too. I’m excited, but also terrified,” confessed Sam.
Irene only smiled wider at that and patted him on the back. She clearly expected his answer, but it also didn’t bother her it would seem.
“Grab our core,” Irene’s soul demanded.
“Squeeze our core until we go, then have our body, too,” Caer added.
“But be careful of the baby!” said both heads of the soul at the same time.
Sure, why not.
That’d be fun.
***
Standing in front of the bed, Sam was very happy. It seemed like the Essence work he’d done to get it back to rights had also cleaned it.
Thankfully, it hadn’t taken on any weird smells for the brief period it’d sat there. He couldn’t detect anything out of the ordinary.
It was a bed with a faint echo of magic on it.
Grinning to himself, Sam couldn’t help an idle thought.
And is that magic from when Decima gave me her heart in this bed, or because I had the thing remade?
Nodding his head, he looked around.
The Fist of the Legion, an actual honest-to-god walking bipedal machine that Abigail called a “mech”, stood not far away.
Abigail had stopped going on active missions in person, just as she’d requested. Instead, she went in the Fist of the Legion on missions. As fire support, artillery, and their technician.
It worked out well that the Fist had just as many defensive capabilities to keep her safe as it did offensive ones. In the last eight months, Abigail had gone from rookie mercenary to hardened vet.
Really… not much has changed otherwise though, has it?
Just the Cambion pregnancies, Abigail and Irene look huge now, and we’ve been biding our time. Taking easy contracts and waiting.
Developing Imps inside of Jena’s empire and marking out the extent of her networks.
Nodding his head, he had to admit that it felt like much of the time from the point they escaped the red cage and on was all just a blur. Everyday things and situations that didn’t matter much at all.