by Randi Darren
Walking out of his office, he went over to Abigail’s desk. It was Friday, the last day she was with the company before starting her new job.
She’d gone back to her normal routine fairly quickly and had abandoned her diet completely.
On top of that, she was also dressing in a much more fun way as of late. Sam made it a point to stop by her desk and take in an eyeful of her at least two or three times every day.
Looking up from her desk when he reached her wall, Abigail rolled her eyes and then pulled down on her blouse subtly, making her cleavage that much more visible for him.
He couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or subconscious.
“You’re a doll, you know that?” Sam asked, leaning against her wall.
“Not sure about that, but maybe I just like waving a steak in front of a tiger,” Abigail said, giving him a smile. “That and it never hurts to be desired.”
“Speaking of desire, could I come over and see you again tonight? You’ve been so generous these last two weeks. Letting me feed on you so often,” Sam said. “It’d be a true loss if I didn’t get to have you again tonight.”
“Fine. Come on over and… and we’ll hang out. Don’t bring Jes tonight, though,” Abigail said. “She’s fun, and it’s a weirdly exciting thing to have her there, but… not tonight.”
“Done,” Sam said, already looking forward to his evening.
“I have a new client for you, by the way,” Abigail said, turning to face him head on. “She lives out north, though. It’s a few hours outside of Saint Anthony. Irma mentioned you had business up that way anyways.”
Irma and Abigail had rapidly become friends. They were also working on something they hadn’t consulted him on yet. He was curious, but he didn’t need to be pushy about it.
Irma, Hillary, and Abigail had formed some little club and were rather chummy together.
“I’d offer to come with you, but… new job, and no money for a vacation,” Abigail said.
“I’m sure you could pay your way,” Sam said, grinning at her. The idea of having Abigail as a captive for a week sounded wonderful. “I could always go hit your new b—”
“No,” Abigail said, laughing. Her face was a bright red mask. “I’m flattered, but no. I’ve already given you too much. You’re probably bored of me already. Bored of me and won’t even think of me after our contract ends.”
Surprisingly, he wasn’t bored of her. Not at all.
Abigail had managed to make herself interesting, sexy, and hard to get.
I wonder if she played it that way intentionally. Set it up from the start.
Alisa knew me inside and out in the end.
She’d even proposed to me several times, despite the toll.
Asked for kids often.
Hm. Something to consider.
“Nope, not bored of you. Come on, let’s go on a trip. You, me, and Jes. We’ll take a car and leave your sweat and a little extra in every bed we can manage from here to there and back again,” Sam said, pushing just a little. He did want to travel with Abigail.
“Sam, I’m truly flattered. Sign me up for the next one, and I’ll even be the main course every day for you,” Abigail said. “But I really want to make this job work. Okay?”
Sam sighed and nodded. “Right. Got it. So… new client… she going to summon me tonight?”
“Yep,” Abigail said, grinning at him. “She is. But only after you and I are done, so do visit me early.
“She’s a cousin of mine. She’s from Alisa’s line, so… be nice. You owe Alisa. You weren’t kind to her in the end. I read her journal, and you did too. You saw how you hurt her.”
Grimacing, Sam looked away.
Alisa’s journal had been a bitter romance novel in the end, forty years in the making. She’d fallen in love with an Incubus who then scorned her. It was also more like seventy journals, not just one. Sam had only read the last one, where it summed up how to summon him.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sam said. In reading the broken and heartfelt words of Alisa long after she’d died, he’d actually felt regret for her. He planned on seeing if he could visit her afterlife at some point and apologize.
Which was a strange desire to him. But he couldn’t deny the thought.
“You’re much more human than I thought you’d be, you know? You’re not half as bad as Alisa said you were,” Abigail said.
“Spent a long time by myself,” Sam said, staring out at nothing. “Long, long time. Pretty sure I’m not the same as I used to be.”
Took in a Succubus puppy, got in a relationship with an Imp and gave her my full brand and its use, hired a Doppelganger rather than just force her into a contract and devour her, and I have a feed harem that I’m working to not over-tax and treat as politely as I can.
Very different.
“Gabriella is rather happy, by the way,” Abigail said. “Tired, but happy. You wearing her out?”
“Trying not to,” Sam said. “I do feed from her every time I come over, though. Which is daily at this point. I also bought her a rather nice couch and a bed. Hers was awful.”
“She mentioned that,” Abigail said with a smirk. “Turning into a sugar daddy on top of everything else?”
“No. It just really was unpleasant having sex with her on either one. The springs were prone to digging into my knees,” Sam said with a shrug. It was the simple truth, after all. “And her back.”
Abigail nodded, then turned back to her screen. She was clearly uncomfortable talking about her friend’s sex life.
***
“Ah, there it is,” Sam said, sitting up in his couch.
Irma sighed and patted him on the back. He’d come to see her after talking Abigail into several rounds instead of just one.
“The airline wouldn’t refund the ticket, but they gave us credit for it. We have a year to use it,” she said.
Leaning over, he gave her a kiss and smiled at her. He hardly even had to consider what she wanted anymore, how to act to make her happy. Often it was just showing her affection and consideration.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. Would you like me to call you once we’re settled in for the evening?” Sam asked.
“Would you?” Irma asked, giving him a wide smile. “I’d appreciate it. If I don’t answer, don’t be worried. Just call back later if you can. I might be out with Abby. We’ve been working on a plan that I think will help a lot. Though… if it does work… well, she’ll end up making a considerable amount herself.
“Oh! And when you get back, do you think we can make some mana crystals? It’d be nice to have some extra cash on hand.”
“That’s fine. I’ll just get everyone to come over and then have you all one after another,” Sam said, getting up. He walked over to the portal.
Jes was already standing in front of it, looking at the brand being projected on their side.
“It’s yours,” she said, tracing the pattern with a finger. “This is exactly like you said. It looks like it’s there to bind you, but it protects you instead and allows you to see into the area first.”
“Indeed. Which is why we made your brand do the same thing,” Sam said, looking into the room. “Looks normal. Can’t see or feel anything off. Let’s go. Make sure your wings are out and you’re ready for a little acting.”
Sam walked through the portal, and Jes came in right behind him.
Stepping into the middle of the circle, Sam found himself in a tactfully decorated office space. The summoning circle he was standing in had been drawn perfectly with chalk on what looked like a hardwood floor.
“There’s two of you,” whispered a voice.
Turning his head to the speaker, he found a thin, darker-haired, older version of Abigail.
Alisa’s stamp was heavier on her, though. She looked much more akin to her deceased relative.
“Hello, I am Sameerixis. This is Jezebel,” Sam said. “And yes, there are two of us.”
“I’m-I’m-I’m Alison,” said
the woman. Sam looked at her much more intently, trying to get an idea on how to play this one.
Saying nothing, he stood there staring at her. Jes was on his right, watching the human as well. Neither of them said anything.
“Abigail said… said you could help me,” Alison said, wringing her hands together in front of herself.
“Depends on what you want,” Sam said. “What do you want?”
“My ex-husband is… he’s trying to take my home from me. This is my house,” Alison said, making a wide open-armed gestured. “I had it before we got married, but we took out a mortgage on it to pay off some of his debts. Now he’s claiming it’s part his.”
Sam sniffed, not sure what to say.
This was starting to sound like a “kill so and so” request, which Sam only took on a limited basis. He wasn’t above snuffing out a human’s life. They were so numerous that it wouldn’t matter anyways.
His only requirement was that they deserved it.
I’m not some filthy little Demon, after all. They can go barter for souls and murder all they like.
“I don’t… I don’t want him to die… the girls wouldn’t know how to handle that,” said Alison. “I have two daughters. He only has partial custody, but they do love him.
“I just want him to-to leave the house alone. That’s all.”
“And if that required him to die?” Sam asked.
“Then… then I’d have to figure out a different way to handle it,” Alison said firmly. It was the first thing she’d said with any sort of spine so far.
“Hmph. Alright. What is it you want me to do then?” Sam asked. His opinion of the woman had gone up several degrees with that single statement of hers.
It was pleasant to find a human with morals when it came to their own kind. Especially towards those who had wronged them.
“I just… I just want my house. That’s all I want. I’ve tried talking to Tom. I’ve talked to his lawyer. I’ve had my lawyer talk to him and his lawyer, too.
“He won’t budge. He won’t budge at all. He just wants the house to spite me and force me to move. Just to hurt me,” Alison said, shaking her head.
Sam just waited. Once she gave him a direction, he could act. But until then, he couldn’t. Not without risking intervention from whoever was in charge of the higher planes right now.
Then again, they might not be watching. It might be worth testing.
“Do you want me to kill him? Rob him? Beat him? Wipe his memories? Have him thrown in jail?” Sam asked, deciding to push.
If he could act with a bit less caution than he had in his previous dealings, it would be that much easier to work in the prime plane.
“Can you just… talk him out of going for the house?” Alison asked.
“I doubt very much I can talk him out of anything,” Sam said. “I’m going to have to go rooting around in his head to figure out why he wants the house, make up a reasonable excuse for why he doesn’t want it anymore, then modify all his memories and thoughts around it.
“It won’t be easy, nor simple. It is, however, quite doable.”
Pained looking, Alison turned her gaze down to her feet, one of her arms crossed over her middle.
“And what’s the price? Abigail said your price would be on the steeper side of things, but never heavy-handed,” she said.
Sam normally would take this opportunity to have Alison right here and now in the summoning circle and eat his fill of her. Then take a few years from her life as the price and move on.
But Irma was pushing him to have more portals opened. Portals to different cities and states that would let him travel freely.
“Mm,” Sam said, then sighed. “You’re a child of Alisa. Someone I didn’t do well by. I’ll grant you this deal for the cost of one year of your life, paid one day at a time.
“That’s as cheap as I can make it without taking a loss. What say you, Alison, descendant of Alisa?”
“A year?” Alison asked, looking up at him. “You’re not going… not going to make me sleep with you?”
“Not unless you want to,” Sam said with a shrug. “A year of your life is suitable enough for my purposes.”
Alison gave him an incredible smile, going practically from ear to ear. “I agree then, wholeheartedly.”
With a nod of his head, Sam started going into the process of blood-sealing the contract.
***
Spreading his wings out behind him, Sam stared up at the night sky above him.
“I suppose it’s time you learned to fly, Jes,” Sam said. It’d been a while since he stretched his wings and used them.
It was much harder to do such a thing in modern planes like the prime.
“I think I’d rather walk,” Jes muttered.
“You’ll need to get used to it. You can’t feed from me forever,” Sam said. Jes joined him for almost every feeding now and fed from him directly after he finished with his own meal. Sometimes they had sex; sometimes she just blew him.
“Of course I can,” Jes said. “You yourself said we can merge our planes once I have enough Essence. That’s my goal now.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to do that,” Sam said, squatting low in the grass. “Think of your wings as if they were arms. You want to pump them hard once or twice to get airborne. After that, they’ll almost fly themselves. It’s like walking. The legs do the work, you don’t even think about it.”
“But what if I—”
“You’ll be fine. It’s a lot like thinking about going up or down stairs, and how you’re doing it,” Sam said, then launched himself into the air.
Air rushed past him as he started to gain altitude.
Glancing down to the ground below him, he saw Jes getting ready to launch herself.
He grinned, wondering if she’d be reassembling her body and traveling back to the apartment he’d found her in.
Should probably help her make a few clients and establish some portals. Some Essence feed. If she’s not willing to sleep with them, that does limit her ability to grant favors.
Jes shot into the air, her wings flapping awkwardly. Slowly, she started to move up into the air, her wings beginning to smooth out in their strange, mismatched flapping.
By the time she was high enough to die if she fell, her wings had mostly become instinctual.
Just like walking.
“See?” Sam said as she flew up next to him. He’d simply been flying in place, his wings beating every so often to keep him aloft.
“This shouldn’t be possible,” Jes said. “Wings this size wouldn’t work for our weight or body shape. Our legs hang down below us.
“You’re quite right. We also aren’t truly alive, though. You’re a magical construct,” Sam said. “If you died, you’d just go back to your plane. So… argument invalid.
“Come on then, long flight to Saint Anthony. Alison swears her ex-will be home until this weekend when he gets the kids.”
Sam oriented himself with the roads below and then, using them as a marker, began flying straight to his destination.
When he finished up with this contract, he’d need to go dig up the gold he’d stashed away forever ago.
With any luck at all, he’d be done with Alison and back home sooner than anyone expected.
Another portal open to keep him here and feed him slowly while making Irma happy.
And if Irma was happy, her orgasms were markedly tastier.
Flying through the night, Sam kept them moving until they were over the city limits. It was fairly obvious it was the city by the fact that there was a booming sector of industry.
“Is that a dog food plant?” Jes practically shouted next to him. Having a conversation while flying was incredibly difficult.
“I don’t know? The logo on the side tends to lend itself to that thought. Let’s set down there. We can probably steal a car and drive the rest of the way like humans would,” Sam said, then folded his wings partially. He began to descend toward the grou
nd.
When he hit the sidewalk with a light tap, Sam dismissed his wings.
That was a rather nice little flight. I should put time aside just to fly.
Jes hit the ground next to him and stumbled to one side, bouncing off a light post.
“Damn, landing is hard,” she muttered.
“It gets easier, of course,” Sam said. “Alright, let’s steal a car and go see about getting this solved for Alison as quickly as possible.”
“Sam, I’m hungry,” Jes complained. “You had Abby without me, and all I can think about is food. You’re the only one I can feed from.”
“That’s… fair, actually. Sorry, Jes,” Sam said.
“It’s okay. Can we steal an SUV? If we get something big with dark windows, we can hit a bar or a club, find a meal, and split it in the back,” Jes said. “Or where they live, maybe?”
For a Succubus, she was actually incredibly straitlaced. She didn’t like eating anywhere they could be seen, nor did she like engaging in their meal until Sam’s partner was completely into him.
“Yeah, let’s do that,” Sam said.
Fourteen - Ever Deeper -
Leaving the apartment building of their most recent conquest, Sam felt odd. He was quite pleasantly full, but also enjoying the aftereffects of Jes and her near-perfect control over his orgasms.
“That was a good one,” Jes said, adjusting her coat. She lifted her face to the morning sunlight streaming in from the west, then closed her eyes and smiled.
“I wish you understood how strange it is for a Succubus to feed off an Incubus,” Sam said. He wasn’t upset or annoyed. It’d been a great meal.
“I’m sure it’s strange,” Jes said, still facing the sun with her eyes closed. “But at this point, I don’t care anymore. I’ve smelled what a human’s orgasm would taste like in Abigail’s apartment. Her next-door neighbor, in fact. It felt cheap. Flimsy. Oily. I don’t want anything from anyone else. Just you.”
Sighing, Sam adjusted his own coat and looked around.
They could steal a car, get a cab, or whammy a used-car salesman.