A-Cup Angst Ch. 09

When they saw Oleg's men come down the stairs, they dropped what they were doing and greeted their reinforcements. Everyone engaged in polite conversation to get to know their comrades. After about fifteen minutes, Sven's radio said, "Sir, M'bata Jonathan is approaching."

"Copy that," Sven said into his radio and went back upstairs to greet their boss. Everyone else made themselves as presentable as possible. They sent the charmed family and their servants upstairs, where they would be out of the way.

In a few minutes, M'bata came down the stairs, followed by Sven. He took a few appraising looks at the assembled troops. "Listen up," he called. "I am going to tell you why you are all here!" Everyone waited for his next words, anxiously. They had all heard the rumors of attacking a supercoven, or some such. M'bata smiled a wide smile. "We are going to teach Section a lesson! They fabricated a story about some coven that was supposedly attacking our interests, when it had been their doing, all along."

The gathered men relaxed upon hearing his words. They all had extensive experience with guardians of supernatural law and order worldwide. They weren't frightened of them. "Sir," Owen, the leader of the observers spoke up, "are you sure about this?" M'bata's dark eyes landed on Owen and everyone else inched away from the suddenly unsure Englishman. "It's just that... We have been observing here and... It's not like Section to use people as bait and then not give them protection."

M'bata leveled a death glare at Owen. Everyone took a step away from the plump, middle aged Englishman. M'bata nodded at Owen's comment. "True," he said. "That is not their way."

Owen's eyes darted nervously between M'bata and his own, formerly loyal, subordinates. "Well, then, there you go," he said and nervously licked his lips. He had no choice now but to stay the course and argue his point. "It's not Section, is it then? There's no backup... There's no Section trap."

Owen took a step back at the heat in M'bata's glare. "No backup, Owen," M'bata asked. "Then what are Section's alpha and beta strike teams doing right next to the campus of the University the coven is attending?" Owen's face fell. His limbs shook with a mortal chill as his heart beat faster than a hummingbird's wings. "Is it a random camping trip? Are they there to simply expand their knowledge? Learn new things? No, Owen. They are there in full tactical deployment, led by the two shapeshifters. And how come you and your team didn't see them?"

Owen was taking quick, shallow breaths as his gaze fell to the floor in front of him. He had failed M'bata and that meant just one thing. He couldn't find the courage to face his death. "We," he stammered, "w-we were ordered to observe the engagements with bounty hunters..." Owen's voice trailed off as his hand drew his own straight razor from his vest pocket. He looked at his hand in horror as it flicked the blade open and brought it up higher, towards his throat. His hand didn't obey him and his other refused to intervene, as well. "No! No! No!" His cries of denial ended when his own hand slit his throat from ear to ear. Owen gurgled and collapsed. His blood started pooling on the floor.

Everyone was staring in horror at yet another demonstration of M'bata's power. They inched away from the dying man and the expanding pool of blood. The silence was finally broken by Oleg, who said, "So, it's a trap and we go home, yes?"

"No," M'bata said.

Oleg took a look around the basement. His group was there and they were strong casters who had been fighting together for a long time now and he had every confidence in them. Owen's group never had much of a reputation, and if they missed a host of lawmen under their noses when their mission was to observe, then he was sure they would be of no use in a fight against them. "M'bata, if it was only one of those teams, and there were no shapeshifters," Oleg said, "then we could fight them for you, maybe even win. But both of their elite teams? And those two old shapeshifters?" Oleg shook his head. "We will lose. For sure."

M'bata's dark eyes settled on Oleg. The Belarussian stood his ground and all but defied the boss to strike him down. His group had not only pulled jobs and acted as enforcers, they also fought together as mercenaries and those bonds were not likely to break. If M'bata went after Oleg, his men would kill him in a heartbeat.

M'bata smiled his lopsided smile, the one that Oleg knew meant the tall man had already played an ace from his sleeve. Oleg smiled as well and shook his finger at him. "What did you do," he asked, playfully.

M'bata ran his hand through his fetishes and made them rattle. "I cast a spell," he said. It was a huge understatement as M'bata had nearly crossed over to the spirit world permanently, while weaving his great work of magic. "They will not be bothering us until the dawn. We have all night to make our statement." The mercenaries laughed in relief, partly eager to lighten the mood after Owen's death, partly glad to hear the long hand of the law had been dealt with. None doubted M'bata's claim.

"Sven, make it official and call off the bounty on the coven," M'bata said. Sven nodded and went upstairs to make the calls. M'bata addressed the troops. "You've probably all been poking your noses where they didn't belong and have heard about this coven that was claimed to be attacking our interests. Well, never mind that. It's actually a good thing, because we are going to use that fake file to script our assault tonight.

"The bait coven is holed up in a mansion, like this one, on the other end of the park. The boy, Jamie, is stated to be fascinated by rift spells and to have asked everyone he came across about them. We will open by disintegrating him with a rift spell. Oleg, your group is to construct the rift. You will run it, since you count as... How many people did you get to drain themselves for you?"

"Only three," Oleg said.

M'bata nodded and continued, "Since you count as four casters. I want you to disintegrate half the boy and leave half his corpse for Section to see."

Oleg asked, "Nineteen casters just to take out one warlock with a rift spell?"

M'bata nodded in agreement with Oleg's questioning of a tactically unsound move. "We are not here to do battle," he said "we are here to send a message to Section. They wanted to flush us out and capture us and use us to bring down our organization. We will slaughter their bait, right under their noses, so everyone knows what will happen to them if they ever try this again. Next on the list is the asian girl who is claimed to be able to defeat all destructive spells. I want all the casters from Owen's group to slam raw destruction spells into her. I want only a crater left where she once was.

"Remember, you are to target her with the spells, not her surroundings. I want her tiny remains scattered in an even circle so everyone knows that no asian bitch can resist our magic. Not ever. Finally, the four big breasted girls I will deal with, personally. I shall make two of them attack the other two and then the sharpshooters will kill the survivors. I want this to be over with in an instant. Everyone clear?"

The assembled nodded as one. Oleg asked, "We breach the perimeter with the rift?"

"No," M'bata said. He had managed to possess a kitten, with the use of one of his fetishes, and sent it to investigate the house in question. He made the kitten meow pitifully outside the door and one of the big breasted girls took it in to give it a saucer of milk. As soon as the kitten was taken across the doorstep, M'bata was slammed with enormous feedback from the numerous wards that were placed on the house. He had managed to maintain his link for a few seconds and determine that the place was laced with so many traps and wards that an army of vampires wouldn't stand much of a chance against the coven, while they were inside.

The effort to maintain the link and investigate the house's magic preparations drained him more than anything he had ever done before in his spellslinging career. It took even more effort than his spell, worthy of an epic, that made all of Section's finest run around in circles, instead of doing their duty. He had reached the edge of his ability and power, even before he had to possess Owen's hands in order to punish him. "I only have two more spells to cast and then I will rest," he told himself.

"Their dwelling has all the protection that Section could cram into it," M'bata said. "I will draw them out in the open and there we will take them. Out in the open, so Section has an even tougher time of covering it up. Sharpshooters, choose your positions so you have a clear shot at the coven as it comes out of the mansion and towards the piled snow! Go and take up your posts!" The marksmen from both Owen and Oleg's group picked up their blankets and rifles and went to climb the nearby rooftops. "Let Sven know when you are ready!"

"How will we get the coven to leave their protection," Oleg asked.

M'bata just smiled his lopsided smile and Oleg nodded in understanding. Sven came down the stairs and turned to M'bata. "It's done," he said, "the bounty is recalled. It'll take a few days for word to make all the rounds, but it's done."

"Good," M'bata said, "good. Let me know when the sharpshooters are in place, we move out when they're ready." He walked over to a table with food on it and sampled some.

Jamie sat in the bay window of the mansion and looked out at the park. Dusk was gathering and the snow was starting to twinkle under the street lights. There was no sign of Syndicate's baddest coming. He was eager to kill some bad guys and impatient to get to it. He needed them to come so the twins can fuck information out of them. Helena sat next to him. "How are you feeling," she asked.

Jamie glanced at her face and then his eyes fell to her bosom. "Where's your vest," he asked.

"I can't spend the whole day in a bulletproof vest, Jamie," she said. "It's uncomfortable and it-"

"Put it back on," he said, his voice cold. Helena rolled her eyes and went to do it. She knew better than to argue.

Jamie's eyes followed her ass as it swayed out of the room. He heaved a big breath. He missed the feel of her flesh quivering in his grasp. As soon as he got their parents back and punished all those responsible, he was going to resume his old habit of incessantly fucking his slave girls. He looked over to the Scots on the couch. Felicity was stroking the fur of the purring kitten that Rose had taken in. At first glance, Jamie perceived the kitten as a threat and nearly toasted it in Rose's hands. He didn't know why he had such a reaction to the little ball of fur. He loved cats, and kittens were the cutest thing there was, as far as he was concerned. After a few moments, his instincts to snuff the kitten had passed and he had let it stay with them.

"Isn't it cute," Felicity said with a smile.

"I say you should toss it out," Ray said. "It'll impede us in our fight."

"What have you got against cats, Ray," Jamie asked.

"Nothing," the Scot said, "I love 'em like everyone else in this house does. That's the problem. The warm, fuzzy feelings it gives us will make our spells softer in the fight."

Jamie blinked and frowned at him. "Say, what?!"

Ray and Felicity stared back at him, unsure of what to make of Jamie's statement. Finally, they decided it was an order to explain Ray's position. Ray said, "Well, every caster's spells are, in some small part, affected by his or her state of mind at the time of the casting."

"Bullshit," Jamie said and snorted in derision, it sounded like new age hokum to him. "You can't be serious." He rubbed his fingers together and fed his magic into the heat generated by the friction. A small flame came to life above his hand. "A flame is a flame, whether I'm happy or sad. Look at it! I woke up with a nightmare, then I got a tape of my parents being tortured, raped and mutilated, then I took slaves and now I'm eager to kill or capture a bunch of bad guys. For all of the strong emotions the day has put me through, this flame is constant. I could have ignited it at any time and it would have burned the same."

Ray and Felicity shrugged as one. "There's flames and then there's flames," Felicity said. "The girls say that your actual base is currently out of commission since you burned down the kitchen." Jamie's brow drew down in displeasure at being reminded of it, but he nodded affirmatively, all the same. Felicity smirked a bit as she said, "Well, there you go. A flame spell you cast was affected by your emotional state. I'm going to guess that, at the time, you had a lot of pent up wrath to release."

Jamie shot her a wry look. "Hardy, har, har," he deadpanned. "I heard the girls tell you about the first tapes. It doesn't take a psychic to guess my mood at the time." He sighed. As dumb as what they were saying sounded, the wait was boring him. "Tell me more about this supposed relationship between moods and spells."

"The simple, direct, elemental spells are a poor example," Felicity said. "Invested spells and rituals are where the mood and mindset can have the most unforeseen consequences."

"How so," Jamie asked.

"Well," Ray said, "take the ritual you enslaved us with, for instance. The duration of our slavery to you is stated by the words 'for the rest of your life', but it is determined by your state of mind as you speak the words. What were the thoughts in your mind when you spoke those words? Did you envision our servitude to last until we died? If you did, then our enslavement actually ends at the precise moment of our death and we could be free of your rule if we became clinically dead, even for a minute, and were then resuscitated."

"Bullshit," Jamie whispered, astonished. The Scots shook their heads no. Jamie pointed a finger at Felicity. "What was going through your mind as you named his price?"

"That the true meaning of the words of the price is in your mind," she said. "The ritual then retrieved that from your mind. If you want to know if Ray's slavery has an escape clause, then you have to ask yourself what you were thinking as you gave me the order. Ray and I both keep journals. We write down our thoughts of the day, what new ideas we had and such, and we also keep track of every complex spell and ritual we cast. We frequently revisit those journals to decipher what it was that we did. More often than not, we find that what we wanted to accomplish and what we actually did are two slightly different things."

"Where are these journals," Jamie asked.

"In our motel room," Ray said.

Jamie sat back and considered what the twins were saying. He knew they were telling him the truth, or at least, what they earnestly believed to be true. It did make sense to him, in a perverted kind of way. An idea came to him. He could have Sonya drain Rose and Sandra of magic and then liberate the two of them by making them technically dead for a second. Rose and Sandra didn't truly deserve to be his sex slaves, unlike Sonya, who had planned to snuff Jamie just to hide the fact that she had been deflowered by him. He'd keep Sonya to cast alongside him, and she and Helena would be more than enough pussy for him to handle, particularly with Felicity in the mix. He'd have a blonde, redhead and brunette sex slave. He grinned at the mental image.

It was a very nice plan of action, but he was one hundred percent certain that when he enslaved the Scots, he was thinking of them as his slaves for as long as they existed, not until the moment of their death. He tried to think back to the day when he had turned the rituals against the girls and made them his slaves. That day seemed like a lifetime ago, even thought less than a year had passed since.

After a long period of introspection, during which he couldn't quite recall feeling anything that day but wrath towards the girls, he decided he must have imagined them being his slaves for as long as they existed, too. He sighed unhappily and cleared his mind of such thoughts. A life and death fight was coming up and he needed to clear his mind of all the what ifs and maybes. He decided that, after they rescued their parents, he'd have Sonya drain the two girls of magic and then kill and revive them. If that could make them free, he'd wipe their memories of their time with him and let them go. If not, he'd be back to where he was.

"What was the nightmare," Felicity asked, interrupting his train of thought.

"What?"

"The nightmare that woke you up this morning," Felicity said. "What was it? Can you remember?"

Jamie looked out the window, seeking a sign of Syndicate's imminent attack. After a few minutes, he said, "I dreamed I was a character in a pointless, terrible story. Like in that Will Ferrell movie. I met the author and I begged for our families to be safe and sound. I begged for the torture to stop. The author looked at me, laughed and resumed typing. With each stroke of the keys, parts of me fell off and landed on the page. This kept going on until I was trapped on the page and I woke up." The Scots made no comment to the bizarre dream.

M'bata burned the hair his men had gotten from Suzie Jacobs' hair brush and cast his power into one of his fetishes. He took out his cellphone and pressed the call button.

Jamie's phone rang. He looked at the caller ID, but didn't recognize it. He shrugged and answered it. "Hello," he said.

Suzie's voice came on the line, saying, "Hey, bro, the guys you sent for me are here. See ya soon!"

The line went dead and Jamie insides churned in sudden dread. He lost feeling in his limbs. His worst nightmare had come true. Syndicate had somehow seen through all of his preparations and ruses and they got to Suzie while he was waiting for them here. "THEY GOT SUZIE," he bellowed and rushed outside. Everyone scrambled to follow him. He needed to get to her house and maybe, just maybe, he might pick up the bad guys' trail and save her. Maybe, it wasn't already too late.

M'bata smiled seeing the boy charge out of the house and all of its protection. "Stupid boy," he said. "Start the attack!" He gathered the last of his power to cast his spell. He hoped he didn't pass out with exhaustion. Collapsing during a mission that is meant to cement their organization's fearsome reputation would lead to a significant loss of his own reputation. He sent a spirit to possess the two taller busty girls and make them fight the rest of the team. The effort required drained the last of his strength.

Jamie's eyes teared up as he rushed towards his Cayenne. He didn't care about the icy roads, all he cared about was getting to Suzie, as quickly as possible. A rift spell caught his attention. It wasn't a solid object like the one Eric Johansson had used, but it was complete, fully functional and barreling straight towards him. His Jedi instincts suddenly burst through the chains of panic that had seized his mind and told him of numerous threats to him and his group. Jamie instinctively let his stored up spirits guide him. One of them possessed him and suppressed his emotions, allowing him to respond to the threats instantaneously. It cast all of Jamie's power, together with another stored spirit, and wrested control of the rift from its handler.

Oleg's jaw fell as the rift rushed back to him. "End it," he screamed. "End the spell-" His group was surprised to hear the panic in his voice, but they responded quickly and withdrew their power from the spell, making it fade from existence. They saw that they were just a fraction of a second too late when the back half of Oleg's body fell among them. The other half of his body was atomized and dispersed among them, stunning them all with the resulting ionic discharge. They seized weapons and readied spells and rushed out into the park to kill the bastards responsible for the death of their leader.