Witch Juice Ch. 09

The light poured into Emmett's vision as his consciousness slowly melded back into reality. He was laying on the cold floor still in his hospital room, squinting up at the light panels on the ceiling. A cacophony of noises quickly penetrated his senses: he could hear a man and woman arguing across the room, along with a strange, loud, pittering and pattering whose source seemed to be quite close to him. He could feel some vibrations coursing through the floor underneath him, the sound almost covering the irritated voices battling over by the entrance.

"...you have something to do with this, don't you? Is this another compartmentalized operation of yours?" the woman asked in annoyance.

"Listen, Freya, we could argue about this all day. I'm just saying that anyone could've put together those runes," the man responded, exasperated.

"Oh, you are just the master of bullshit."

The two continued to bicker as strength returned to Emmett's body and he could just tilt his head to the side to witness something that really woke him up. A trooper was writhing on the ground next to him, shaking and convulsing. His helmet was taken off, revealing a young man whose eyes were bulged open and spit was dribbling down his face, gurgling as his jaw hung open. Another trooper was kneeling over him, and though their face was covered, it was obvious they were in a panic as they clenched onto his hand. One trooper rushed over, pushing the kneeling one aside. They turned the spasming trooper over on his side as other troopers watched on in apparent shock. Emmett quickly sat up, bewildered at what the hell was happening. As he rose, a stone fell from his forward, clacking onto the floor.

"Oh shit, he's awake." The man suddenly stated. Emmett looked over at the two, who looked back at him, poised with shock. He recognized the woman as the colder leader of the raid from earlier, but the man was new to him. He had scruffy hair and a five o'clock shadow that, along with his tired, sullen eyes, completed the look of a man that simply did not care. He wore a beige trench coat that reminded Emmett of the kind that a private eye would have on. The man approached Emmett and looked over him.

"Hey... buddy, you're, uh, awake," he said with a gulp.

"What... the hell is happening? What's-"

"Hey now, hey. Alright," the man held his hands out as if that would calm Emmett down. "I just need you to settle down."

Emmett's head ached. He pressed his hand up to his temple and massaged it with his finger as the seemingly booming voice from the man rang through his ears. He sighed. "Listen, I know this all has something to do with... demons or something. Just... what's happening here?" The woman in the back suddenly turned to Emmett with a surprised look on her face.

However, the man's tense expression eased up a bit. "Okay, so you're a little onboard. That's good."

"But.. I remember a... raid? What the hell is happening?"

"Well, uh-" The man stuttered.

"Vincent! There's no time for this, we need to knock him out and take him back to HQ!" Freya piped up with a commanding tone.

Vincent turned to Freya. "Can you just calm down? It's not bad enough that you ordered a whole memory-wiping raid on this place?"

"You have no idea what we've prevented here. This was a Class 5 anomaly; months of memory stores were rewritten or hexed. This is going to take us weeks to fix!"

"I've heard your whole rant already, okay? This is a whole other thing- Oof!" Vincent cried out in pain as Emmett swiftly kicked him in between the legs. He then sprang up, presenting out his hand, which was armed with one of the shaking trooper's gloves, having swiped it from him while the two were arguing. He clicked at a small switch at the backhand of the glove and suddenly a spark of light fired out from the palm, striking Vincent in the face. However, much to Emmett's surprise, nothing happened, leaving him squinting in confusion.

"Take him out!" Freya ordered.

The other troopers raised their gloves in a battle stance, ready to fire, but Vincent suddenly put his hand up, signaling them to stop. "Settle down, settle down," he said calmly with a chuckle.

"Are you kidding-" Freya snapped.

"That was a good move, kid," he panted out, still reeled over from getting his balls kicked in. "But, unfortunately, magic doesn't work on Justicars."

"Justicars?" Emmett remembered that Lilith had mentioned them, but never extrapolated on what they were. He wasn't sure of how much information he should divulge to them. "Then you guys are like... good... guys?"

Vincent laughed, slowly regaining his composure. "If that's how you want to see it."

"Pretty hard, considering you just raided a hospital."

"Oh, this? This is standard procedure- oh, and you can put your arm down now."

Emmett still had his arm aimed at him. He was scanning the glove for any other button or switch that might fire out something useful, but he had no such luck. Emmett slowly lowered his arm.

"See, we're all friends here, okay? We're not going to hurt you."

"Vincent," Freya called out sternly.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

Emmett furrowed his brow. "That doesn't... really inspire confidence, I gotta be honest. How can I trust-" He was interrupted as the writhing trooper on the floor began to gurgle louder. "...and if you don't get me the answers I want, you're gonna end up like this guy," Emmett bluffed. He figured that this trooper met that same fate that Valdrina had when she had attempted to probe his mind.

Vincent raised his eyebrows and stifled a smile.

Freya stepped forward "Vincent, I'm about to call HQ and get Lagar on your ass if you don't bag this guy now."

"Oh no, what am I gonna do," Vincent joked with a sarcastic monotone. "Ok, kid, if you could send any of us into a seizure, you would've done it already. Instead, you swiped a Flash-Palm and tried to escape."

Emmett gulped as Vincent called his bluff nearly perfectly; he had to switch gears. He responded by putting on his best, villainous smirk that he had practiced with Jenna for years while they made fun of those horrible straight-to-DVD action movies.

"Looks like you got me,' he admitted.

Vincent squinted at him, curiously. "Alright then... maybe we can-"

"But, I can only attack you while I'm knocked out!" he cried dramatically. Emmett suddenly turned the gauntlet on himself, pointing his palm at his own face. He moved his other hand to press the switch. But, in the next instant, he felt a tremendous pressure on his forearm, and as he finally pressed the switch, nothing happened. Emmett's eyes widened in shock as Freya was already next to him, grabbing at his arm, somehow depowering the glove. Her fearless, cold eyes pressed into Emmett, his thoughts still processing how fast she had to be to move to his side that quickly. Even Vincent seemed slightly impressed.

"I understand now. We've seen this before, haven't we, Vincent?"

Vincent still wore a curious expression. He pondered for a moment. "...Right..." he trailed off. "That... psychic demon guy; a case I was on, years ago."

"It lines up perfectly. A medium shares a psychic connection with a demon. Once he falls unconscious, the demon wrecks havoc. The perfect alibi. I'll take him in-"

"Actually, Freya." Vincent objected. "Let me question him."

Freya stopped and glared at Vincent. "This better not be-"

"No, no, not one of my 'compartmentalized operations.'" Vincent rolled his eyes. "But, it was my case, wasn't it? Who better to deal with something like that than someone with some experience? Right? Plus, he was able to break the Anti-hex, we have to know how he did that."

Freya sighed and thought to herself for a few seconds. "Fine. I have other things to deal with here, anyway." She proceeded to wring Emmett's arm around while swiftly grabbing his other arm and forcefully bringing them behind him. She slung handcuffs on Emmett and presented him to Vincent. "But you must report everything back to me."

"No problem-o." Vincent pulled Emmett along by his handcuffs. Emmett stayed silent, simply scowling in defeat. In reality, he figured that if there was a way out, it was through this man that seemed more interested in him than the overall situation.

Vincent led Emmett down the hallway, the two walking silently. Emmett wondered if he could truly trust this man. He seemed to have some friction with the rest of his organization, which seemed to be incredibly heavy-handed in their tactics, so that was one reason to trust him. But he might also know about the fact that he's the descendant of Magnus; he could just be after his power. The air felt heavy, and his chest tingled with a nervous spark as Emmett began to realize how truly important he was to this whole magical world he was entering. If his semen could make supercharge Lilith to that great extent from last night, then his power could be accessible to anyone.

The two arrived at a seemingly random door in the hallway. Vincent knocked on it once, paused, then knocked twice.

"You wanna talk to me alone," Emmett piped up. "What's your game, exactly?"

Vincent smiled. "Keeping my mouth shut until I can trust those around me... we're playing the same game, right?" His smile beamed brighter as if he had cracked Emmett's code. He complied with the rules of the "game" and kept his mouth shut.

After a few seconds, the door cracked open. Vincent looked around as if checking if the coast was clear. Emmett looked around as well, though he didn't quite know what he would be checking for; Freya and her troopers, most likely. Finally, Vincent opened the door just wide enough to gently push Emmett through, and he followed suit. Upon entering the room, Emmett found a familiar face sitting on an office desk.

"Hey, you're... Lilith!" Emmett exclaimed.

"Shh!" Both Vincent and Lilith hissed out.

"You don't see me trying to be a little covert?" Vincent complained in a hushed tone.

"Okay, okay, sorry. Just a little... surprised." Emmett defended.

Vincent made his way to the desk and sat down in the computer chair. "Anyway, I think we both have a mutual friend here." He pulled up another office chair so Emmett could sit opposite him.

"I see you're still kicking-"

"What the hell did you do?" Emmett suddenly interrupted.

Lilith squinted at him. "What? I'm saving your ass!"

"No! I mean what did you do to this hospital?"

She looked genuinely offended. "What do you mean?"

"Actually, I'm pretty interested in that too." Vincent chimed in casually.

"What?" Lilith continued to look like she had no idea what they were worried about.

Emmett leaned forward in annoyance. "All these doctors and nurses are having, like, memory issues? Was that you?"

"Yes! Of course! How else am I going to cover all the... you know, collateral damage."

Vincent's jaw dropped in disbelief. "Wait... you've been using this hospital to cover all the human damage from demon fights?"

"Well, that's what I started to do, way back when I was still fighting demons," she stated nonchalantly. "But when I started hunting for Magnus' descendant I had to start putting all the more... traumatized victims somewhere..." her words started to weaken in resolve as she heard herself say them out loud. "I mean, like, one time I sucked off a senator's son! I couldn't just leave him in the club unconscious."

Emmett's eyes were widened with shock. "So you... enchanted everyone on staff here to just work for you whenever you needed? To cover for your little escapades?"

"Escapades? You mean trying to save the world from the demon threat while also hiding all the magic from humans?"

Emmett shook his head slowly, not believing what he was hearing. "Wouldn't taking over a whole hospital kind of... more easily expose yourself to the world?"

Vincent flung his finger out, pointing at Emmett. "Smart. Smart guy. Listen to this guy." He leaned forward in his chair. 'Lilith... I gave you all these tools... the Light-loop runes to mess with AV stuff, the demon scrolls to learn mind magic-"

"I know, I know. All in service of the mission."

"This is... just excessive, that's all I'm saying." Vincent fell back into his chair and sighed.

"This is beyond excessive!" Emmett complained.

"Oh relax. The Justicars deal with this sort of thing all the time." Lilith replied carelessly.

Vincent shot her a look like he was speaking to an idiot. "Do you know... how much time and effort goes into these wipe raids? This is going to take days to finish with all your dirty work! A whole hospital is out of commission."

"Well..." Lilith flailed her arms up. "We're here now, aren't we?" She presented Emmett with an extended arm. "Here we have him: the descendant."

"Fine, whatever. You're going to have to warp him out of the slip-space."

"Slip-space?" Emmett questioned.

"In order to totally disconnect this building from prying human eyes, Justicars can use special runes to send a whole area into a pocket dimension called a slip-space. Then replace the image of the area with a blank copy."

"That's... fucking crazy. How is that not excessive?"

"I know, I'm not an expert on it, but it works, ya know? Anyway, we set a perimeter around the area so no regular humans enter the hospital... Since... you know, an empty hospital is just as suspect."

"Then what's the point of the slip-space?"

"Block cell phones and whatnot. It makes sure no one can call out a window for help or anything like that, totally disconnected."

"So then... wait. You're busting me out?"

"Yes, kid. If you stay here, the Justicar R&D is going to... probe your ass, or whatever they do."

"I'd like to see that." Lilith joked. Emmett glared at her.

"If they find out that you have super semen..." Vincent paused and shook his head. "Then every director, captain, executive asshole off the board is going to be after your ass."

Emmett felt the air of tension around him tighten. It seemed stressful enough to hide the nature of magic from humans. But now he also had to hide from the magical world itself.

Vincent could see the stress growing on his face. "Hey, buddy," he said reassuringly. "Don't you worry. Lilith and I will take care of any bad guys coming your way."

Despite the strange, juvenile wording, Vincent's sentiments actually did calm Emmett down a bit. "Uh... thanks." Emmett cracked a small grin. "Okay, super-witch, let's... warp out, I guess."

Lilith's face turned a faint red as her confidence dissolved. "I... can't."

Vincent's face scrunched up in confusion. "What? It's just a slip-space, I know it's transdimensional stuff but the ley lines should be easy to transverse back to the real world."

"That's not it... the potion..."

Vincent buried his hands in his face. "Oh my god, please don't tell me."

"Did the potion... go wrong, or something?" Emmett inquired.

"I told you. I told you a hundred times that this would happen, Lilith." Vincent complained. "And what did you say?"

Lilith looked at the ground in shame. "I would take care of it," she said in a low, defeated tone. Suddenly she perked up. "But, all the research I did said that-"

"This is ancient wizard semen we're talking about, Lilith: this is crazy unpredictable stuff. You need to take this slower; you're rushing into everything thinking that you're on top of it all!"

Lilith leered at him in response. "Take it slower? We don't have time! You saw it yourself, the demon attacks are rising in frequency-"

"And what demons are we going to be fighting if all your magic is gone!?"

"It's not gone! It's just-"

"Hey!" Emmett whispered out harshly. "As much as I would also like to debate the efficiency of Lilith's so-called 'plan,' we need to get out of this mess now." The two stopped and looked at Emmett silently. "So what now?"

"Well... now that leaves me no choice," Vincent said, disappointed.

"Why can't you just warp us out with magic?" Emmett suggested to Vincent.

He shook his head in response. "No-can-do, kid. The Anti-hex seal bound to a Justicar is a double-edged sword. Magic doesn't affect us, and we can't use magic. That's why we have to rely on external forces like runes and other do-hickeys. Oh, and reckless witches."

Lilith rolled her eyes. "It's fine." she chimed in, "I just need... another 'sample.'"

"What?" Emmett's eyes bulged.

"How do you know that'll even work?" Vincent pressed.

Lilith thought for a moment. "Magnus' essence works with your body's own magical aura... but it's extremely powerful; it may have overloaded my own. So I think my body just receded my aura as some kind of defense mechanism after the effects wore off... but introducing the potion again should spark it up again."

"In theory," Vincent added.

"In theory," Lilith mimed facetiously.

Emmett nodded. "That makes sense, but if it's a defense mechanism, then doesn't that mean this potion is hurting you?"

Lilith thought to herself again. "Maybe, but... this is our only chance."

"Why?" Emmett asked. "Why is this the ultimate end-all-be-all weapon against the demons?"

"We don't have time for a whole class on this!" Lilith asserted. "I..." she gulped, as her next words struggled to make their way out of her mouth. "...need your semen, now!"

"Oh god," Vincent complained. "Alright, I'll... go to the bathroom or something. Shoot your goo, kid."

Lilith sighed "Won't get his 'goo' unless this guy gets over his... 'performance anxiety.'" she stated with annoyance.

Vincent's expression was frazzled, looking at Emmett. "What? How? Have you seen her? Are you blind?"

Emmett shook his head. A strange bolt of confidence suddenly hit him. "Alright, I get it. But... listen, after yesterday: I'm game."

Lilith raised her eyebrows, her heart pounding a bit faster at Emmett's words of resolve. "Really? Not worried about your little too-afraid-to-ask-out non-girlfriend?" She snickered.

"No, it's just..." Emmett struggled to find the words. "I don't know... after we did it... I feel... unlocked. Or something... it's hard to describe. Like-"

"There's some monster inside you?" Lilith guessed. She remembered back to her dream, where she and Emmett had dark-magic-ridden, beastly tentacle sex. The lucid feeling crept back up her loins, as a faint surge of erotic spark rush up her body at the mere thought.

"Kind of, I guess." As Emmett spoke about it, he started to feel more aroused, remembering the intense sex he had with her the night prior. He was amazed at how readily his penis now grew in his pants at the sight of Lilith. It was as if his eyes now automatically scanned her body: she was wearing the same, tight-fitting black tank top from yesterday, but now she wore a high-waisted, plaid skirt. This time, he felt ready to rail her and burst inside her, compared to before where even the thought of a handjob from her was a difficult sell.

"So it's settled then." Vincent got up from his chair. "However... something like this needs a more long term solution..."

Lilith perked up at hearing this. "Are you finally handing it over?"

"Don't get so excited," he warned. Vincent walked over and produced a silver key from his jacket. Lilith's eyes were sparkling with excitement as she observed the key, then grasping it in hand while stifling a smile. "I'm only giving this to you since I'm going out of town soon, so no sneaking files out of the library for a while."

"That's a key to a library?" Emmett asked.

"It's a magic key- get used to that by the way, magic-this, magic-that. Anyway, use this key on a designated transgate-hexed door, it'll take you to the Justicar's Trans-dimensional Data Storage Library. That's where we keep all the super-secret stuff we learn from fighting demons."

"..and that's going to help us... how?"

"Well..." Lilith continued, still embarrassed. "I need to do more research on the potion brew... so it doesn't just drain my magic after I use it."