by Randi Darren
There was no small amount of art, decorations, and expensive-looking furniture in every room they passed through.
“Grandma likes to show off a bit,” Irma said. “Oh, and she has a friend over. A longtime family friend.”
“Is that so?” Sam said.
“She wants to see if they both can set up a deal with him,” Irma said.
Sam assumed she meant Reixhitz, or Rix as he’d known him by a long time ago.
Hillary was quietly tagging along. After him riding her directly before or after Irma since she’d been hired, the two had quickly become friends. They seemed to be planning and plotting about what kind of business to get him in.
Sam appreciated their dedication and work ethic already. The more work they did, the less he had to.
And to be honest, he really didn’t want to work more than he had to. If he could sit around, feast on his feed harem, and start raising human settlements on his plane, that’d be ideal.
I bet I could have over a million humans on my plane. It’s big enough.
Could support a great deal of them.
Never going to let it happen again.
Curbing those thoughts, as he was a long way off from that, Sam contended himself with what he had for now.
His First Imp was working hard for him, and he’d hired a Doppelganger. He was well on his way.
“Hello Grandmother,” Irma said to someone as she walked into a room. “Hello Auntie.”
“Hey, hey, hi, hi,” said what sounded like a young woman. “Good to see you! You’ve gotten so big! And pretty.”
“Ah, Irma, I’m so glad you could make it,” said a wizened voice. “Did you bring your… partner?”
“I did,” Irma said, looking back the way she’d come.
Sam followed Hillary into the room and looked around.
There was an old woman in her eighties standing next to a woman who looked to be in her twenties.
The woman who was clearly Irma’s grandmother seemed like a much older version of Irma, with white hair and brown eyes.
Sam was curious about the younger woman, though. She was dressed professionally and had black hair with pitch-black eyes.
She was also incredibly pretty.
The magic moving around her was very strange, though. It reminded him of a number of Witch Hunters he’d met in his life.
“Sam, this is my grandmother. She goes by Mrs. Tiff,” Irma said.
“Mrs. Tiff,” Sam said, bowing his head to the elderly woman.
“And this is my Aunt M—”
“Melody,” said the young woman, stepping forward and offering her hand to Sam.
Sam glanced at it and then took it, shaking her hand back firmly. She displayed a fair amount of strength to be able to return the force of his handshake.
“You’re too damn pretty,” Melody said, blue runes slowly appearing on her face around the orbitals of her eyes.
Sam snorted at that, taking his hand back.
He didn’t care for Contractors. They ended up crazy more often than not, driven to insanity by their contracts.
They also thought highly of themselves.
For now, he’d play nice.
“I take it you’re here to try and contract Rix?” Sam asked.
“Yeah. It’ll take the place of my Orange. I’m a Rainbow,” Melody said.
“That’s nice. I’m an extra-planar lord. I used to collect Rainbow Contractor skulls because the magic doesn’t fade with their deaths if you do it right. When you kill them, that is,” Sam said. “Then you just keep the skull and use it like a tool.”
Melody stared at him, then blinked slowly. She gave him a slow grin. “Really? Can you teach me that? It might be useful to know. I’ve killed quite a few Contractors and had no idea I could do that.”
Sam shrugged his shoulders.
“We could come to an arrangement of sorts, I’m sure. I’d probably be willing to teach you the method for currency,” Sam said, turning to Irma. “We’ll be starting up a company soon, and I know we could use the startup funding.”
Irma nodded her head at that, smiling at him.
“Eew, you two are like love birds,” Melody said, walking back to the older woman.
“Don’t be bitter, Auntie. You’ll find your Indigo eventually,” Irma said.
“Fat chance,” Melody said, folding her arms across her chest.
“Anyways,” said Mrs. Tiff. “Let’s summon Rix. I’m grateful that you came, Sam; it’ll be easier to tell if he’s dealing falsely with me.”
“Sure. Irma asked me to do it for her, so I’m here,” Sam admitted.
Mrs. Tiff grinned at him, then turned and picked up a match. She struck it against the side of a match box and then dropped it into a small dish filled with a liquid Sam supposed was her blood.
The match hissed and went out.
In the next instant, and old, wizened man appeared in the middle of the summoning circle. He looked ancient, with white hair and blue eyes that almost had no color they were so light.
“Ah, you’ve decided then?” Reixhitz said, looking at Mrs. Tiff. Then his eyes moved to Sam.
“Sam?” Reixhitz said.
“Hey Rix,” Sam said, holding up a hand.
Sighing, Reixhitz nodded.
“Hello, Sam,” he said. “I suppose I should have expected it when they told me you were the one who gave them the spell to bring me here.”
“They asked me to just be here and assist, that’s all,” Sam said. All the others had been forgotten in their discussion. “Just deal fairly, that’s all. They want a deal; so does the Contractor.”
“Oh? That’s it? And a Contractor, you say? Well, well, well,” Reixhitz said with a dark chuckle. “It seems the Torment of Sanity might rise again.”
Sam only smiled at that. He remembered Rix at his height. When he had actually controlled more than several planes all on his own.
It’d taken many mages just to bind Rix as they had. More than two hundred, even.
The man had indeed been a terror.
“Old days are gone, Rix. At least on this plane,” Sam said.
“We’ll see.” Rix grinned back at Sam, his teeth white and perfect. Then he turned back to Mrs. Tiff. “Now, did you decide?”
Hm. Auspicious occasion.
Two planar lords reviving. Each one having been named a Torment by the higher planes.
I wonder where the other Three Torments got off to.
Mrs. Tiff nodded her head once and, then and there, the Torment of Sanity had returned to the prime plane.
Eight - Stealing-
Sam made a soft harrumph, tapping a finger to his chin.
“It feels like there should be an easier way to do this,” he said, staring at the board in front of him, which had all the apartments listed for rent.
“What?” Irma asked, standing next to him.
“You work with the internet, right?” Sam asked, turning to look at his partner.
“Yes. We offer a web design business. I mean… the internet isn’t very big yet, but I think we’re going to see a major move toward it. The computer industry just… just needs a little push, I think. Right now the cost of entry is still too high,” Irma said. “Honestly, when you look at the history of technology, we were on a pretty amazing path until that incident two years ago. With all the soldiers coming out of nowhere. Everything just stalled after that.”
Sam pointed at the board listing, not wanting to lose track of the point he was going to make.
“This feels like something that could be replicated on the internet,” he said, circling a finger around the board. “Anything could be, really.”
“I’m not so sure about that. People pay for how much data they consume, and I don’t think anyone would want to wait around to download hundreds of pictures of apartments, or pay for that,” Irma said.
“You just said you were waiting for a push from the computer industry. Yet you seem to stop your thinking there. Why not the in
ternet industry? Surely they’ll become faster, offer different services,” Sam said. Then he shrugged. “Anyways. I think I’ll end up taking this one. It’s the largest, ground floor, and it has three bedrooms.”
“Can you afford that, Sam?” Irma asked. “It’s more than even my apartment.”
“I don’t have to pay for it. I’m going to whammy that little man over there,” Sam said, flicking a hand back towards the ensorcelled housing agent. “He’s going to mark it as empty but remove the listing. By the time anyone notices, I should have more than enough money to make it work.
“Though I might have to make a trip to really settle everything.”
“A trip?” Irma asked. “Where?”
“Mm. It was a small little outpost fort the last time I was here. It was named Saint Anthony. A very depressing place,” Sam said. “I suppose I’ll need to find it and then purchase tickets.”
Sighing, Sam shook his head.
“On top of that, I still need to buy a mountain of clothes. I’m very tired of this construct. And a car,” he said forlornly.
“Didn’t Aun-Melody pay you for the… skull… thing?” Irma asked.
“Oh, she did. I forgot about that,” Sam said, feeling better all of a sudden.
“We could buy the clothes with cash and whammy the salesclerk to discount it. Plane tickets you have to buy on the phone or at a travel agency, so that might be better on a credit card,” Irma said.
“You’re as brilliant as you are beautiful.” Sam turned to Irma with a smile.
Then, shocked, he froze in place. Standing in a backroom was an Imp. He could see her through an open doorway, busily sorting packages. She was an Imp with a magical binding he instantly recognized.
After all, he’d been the one to develop it with Jenaphila.
The Imp hadn’t noticed Sam, though, or she wasn’t paying attention.
Noticing Sam’s distracted gaze, Irma turned her head and looked back in the same direction.
The beautiful, blond-haired, blue-eyed, well-endowed Imp seemingly didn’t even notice the attention.
“She’s really pretty,” Irma said. “Is that the kind of pretty you’d want in your feed harem?”
“It’s an Imp,” Sam muttered. “One who works for the person who imprisoned me.”
“Is she?” Irma said, her arms uncrossing and falling to her sides. “What do we do then?”
“I’m going to capture her and then kill her after I get some answers,” Sam growled.
“Oh. That… that sounds rather… criminal,” Irma said.
“Yes, I imagine it is. But this is just a plane. Prime or not, it cannot hold me,” Sam growled.
“But it could hold me,” Irma mumbled.
Anger cooling momentarily, Sam thought on that.
“You’re right,” he said finally, letting his thoughts go cold. “Let’s capture her then and go from there. I could always just put her on my plane and leave her there. If she doesn’t perish, her master would never know. And if there’s no body, the police can’t prove anything. Is that fair?”
“Yes, thank you,” Irma said, smiling at him. “I appreciate your care of me.”
Ugh.
Lifting an arm toward the Imp, Sam made a closing hand motion toward her.
He wouldn’t be able to brand followers with the symbol, as Jenaphila held the control rod he’d specifically made after sharing the brand with her, but he still had power over the binding when he was personally in front of one. The binding was his originally, after all. It’d just been stolen from him.
Instantly, the Imp shrieked and fell to her knees.
“Come here, Imp,” Sam said loudly.
Scrambling on her hands and knees, the woman crawled over to Sam.
She came to a stop in front of him, panting and shivering uncontrollably.
“You work for Jenaphila?” Sam asked.
“Yes!” shrieked the Imp, the control rune still in effect.
“How long?”
“My whole life! I’m just a watcher! A watcher!” said the woman.
“What are you watching for?” Sam asked.
“Other planar lords! They try to break into Jenaphila’s plane often enough that we have to watch for them!” said the woman.
“Ah… is Jenaphila the only planar lord on the prime then?” Sam asked.
“She is on this continent. She sometimes grants loyal servants the ability to journey elsewhere as planar lords though!” shouted the woman as she crumbled down to the ground and curled up into the fetal position.
Sam frowned and began easing back on the control spell, but he didn’t remove it. As long as it was active, this watcher couldn’t report back to Jenaphila.
“I see. Chances are those loyal followers never come back. That’s just how she gets rid of people. She used to use a similar method when I was her master,” Sam said, looking at Irma.
“I take it she was the old ‘partner’ you talked about?” Irma asked, staring wide eyed at the Imp on the ground. “And I thought you said you weren’t angry.”
“Quite right and I wasn’t. At least until I saw her. Now, what shall we do with her? I’m still leaning toward pulling out her Life Essence. It could sustain me and give me a great many boons,” Sam said. “Though I do have two other options.”
“What are they?” Irma asked. Then she got down on her knees and reached out to the woman’s blouse. “Her name is—”
“I don’t care what her name is, and I don’t want to know it. As to what else is available,” Sam said. “I could change her brand, make her mine. She would no longer report to Jena, but the brand would be close enough that this Imp here would know what that old partner of mine wanted of her and could speak with her. The change is miniscule. Something Jena never would spot.”
Pausing, Sam laughed darkly.
“If she even looked. She was a lazy Essence user,” Sam said. “And the last option is to just dump her onto my plane. She’d survive there. Lots of fruits and vegetables grow wild there. A massive population of herbivores to eat all of it, too. No predators. Population control is with a lower birth rate.”
“If you rebranded her, could I use her? Can I use this ‘brand’? And can you explain more of it later? I’m guessing at the context here, but I think I understand,” Irma said. Then she looked up at him with a small, hopeful smile. “It’d be nice to have some helpers, Sammy. I’m honestly a bit overwhelmed right now with how much I’m going to have to get done.”
Sam’s mind shrieked at the idea of sharing his brand with Irma. That’d been the problem with Jenaphila in the end.
Except… isn’t the whole point of Irma being different to facilitate complete trust?
Jena didn’t have the brand for hundreds of years. No matter how many times she asked. It wasn’t until I got lazy and stupid.
“A brand is probably exactly what you’re thinking of. A control spell,” Sam said. “And… yes. I could share its making with you.”
Irma nodded and patted the young woman on the back.
“Hey. Would you rather work for me, die, or go to a plane?” Irma asked.
“For you,” panted the woman, still curled up tightly into herself.
“Great,” Irma said, then looked back at Sam with a wide smile. “Teach me.”
Sam snorted at that. Walking over to Irma, he laid his hand on her brow and imparted his current brand to her. How to use it, how to lay it, and that she had shared dominion over it with him.
“There. Probably the easiest thing I can teach, and the most dangerous,” Sam said. Then he pointed at the glamoured real estate agent. “You deal with your Imp. I’m getting my apartment from our helper over there.”
***
Sam waited by the door, guiding in the movers and supervising them. It was the last day of his weekend before he’d be required to go back to working on Abigail and her case tomorrow.
He wasn’t looking forward to it, honestly.
Abigail’s case was rat
her straightforward at this point. It was also probably going to be over rather soon. Using her current pay as a jumping point, all she had to do was sell herself well in an interview. If she could get a higher-level position, that’d be the end of it.
Then he’d be done here until he was summoned again.
He didn’t have long to get himself set up. Time was running out.
At least we have Irma now. She’ll probably get me another client rather quickly, even if Abigail doesn’t network me out.
“Sammy?” called Irma’s voice from outside.
“In here,” Sam replied, watching as the movers put down his brand-new couch.
Curious nickname she’s given me.
Irma walked in and gave him a bright smile. Coming over to him, she gave him a quick kiss and then leaned up against the wall next to him.
Sam hid how much it unsettled him that Irma was treating him like a significant other. It was unnerving.
As an Incubus, love, relationships, and having such things weren’t really part of his psyche. It was almost anathema to him.
The movers walked by, going back out to their truck. They had quite a bit more to unload and move for him.
“I’ve been talking to my new Imp. Her name’s Alexis, by the way. She’s part of a team of Imps that work out of Larimer. They’re supposed to meet today and check in with their handler. Shall we go collect them all? It’d be good to protect ourselves, right?”
“Larimer?” Sam asked.
“That’s the name of the city you’re in. Larimer,” Irma said. “Well? Can we? I’d love to have a bunch of Imps working for me. Alexis has already proven to be quite helpful.
“And I think they’d be willing to join a feed harem as well, if only to learn Essence sorcery. Be Essence mages, or whatever the term is.”
“It’s because Jena’s a terrible mage. It’s why she doesn’t and can’t teach anyone. And fine, we can do that,” Sam said.
It’d be nice to have more Imps working for Irma, I suppose. And it would be rather nice to start taking things back from Jena. Ha.
“Soon as the movers are done, we’ll go,” Sam said.
Thankfully, that didn’t take long.
An hour later and Irma was driving him to where Alexis was supposed to meet the others.