Jaci Stone - Act 02

"I'm in it for her," I said.

"She was talking to Marci the other day about you moving into the house in The Hills and wondering how they would convince you to do that," Jer said. "Telling you that is beyond my mandate, but I figured it's better than them beating around the bush."

"That house in Newport Beach? No."

"The one I am referring to is in The Hills. I'll show it to you if you want."

"Jer, it's twenty minutes past four hours."

"By the time we get there everybody will be awake," Jer promised.

"Okay." What could possibly go wrong with a look-see?

Marcie pounced on me as soon as Jer and I walked in the door. Her little frame exaggerated her pregnancy, but she looked awesome. She looked even better naked and straddling me on the bed.

Our afterglow consisted of me laying in the triangular area between her tits and her baby belly. I rubbed her rounded abdomen, feeling the baby stirring within. "That's so amazing," I said. "I want to be there when he's born."

"You'll have to stay here so you can be by my side when they rush me to the hospital," Marcie gave my hair a tug. "Hint hint."

"The parking area is too small for my vehicles and trailer," I hedged.

"You just want to stay in the condo," Marcie said, pouting. "We have a track and a pool and a gym here. We even have yoga classes so you can watch all of us exercise our asses."

"There are plenty of areas to exercise around the condo," I countered.

"This house would be yours," Marcie said. "A gift from Frannie."

"No way!" I exclaimed. "This place must be worth ten million."

"About as much as that floor of the building that Leigh Landreau gave to you. I can understand why you want to stay there, Cassandra Lefort is still shacking up in the penthouse with Valerie."

"And why is that a problem?" I asked.

"Oh, pleeeeease. Guys cream their pants just looking at her." Marcie held up her hand. "You're a woman, I know, but she's not interested in real peckers."

So much for dreams coming true. "No, that's not the reason I'm staying there," I protested.

"Not the only reason," Marcie squinted. I made the poking motion at her. "I've got it! You're waiting for Jonah!"

Is she a mind reader? "Who is that?" I asked.

"Jaci, you're a horrible liar. I've seen the best try to lie to Francine, they fail. Why are you worried about him?"

"Because I think he is coming to try and scare Amethyst straight. I think he will be armed."

Marcie pushed me off her abdomen and grabbed her phone to call Dream. She relayed my information, then repeated it for effect. Marcie also added that if anything happened to Amethyst or her wife, Dream would get her ass kicked. "So how do you know? Did you dream it?"

"Yes, I did," I admitted.

"And what did we do in your dreams?"

"You didn't know me and called me 'Hook,'" I replied.

Marcie's jaw dropped. "Well, I'd never call you that in reality."

"Thanks." There had been something strange about Marcie in the dream, the way she had looked right through me? I didn't know.

"Do you want the house or not?" Marcie prodded.

"Yes, sure." Of course.

The reason that Marcie wasn't concerned about parking my truck and trailer at the house was because the house next door also belonged to Francine. It had a big garage to go along with the house, and a big trailer in the garage holding a gleaming stainless nitrogenator.

"Marcie," I growled as I turned to her.

The innocent doll look on her face caused me pause. "Doctor Granger just wants to talk to you. She'd be here already, but her vehicle got held up behind an accident."

"I can't imagine what Erin wants to talk about," I said. "Do you know?"

"Not my purview," Marcie shook her head. "I do know that Frannie respects Doctor Granger's work."

"What about Miranda Olsen's work?" I asked.

"The only reason Miranda is still around is because she's one of the early members of the club and was originally head of the S&T division. There is no real place for Miranda in Frannie's organization, and given the right reason, she's gone."

"Fair enough," I nodded.

"I'll be up at the house. You're about to get all science-y and I can't handle that."

My hand shot out and grabbed a single curl of hair. "You don't fool me a bit."

"Dear Jaci, I'm not trying to fool you. You know my brain and my body better than anyone ever has or will."

"You're welcome," I retorted.

Marcie went bounding up the hill and I turned to go into the garage. I felt a dilation wave go around me, strong and gooey. "Hello?"

"Just me," Harriet came around a corner. "You know what they want."

"I will not give them a weapon," I shook my head.

"Have you checked on your little plot out in the desert?" Harriet asked. "They know where it is."

"My plot...desert...shit." I had known about magic before, way before now. I had fought beings with lightning and fire. For real. "I forgot!"

"Forgetfulness spell," Harriet shrugged. "I had to wait until you and the bitch separated, her presence did nothing but bring you down."

"There were six of them!" And they hadn't looked human. "What were they?"

"You'll figure that out eventually. For now, you have to share the secret of how you did that plot with the club." Harriet handed me what looked like an awl, only bigger. This is yours, actually yours. It will write spells into anything, even stainless. You will probably still need gold or blood."

"How?"

"It's a magic wand, your wand. Look up the goddess Ceres on the internet, she won't be in the library."

"How did I beat those...things in the desert?" I asked.

Harriet sighed. "Jaci, I really can't tell you the how. That kind of magic is learned on the fly."

"What about The Library?"

"Sure, you can cast some of those spells; your kind of magic, really our kind of magic, isn't in any books. It...is...felt."

"I want to learn. You can show me."

"Learn for yourself. For now, trust Erin, she is one of the good gals. Oh, watch for the cameras. Toodles."

Harriet vanished, and her dilation wave collapsed. I went to examine the tank, eyeing the cameras strategically placed around the big garage. The antispy spell would work just fine on those. I found a scrap piece of metal and scribbled the spell out in Chinese. Sure enough, I felt the cameras being blocked. Despite what Pete had teased me about, I could do auras just fine.

Three thumps announced the arrival of Erin's Suburban. The two guards that exited at the same time as her came in to inspect the garage. They not-so-subtly examined the cameras and were even more shocked when they couldn't report their status over the radios. Erin watched me watching the guards, and waved them off when they gave their report to her. They eyed me suspiciously before getting back into their vehicle and speeding off.

"Hello again," Erin extended her hand. "I'm Erin."

"I'm Jaci," I took her hand, feeling the callouses on her palm. She may have been wearing a suit, but I knew she could do hard work.

"We found your plot out in the desert. It appears that you leased one acre of land from the government, but there are ten green acres there now."

Ten? What the hell had I been doing out there? "Amazing, isn't it?"

"It certainly is. I'd like to be able to study that effect; The Jaci Effect, as it were, up close."

My mind flashed back to the men who had been at the site, they were throwing lightning at me, and I had been throwing lightning back. Huh? "That may not be such a good idea."

"Why?"

"The last time I was out there, I was attacked. There were six of them." I was being mostly truthful.

"But why?" Erin asked.

Yes, why? "They meant to destroy my work. Not everybody is as interested in making the world a better place as you are." Good enough, I had been threatened more than once by 'Big Farm-a,' as I had explained to Starr and Pete.

"We don't have the resources to go up against those corporations, not yet," Erin nodded. "You could help with that."

"No. My personal well-being has been threatened by those companies." Strangely enough, I didn't feel threatened by a Mafia boss. Maybe it was time to revisit that strategy.

"Yet you took a tac-team onto a Mafia boss' estate." Erin held up her hand. "Frannie had them bugged when they checked an entire set of non-lethals out of the armory and said they were for 'training purposes.'

"I'll reevaluate that position when the need arises. But until then..."

"Until then," Erin agreed. "Of course it would help if I had a nitrogenator of my own to work with."

"What about the ones you already have?" I asked. "You did pay two million dollars for them, after all."

"Miranda isn't going to let those go. She's trying to figure out what the secret is. Are you going to tell me?"

"I will show you. We'll need some gold and some good whiskey, and a few drops of blood from a virgin."

"Well there are two of those here, I'll have to get someone to fetch the whiskey.." She took a band off her finger. "Is this enough?"

Erin seemed serious, so I checked her aura. Sure enough, she had never been with a man, or another woman for that matter. "Wow."

"You'll have to turn off your jammer so I can call for the whiskey," Erin said.

"Don't worry about that," I waved my hand, "The ingredients were a joke. This is all I really need." I held up the awl Harriet had given me.

"That?" She looked at me as if expecting me to pull a magic hat out of the awl.

"Come here," I cocked my finger.

"Nothing funny."

"Do you know Chinese?"

"Of course," Erin scoffed.

"Write this down: 'Mother Earth, hear my plea, I am giving back what you gave to me. Turn the dust into bright, so that your children can see day both and night.'"

"Catchy," Erin scoffed.

"Do it then," I handed her the awl.

"Why in Chinese?" Erin asked.

"It's the oldest of the written languages, plus ideograms tend to be shorter to write when you are in a hurry."

"I would have thought Latin." Erin finished her scrawl. "Now what?"

"Blood of a virgin," I pointed to the awl.

"How much?" Erin gave me a wary eye.

What had the book said? "One drop should do."

Erin pricked her finger with the awl and let a drop of blood fall on the surface of the nitrogenator. She yelped and fell backward as the blackness enveloped the shiny surface. "What...the...fuck!!"

"I guess you really are a virgin," I chuckled. "Never before have I seen that reaction move so fast."

Erin gaped a bit, then found her words. "The reaction?"

"I've never had the tools to really examine the reactions as they happen. Somehow, I don't think I want anybody studying it too closely."

"Because you're afraid somebody will weaponize it," Erin nodded. "Rest assured, I won't let that happen."

"Erin, I hope so. Come here."

She handed me back the awl as we walked further into the garage. There was a rack of stainless steel sheets of various sizes sitting next to a bench. I pulled a small sheet out and set it on the bench. Using the awl, I scratched the spell into the sheet and beckoned Erin forward and she squeezed another drop of blood onto the sheet. The metal was immediately coated in black. "Now watch."

Everything that was done with magic could be undone. The Library had shown me that there was a counter to the spell I was performing to enhance my tanks. Evidently I hadn't gotten that far my first foray into a magic library. I took a gold slip out of my pocket and held it up so Erin could see it. I laid it on the sheet, and put my finger on it. "Reverse," I commanded. The sheet vanished into a flash of light, leaving behind a dusting of black powder that quickly vanished.

"That's good to know," Erin nodded. "But I hope that it won't be necessary."

"I hope so as well," I nodded.

Erin and I spent the rest of the morning cleaning up the grounds around 'my' house and I gave her a lesson in the conversion factors she would need to know for her tank. When we were done piling the clippings and dead plants into the tank, I turned it on.

"How are we going to get it into the soil?" Erin asked.

"I'll show you," I promised. "Let's grab a snack."

Marci and her co-residents, who had taken off before Erin and I had started clearing the yard, came back in time to join us for the snack. Marcie introduced her girlfriend Whisper to me. I had seen her before, In my dreams she was the woman with Marcie that night at Califf. I knew right away that Whisper was Wicca, but what was she doing here?

Erin paid more attention to the injection system this time. Rather than having her sketch out the design of the tools, I gave her the plans for them instead. We did the injection routine for the yard and the flowerbeds I would plant the next time I had a chance.

Whisper caught up to me on the balcony outside my bedroom. "It's nice that you're finally here and have committed to staying," she said.

"You don't sound too sure."

"Marci is very attached to you. I don't want you hurting her, it would kill me."

There it was. "So much that you'd cast a forgetfulness spell on her?"

Whisper smirked. "I wouldn't do that to her. Also, your memory was cemented into her mind when you fell asleep together. I don't mind your presence, but I don't think I will embrace it while naked."

I hadn't fallen asleep in the dream, maybe that's why Marcie hadn't remembered me. I could understand the forgetfulness spell, but why the animosity? "Thank you," I snickered. "I have enough women wanting to jump into bed with me as it is."

"Erin doesn't want sex with you, either. She's very attracted to you, both mentally and physically, but doesn't want to give up her virginity to someone she has to share."

"For as smart as she is, she should wait," I nodded.

"Yes," Whisper nodded. "She's also a powerful wiccan, although she doesn't know it yet. Only wicca can cast that spell for blackening the metal, so your secret is safe."

"That's good." Whisper went back inside, and Erin came out. "Hello."

Erin joined me in leaning on the balcony rail. "It's an excellent process. The core samples show an abundance of nitrogen in the soil. I can't wait to do a farm-sized plot."

"Good luck with that," I snorted.

"Why do you say that?" Erin asked.

"The bigger the batch you make, the shorter the life of the mixture," I said.

"How about a bigger injector assembly?"

"You would need something to supplement the injection pressure. I never really played around with it, I was happy with the way things were."

"I'll need some input on designing the new system. You must have some engineering background to overcome some of the obstacles a high pressure system like that should have."

"I'm not sure what you mean," I admitted.

"Normally there would be some pushback depending on the distribution of the injector nodes. The way you divided the line pressure is to be commended. You split the lines without a regulator and the setup works," Erin said. "I'd like your input on designing a larger injector or even using multiple injectors from the same tank. That way we wouldn't have to worry about the time limit."

"The pressure from the tank is a constant," I admitted. "You can't use the pressure to power two guns, it would drop too fast. The tank provides pressure to inject as it is needed. However..."

"However..." Erin was hanging on my words.

"A supplemental pressure system might work. Get the liquid out of the tank and then add pressure to it. Backflow can be stopped with a preventer. Although...you start adding costs lugging a compressor around, the additional fuel and energy that will be expending outweighs the benefits of converting plant matter in the first place."

"Makes sense," Erin nodded. "How does the pressure get relieved after the process? It drops from over a hundred bar to eight or nine."

"Magic," I whispered.

"Bullshit," Erin countered.

"We'll see."

***

It took us over a week to deduce the source of the pressure. It was actually being produced by the heating process and was dissipated when the final product was formed. Erin had a variety of sensors at her disposal, something I didn't have in my years as a gardener.

Francine stopped in one day to take me to lunch. "I hear your work is going well, but that you could use some assistance."

"We're fine," I said.

"It wouldn't have anything to do with the two of you half-naked out there working in the garage, would it?" Francine asked.

"Frannie, Erin is one woman that I won't have sex with. Ever."

"Why's that?"

"I'd have to let Erin tell you that," I hedged.

"Miranda Olsen would like a look at your test data," Francine said. "She says that your work is important and should be disseminated as widely as possible."

"I'm sure," I panned. "All right, data only. Sources and methods stay between me and Erin for now."

"Why?" Francine asked.

Miranda didn't strike a good chord with me. "Because I don't like Miranda and what I've heard about her."

"Fair enough, Francine nodded. "I'd like dessert, please, Madame Stone."

"Sure."

After we finished our lovemaking session, Francine asked me if I would make another trip to Doctor Sahai. I told her that I wouldn't have the energy to give the doctor any more samples that day and would tell the doctor she was responsible.

Francine looked absolutely mortified, then told me that my favorite red-headed nurse would be disappointed if I didn't show. I gave Doctor Sahai the blood and cum samples, and in return I got to give Hannah a good fucking.

Khalila poked her head into the room after Hannah left. "You're horrible, you know that?"

"How?"

"Hannah wants to be your house nurse. Since you have eight pregnant women there as well as various staff and bodyguards, you'll need one," Khalila explained.

I pretended to think about it. "Sure, let's do that."

"I'll give her your answer," Khalila gave me a wink.

After I got dressed, Hannah came into the room sans nurse uniform. "Why did you go normal on me?" I asked.

"Just in my bag," Hannah smiled. "Don't worry, I'm gonna wear it alot."

A security team was coming in as Hannah and I were leaving. "Get out of the way," the leader demanded.

Bea stepped out of a shadow, interposing herself between me and the guard. "Get off it, Lar. Jaci is even more a member than Rowan McCreedy."

A woman stepped around Lar. She was shorter than me, had long, jet-black hair and sky-blue eyes. She offered her hand to me, "Hi, I'm Rowan McCreedy."

"Jaci Stone," I took her hand. "Are you an actress?"

Rowan gave me 'that' look, the one that I always got when I told people I didn't watch much TV or movies. "Yes, I am."

Lar cleared her throat. "Ma'am?"

"I have an appointment," Rowan said. "Would you like to have some coffee, maybe in an hour or so?"

"Sure " I let her hand go. "I'd like that."

"I'll be done in an hour."

"I'll be here," I nodded.

Even more curious was the way that the rest of Rowan's security team went around the three of us. "Bea?"

"That was fun," Bea chuckled. "I'll explain in the car, ma'am."

Bea gave me the full run-down on Rowan McCreedy. Rowan was an actress, but also one of the adopted daughters of General Anna Forrester, leader of the club. Rowan had been an abused wife and was chairwoman of the California Domestic Violence Coalition.

"Interesting," I mused. "What's the deal with her guards?"

"Rowan's security thinks they are above the 'later' members of the club. Every once in a while, they need to be put in their place, and I got the chance to do just that."

"Why?" I asked.

"Jaci, I'm really not allowed to tell you. Please don't put that whammy on me, okay?"