A-Cup Angst Ch. 09

Nova didn't even perceive the many spells that were aimed at it. The twins did and they began to cast protective spells. The spirit possessing Jamie perceived the spell that was making Helena and Sonya attack a confused Rose and Sandra. It dispatched another power spirit and it dispelled the spell. Yet another spirit whooshed over to the source of the spell. M'bata could do nothing as he felt his ancestors' bones and skins used against his own men. He felt his allies turn against one another and him. His last thought was the realization that the file on the coven was all too true.

Owen's former subordinates started to cast against one another, instead of casting another set of spells against Nova. Nova's superior optics made out the sharpshooters on the nearby roofs and it raised its two AKs and opened fire, killing them all within seconds. It scanned the park and spotted a bunch of armed people coming out of a house on the opposite side of the park. As they rushed out the door or clambered out the windows, Nova greeted them with impossibly precise fire from the two AKs it was carrying, making the heads of the ones in front explode.

The rest of Oleg's group rushed back behind bulletproof cover. "Out the sides," came a cry and they all rushed to the windows on the sides of the house to make use of the limited cover available there. None panicked. They had been in situations worse than this and had made it out alive and victorious, more than once.

In a coffee shop three blocks away from the park, Mara had been stunned to feel Jamie, four of his five girlfriends and two unknown people suddenly appear in the park. She reformed her perception of the grounds, concentrated and felt every person's movements. The panicked thoughts of all the people in the snowy park were almost too strong for her to sift through, but she grit her teeth and kept at it. She perceived the group in the house as the biggest danger and made them run out the front again, since she could feel their firm resolution to never do that again.

Oleg's former team made ninety degree turns, mid step, and ran out the front of the house to once again be cut down by Nova's bullets. The shock of feeling their comrades' blood and brains spray them broke Mara's hold on the stragglers and they dived back into the house and the cover of its bulletproof walls. The seven remaining warrior casters looked at one another in shock. They exchanged silent looks of understanding and ran out the back of the house, away from the park and the inexplicably lethal barrage of enchanted ammo.

Mara once again intervened and they turned on their heels and rushed out the front, thinking they were running to safety. Nova had reloaded by then and it wasted no time in putting a single bullet through each man's skull.

The remaining Syndicate casters used lethal spells on one another and the twins cast an incapacitation spell on the last one standing. The distinctive roar of Nova's AKs stopped and a silence fell on the park. Jamie was guided by his spirit of sorcery and he rushed over to the body of the tall, black man that lay dead in the snow, next to a swing. He bent over and seized the dead man's dreadlocks. With a tug, he scalped the corpse and took possession of the numerous fetishes woven into the hair. He had never before seen anything like them.

Nova ran over to the body of the only survivor and picked it up. Jamie felt the attention of all the rich people that lived around the park fall on them. He knew that numerous 911 calls were in progress and that, in this upscale neighborhood, they had mere minutes to run away before the police came. The spirit that was guiding him told him of a great spell that was cast from one of the fetishes. It had been keeping the attention of a large group of casters and marksmen away from this park. It just ended and Jamie knew that they were on their way to this location. This warning spent the spirit and Jamie yelled, "Move out! We're leaving right now! Too much heat is coming this way!"

His gang started piling into the SUVs that were parked in front of the foreclosed mansion they had turned into their trap. Nova tossed the survivor into the trunk of the X5 and then ran away from the car. Jamie's eyes tracked her to Helena. The blonde was kneeling on the front steps of the house and rocking back and forth. A soft keening was heard. Jamie's felt that horrid feeling, that had driven him blindly out of the house, return and gather in strength. Out of the corner of his eye, he counted the three redheads and Sandra in the cars, awaiting departure. Helena was on the sidewalk, so was Nova. Where was Sonya?

Jamie's eyes fell on the dark figure that Helena was cradling. Nova, true to its tactical programming, picked up Sonya's corpse and carried it to the cars. Helena screamed in denial and scrambled to follow, losing purchase on the slippery steps and falling over many times. Jamie could barely hear her screams. His ears pounded wildly. Nova carried Sonya past him and he stared at her beautiful, serene face, marred only by a thin trail of blood that had trickled out of the tiny hole in her forehead. In Jamie's shocked state, it reminded him of a bindi.

Jamie didn't even notice Helena run up to him and start kicking and punching him, screaming at him the whole time. He blindly followed Nova and Sonya to the car, not feeling like he was really there, anymore. Everything just seemed so unreal to him. It was as if he was watching characters in a movie. Nova slammed the trunk door shut and herded a resisting Helena into the car. It strapped her in and Helena finally stopped fighting.

Nova then guided him to the front passenger seat, telling him of how it was able to confirm that Suzie was alright and that no one had come for her. Jamie hardly registered its words. The gynoid took the driver's seat and drove them away from the park. The other car followed. Jamie sat in his seat, numbly watching the scenery passing out his window. Hot tears slid down his cheeks.

Mara felt Jamie's gang drive away from the park, but she didn't feel anyone in the driver's seat of the lead car. It confused her for a moment, but then she concluded that Jamie must have gotten a british car and was driving it, sitting on the wrong side of it. Her perception of all living things around her faded until it dwindled into a small dot, right next to her. She felt, in that dot, her spirit guide saying that her debt to the Great spirits was repaid and that they also counted her debt to Jamie's group repaid. Mara's spirits soared in delight. She had managed to do it all without actually killing anyone. Sure, she had been an accomplice, but she told herself that was not the same as actually killing someone.

The otter left her and she giggled and laughed aloud in relief. Many of the patrons gave her looks. She didn't care. Jamie survived the battle and might be in the mood for some intimate healing, or the fabled, "glad to be alive" sex. She whipped out her cellphone and selected Jamie's number. She hesitated. What should she do now? How best to approach him? Should she tell him she intervened in their battle? Would that get her in his good graces? Or should she omit that fact entirely and keep playing on her life debt to him?

Her mouth twisted this way and that as she considered her options. She was up for another orgy with Jamie and his five paramours, even if one of them was a boy. Mara stopped and frowned. "That's right," she thought to herself, "one of Jamie's people was a man." She struggled to remember what exactly she had sensed during the battle. It had been brief and violent and the intensity of the life and death fight had nearly overwhelmed her at the time. She wasn't certain, but she could have sworn she had not been able to feel the asian chick, Nova. There was a new woman following Jamie.

Mara bristled. He had given her the brush off so many times, claiming his company was dangerous, but he apparently had added another girl to the mix as well as this man. His hypocrisy infuriated her. She wished the boy didn't have such an effect on her. She wished she could make herself not obsess about him so much. She put her phone away, settled her tab and left the coffee shop.

Walking back to the campus, she found herself wishing she could make Jamie see her for who she really is. She was sure that if he gave her a chance, he'd see they were meant to be together. He'd fall in love with her as much as she had fallen for him. They'd be happy for the rest of their lives. Mara wouldn't begrudge him having sex with the other girls, she'd only insist that she be first and foremost in his heart. Besides, she still had wet dreams of the orgy they all had together. She'd want a repeat of that experience, every now and then. She'd even insist on it.

She huffed in frustration. Her best option seemed to be getting a club, whacking him over the head with it and dragging him back to her room to tie him to her bed. She slipped on the icy sidewalk and fell flat on her ass. She screamed and hollered in frustration, swearing up a furious storm, more to vent her frustration with Jamie than with falling down. She got up at last and flagged down a taxi. She could afford a ride. She got in and told the cabby to take her to campus. She was too angry at Jamie and his new female comrade in arms to call him right now.

Police patrol cars rolled up to the park from all sides, only to get stopped by agents from the FBI and Homeland Security. Dana Moran took the initiative. As one of the few members of the alpha and beta strike and intervention teams that had actual FBI and Homeland experience, he was in a position to flash his still valid credentials at the local police and tell them that an act of terrorism was thwarted in the park and that many terrorists were killed in the firefight. He told the cops that there was biological weaponry on site, still undetonated, and they rushed to evacuate all the surrounding houses and set up a police perimeter including the neighboring few blocks.

Dana huffed at the horrendous snafu the day turned out to be. He felt reasonably sure that his quick thinking made him safe from any fallout. It had enabled Section to hush up this very public magical blowout. Not only would the police let in their cleanup teams, disguised as biohazard crews, but they would also keep prying eyes away. Especially the media. He was experienced enough to know that the best cover story was the one that had someone else's face on it. In this case, he convinced the local police chief to be that face as he told the man that the identities of the relevant federal agents had to remain a secret for a while longer. The chief took to the cameras with gusto, publicly claiming all but sole responsibility for everything that had happened there that night.

Dana glanced in the direction of the team leaders. They winced as they handed a cellphone from one another. Doubtlessly, whoever was on the other end of the line was chewing them out something fierce. He smirked at the casters' discomfort, which lasted long after they were finally hung up on.

In his office in D.C., Martin Harris, The Suit of Section, tossed his phone against the wall and smashed it to bits. The intercom soon followed. He roared through the door and his secretary timidly poked her head in. He screamed out orders for a certain family in Santa Barbara to be put on the top of the protection list. The secretary rushed off to relay the order, glad to be away from The Suit's wrath.

Harris kept swearing in frustration and trashing his office. He didn't care one little bit that this little shit Jacobs' gang wasted all of Syndicate's finest in public. What enraged him was the fact that they did so under the very noses of the best that Harris had and then got away. He threw his tumblers through the windows, smashing them all. Harris heaved big breaths of the freezing air that was rushing in. It was cooling his temper, along with the room. He forced himself to stay calm.

He had gone through shitstorms worse than this in Desert Storm, he could weather this one, too. All he had to do was keep the President happy. That was number one priority. He needed a phone. He walked out of his office and snarled at his scared secretary to "fix it". She watched him go downstairs and then took a look inside his office. She didn't even want to think what pissed off the man that all the casters in North America feared, herself included. She picked up her phone and called janitorial services.

On the drive home, Jamie kept beating himself up about Sonya's death. Back when she had been a free Sonya Mitchell, she wanted to kill him and had even made a perfect plan to do it with. If anyone's death should not be mourned by him, it was that of Sonya Mitchell. However, she had not been that cunt for almost a year. She had been his sex slave, magically bound to please, pleasure, obey and protect him. The loss of slave Sonya hit him hard.

He was her owner, leader, commander. It was his duty to protect her and he had failed. The buck stopped squarely at his feet. It was his fault that she was now dead. His arrogance led him and she followed him and his arrogance straight to her death. They had all been targeted by the marksmen. Nova had killed them in less than two seconds, but one of them had managed to squeeze off his shot before getting killed. Sonya had the bad luck of it being the one that was targeting her. The thought that any single one, or all of them could have died tonight, finally entered his mind and stuck there. It made him physically nauseous.

He ordered Nova to pull over and he rolled down his window. He threw up on the sidewalk. He wiped his lips with shaking fingers and ordered the gynoid to drive on. A chill was consuming him. "What now," Helena asked. Jamie honestly couldn't think of anything.

"We continue working towards our objectives," Nova said, "as defined and ranked by Jamie. The Scots must interrogate the survivor and obtain pertinent information on the whereabouts of your parents. A caster should take Sonya's remains and go to a morgue where they would use their magic to make the coroner write up her death as an accident not involving firearms. Then that caster should take her remains to a funeral home where they would be prepared for burial."

"What are you," Helena said, shocked, "a robot?!"

"Yes," Nova said.

Helena shook her head and resumed staring out the side window. "Do it," Jamie said to Nova.

"Yes, sir," it said.

When they arrived at Bastion, the gynoid passed the orders on and Rose and Sandra both took Sonya with them. Jamie gave the corpse one last look and then went inside. He climbed upstairs, went into one of the many offices and poured himself a scotch. Nova stayed downstairs to monitor and secure the twins' interrogation of the Syndicate survivor.

Jamie had emptied his second glass when Helena knocked on the door. She came in, without awaiting permission, and sat next to him. Jamie poured her a shot of scotch, too. They downed their tumblers and Jamie poured another round. Helena eyed the amber liquid swirling in her glass and said, "What about the Mitchells?"

"What about the Mitchells?"

"What are you going to tell them about Sonya?"

Jamie shrugged. "Nothing," he said. "What can I say?"

Helena regarded him with disbelief. "You could try saying you're sorry," she said.

"Sorry for what?"

"For the loss of their only child," she said.

"I took their child away from them last year," he said, "tonight just made it official. Anyway, sorry just doesn't cut it, does it?"

"No," she said, "it doesn't. But it's a start."

Jamie buried his face in his hands. Mr. Mitchell was a bastard and a criminal. He had embezzled a big pension fund, leaving thousands destitute, and gotten away with it. He was the type of greedy, money grubbing bastard that would make even Gordon Gekko call in the SEC, but none of that mattered. Nothing, no past sin could excuse his current fate. "Let's find and save the fuckers, first," he said, "or we'll be arranging for a whole mess of funerals, instead of telling Mitchell his girl is dead."

Jamie's cellphone speaker came on and said, in Nova's voice, "The interrogation is complete. Felicity now knows how to find your parents and the rest of the Syndicate." Jamie and Helena stood up, wiped their eyes and sniffled away their tears. They ran back downstairs.

Sven was lying flat on the floor. His pants were missing and his soft cock was glistening with juices. Ray and Felicity were sitting, naked and flushed, on one of the couches and breathing deep. "Well," Jamie demanded. "Where are they? Speak to me!"

Felicity turned to face him and said, "They're on a cruise ship that sailed out of Miami on the night of their abduction. The ship has orders to stay away from land while they torture their captives."

"Good work," Jamie said. Felicity smiled, still basking in the afterglow of her recent orgasm. His instincts told him of one of the fetishes he had ripped from the dead man's scalp. He felt like he might be able to use it to imitate someone's voice, perfectly. "We'll call them and order the torture to stop and the release of our parents, we just have to tell them-"

"You can't," Felicity said. "The big, black one, that you scalped, was the only one that gave them orders. This one," she indicated a scared looking Sven, "knows how the black one, Jonathan, rolled. He was a paranoid bastard that always gave people codes which he had to tell them if he was giving orders over the phone, in case anyone imitated his voice with magic. If you were to call them and order their release while sounding like this Jonathan fucker and not give the code, the crew would execute your parents."

"Damn," Jamie said. "Well, what's the code?"

"This one doesn't know," she said. "His best guess is that no one but Jonathan and the onboard crew did."

"Well, fine," Jamie said, "if that's the way they want to play it, then that's the way I'll slaughter all of them. Now, you said you know how to find the ship?"

"Yes, Jamie," Nova said. "As soon as Felicity told me where the ship left from, where it went and what kind of GPS equipment it was fitted with, I tracked all the GPS signals in that part of the ocean. I hacked into a Russian defense satellite and have observed all the names painted on the sterns of those ships until I found the one we are looking for. It's called 'The Forest Spirit' and is based out of Vilnius. It's current coordinates are-"

"Never mind that," Jamie said. "How soon can we be on board?"

"If we took the jet and parachuted onto the boat, we could be there in just under five hours," the gynoid said.

"Let's go," Jamie said. "Call Rose and Sandra and tell them to meet us at the airport! Pack for war!"

"Wait a minute," Ray said. "What about the guy?" He gestured at the Syndicate survivor lying on the floor.

Jamie coldly regarded the scared man. "Please," he said, "I have a family waiting for me. Two little girls who are going to miss their papa. Please, let me go!"

Jamie smiled an incredulous smile and raised his hand to stop the man's sniveling. "I'm sorry," he said, "did you just try to beg for your life by mentioning your family to me? Cause, I could have sworn that we were just in the middle of discussing how to rescue our families from you and your flunkies." Jamie laughed a bitter laugh. "And here I was going to give you a quick death cause I was in a hurry to go save my parents. How long until Rose and Sandra are finished with disposing of Sonya?"

"They have just arrived at the coroner's office," Nova said. "They have to go to the funeral home, after that."

Jamie made a face and twisted his hand as he estimated. "I guess we would have waited a half an hour for them at the airport, anyway," he said. "Might as well spend it here, killing you painfully." Jamie went to a closet and used his magic to whittle one of its corners into a long, heavy club. Everyone went to pack up their gear, leaving the man on the ground to talk to Jamie. He told him his name, where he lived and who his daughters were.