Necromancer Chronicles Pt. 13

Bell and Jeremy dragged off Celane to their room while Allie and Sue came up to mine. My whole body was humming in anticipation. Allie had been teasing me all night, keeping me close to the edge. Sue stepped into me when we closed the door and kissed me passionately. I felt Allie's hands join Sue's on my body as they stripped me down. I gasped when they picked me up and carried me to the bed.

They put me down and joined me, still fully clothed. By the twinkle in their eyes and the way they were both moving in on me as one I figured they had planned this. My breathing picked up and my heart sped as they assaulted me with pleasure, both of them concentrating on me. Allie took a moment and put a blindfold on me, I couldn't think much past that.

Not being able to see intensified every teasing touch on my body. Four hands and two mouths started to pleasure me as they held me down.

I had Sue gently working my breasts with her hands, mouth, and tongue while Allie assaulted my aching core with three long slender fingers, her lips, her tongue and her teeth. I gasped as I felt a wet finger from her other hand push into the tight ring of my puckered star. I'd been practically on the edge all night, and that broke me as I whimpered in pleasure, my body started to buck and I arched my back as I exploded in ecstasy.

I heard Allie's pleasured sounds as she lapped at my nectar and continued to finger me fast in both places. I came down long enough to catch a few breaths before I was rolled into another orgasm. They switched places, kissing each other as they passed while I laid there trying to recover. I wasn't sure how long this would go on, but I knew I couldn't wait to reciprocate...

The next morning over breakfast we reviewed everything we had gathered on Dan and the bosses. We had found a number of other humans involved in the cells in the second group but the third group was filling out extremely slow. There was also no indication of who the big boss might be which was frustrating to me.

Bell asked, "I know we can't attack yet, but how about something sneakier."

I raised an eyebrow, "What do you have in mind?"

Bell said, "Well, we know he has a laptop, I imagine he needs to keep track of things. People, money etc... Do you think he's dumb enough to keep it on his laptop? What if we go grab a copy of it or something?"

Celane grinned, "This is the real world, not TV. We could do that but it would take a long time to ghost his drive."

Bell looked a little crestfallen.

Celane continued, "But it's still a good idea. I have his passwords from the ghosts watching him work, if we went in at night we could poke around, even copy any files we find. Just taking the data will go much faster."

Jeremy asked, "Why do we have to poke around first, can't we just take all his documents?"

Celane shrugged, "What if all his stuff is online on a work server? We need to be on his laptop, check his file history, all that."

I nodded, "Can you three handle that? If we are going quiet we should keep the numbers down to a minimum."

Jeremy replied, "Sure, that shouldn't be a problem, where is his house?"

Celane said, "He's in the US corporate office, right outside Phoenix."

Bell looked thoughtful, "Closest I can get us is Vegas..."

Celane typed on the laptop for a minute, "We need to leave by noon then local time, so about nine here. It's a five hour drive."

I snorted, "Don't you mean by seven? I assume you'll be doing this late at night."

Celane grinned and looked up at me guiltily, "Of course, but I want to stop and check out Hoover's dam."

I kissed her, now I wanted to go too, "Sounds good. I'm going to call that human back. James Burnheimer."

Jeremy asked, "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

I nodded, "I think helping out a human if we can is a very good idea. We all should where our talents can be of use. For a price of course, like a new business. I was thinking about it last night, well, earlier this morning. I still need to talk to Sue about it, but maybe we could advertise services at her store. Yes, it's a risk, but the less marginalized we are, the safer we'll be."

Jeremy frowned, "What services could I offer?"

I shrugged, "Security? Extra warding, monthly payments for keeping things charged? How about an amulet of protection for a person's child, it could protect them when the parents aren't around if their magic gets away from them."

I continued thoughtfully, "I don't know, you're aware of your magic more than I am, but I know your magic has a light side, it isn't all sacrifice and blood. I was thinking of the other witches and sorcerer too, it would be good for them to do something positive for once."

There were a lot of little possibilities in there, between us all we had a lot more covered magically than the humans did alone. Maybe I was crazy to think it would work, but I was willing to give it a try. If we were able to stop the people after us I thought it had possibilities.

I kissed all three of them, giving Bell a wink and pinch and on the ass when I was done with her. I still felt a small barrier between us and I didn't like it. I wasn't sure what to do though to get past it. Maybe it was just that we couldn't open ourselves to each other, the way I could with my bond with the others. Actually, now that I thought about it, I was almost sure that was it.

I went into my office and picked up the phone...

"Burnheimer residence," a pleasant female voice answered.

"Hello, I'm calling for James Burnheimer. Is he in?"

"Hold please," she said and I heard her put down the phone.

It took a moment, but someone picked up and said, "James Burnheimer."

I recognized the man's voice from last night and introduced myself.

He said, "Glad you called. I was hoping you could come down to my house, I think I'm being haunted."

His voice lowered to a whisper, "By my damned mother in-law."

I held back a laugh and composed myself, "I can do that Mr. Burnheimer."

He asked cautiously, "When can you come by, and how much will this cost me?"

I considered that for a moment, "Can we talk about that after? I was thinking a thousand, but maybe we could make a deal instead?"

He replied, "That's fine."

I nodded, even though he couldn't see it as my mind spun with possibilities.

"I'll be there in an hour or so."

He said that was fine and hung up.

Sue was gone to work on the store, so I put on a nice dress skirt, blouse, and heels and left with Allie. I didn't feel like I was in any danger, but I remembered what she had said, it would be foolish to risk it when I didn't have to. I took the bus across town, I really needed to break down and get a car, I could more than afford it and now that I was leaving the house I needed it.

When we got close to the house I could feel the ghost. It got a whiff of my power and tried to run. I didn't want to hook the soul; it wasn't why I was here. But I couldn't let it run off either, not until I'd talked to it, so I reached out with my power and surrounded the soul so it couldn't escape. The ghost was under my power, but still had free will. As soon as I released my magic the ghost could leave.

I knocked on the door and a middle aged woman opened it with a smile.

"Hi, you must be Katrina, please come in and feel free to call me Fran. We're about to pull our hair out over this."

I smiled and walked in, and when she extended her hand I shook it. I wasn't expecting her to collapse but Allie didn't miss a beat and caught the woman easily before she hit the floor.

Fran opened her eyes, "I hate that. I'm okay now, thanks for catching me. I usually wind up on the floor with a bruise or two."

I was curious what she saw when she touched me, but was afraid to ask at the same time. She didn't volunteer any information, just leading us into the house. I pulled the ghost in like a kite on the string of my necromantic power. She looked young and was clearly related to the woman.

"Who are you?"

The woman frowned, "Nan. What are you doing in my house?"

I knew the appearance of age meant nothing as a ghost. More often older people looked younger after they died, it was what they related to better, what they wanted.

I asked her, "They brought me here because you're haunting them, are you Fran's mother?"

The ghost nodded and looked uncomfortable.

Fran asked, "Can I get you a drink or something?"

I shook my head no as James walked in the room and said, "No thank you."

James asked, "Is she here?"

I nodded, "Nan right? I'm talking to her now."

"Why are you haunting them?"

She scowled, "My daughter needs me, that James is nothing but trouble, a good for nothing man!"

I tried really hard not to laugh. It probably wasn't funny at all to these people, but it was so cliché I felt like my sides were about to split. When I felt in control I let them know what was going on in a diplomatic voice.

"Nan is... watching over you Fran. She feels that you need her. What do you want me to do? I can force her over and make her move on, or I can leave her here. The former would be what I recommend, but she's your mother."

James said decisively, "Send her to he..."

Fran cut him off, "Will you give me a moment with my husband?"

When I nodded she said, "Excuse me please and walked off with him to another room."

Nan looked at me furiously, I ignored her. I could try and talk her into it, that leaving was for the best, that all she was doing was making herself more frustrated and making her daughter's life more difficult. I could add that her frustration will just make her angrier, but I know she wouldn't listen to any of it. She already knew, she was living it, and she had already decided. Some people just like misery; her soul was one such example.

They came back out and Fran said, "I'm sorry mom, but we need to move on, and so do you. We'll see you soon enough on the other side."

They nodded to me, and I gave the soul a little push. It was the same conduit to the afterlife that I would usually pull magic through, this time, I pushed the soul through. I actually felt a little guilty even though I knew it was for the best. After all, even I wasn't completely sure what awaited them over there.

James asked, "So, what did you have in mind?"

I said carefully, "Just word of mouth if you wouldn't mind, and maybe leave a review once we have a website? That would help a lot more than a thousand EUR. Not many people would have asked me for help, it never would have occurred to them. I'm trying to... integrate more?"

Fran smiled at me, "I'd be happy to do that dear, and so would James."

James looked dubious, but agreed. They were a well to do family and if my ideas about selling services were to work out, networking would be key. And a website, I wondered if Celane could build one.

We left a few moments later; I felt a strange satisfaction that things had gone so well, outside of Nan's point of view anyway.

Allie whispered as we walked to the bus stop, "You're nuts."

I snickered, "Probably, it could backfire. Make even more humans upset that we'd dare to integrate, not stay apart. But there will also be a lot of them like James and Fran. I just hope the scales balance in the right direction."

Allie nodded thoughtfully as we waited patiently for the next bus...

Chapter 15 - Jeremy

Hoover Dam looked big in pictures, but they really didn't do it justice. Celane actually looked excited as we walked on top of the dam, surrounded by human tourists.

She was usually imperturbable and calm about everything, but apparently her passion was sightseeing and the dam was on her list. So after a late dinner we had teleported to the Vegas airport and rented a car. We were all dressed casually in jean shorts and t-shirts, looking like true tourists. Of course, we also had a duffel bag full of darker clothes, a portable hard drive, and my dagger sitting in the car.

The day was sunny, and hot. But I still had a good time. We got a few funny looks, I hadn't really considered the fae angle, but no one actually confronted us. The river looked to be very low when we looked over the side, the rock was worn and discolored and it was easy to see the river used to be much deeper.

We spent a good portion of the afternoon there and then hit the road for Phoenix. The drive wasn't too bad and we chatted about other places Celane had on her list as we took in the scenery. We also discussed Katrina's idea from earlier.

Celane asked intently, "So what do you think of Katrina's idea. She's already hit me up to build a website, Facebook page and Twitter account for it."

I frowned, "I don't know honestly, I'm probably not the best one to ask advice about that. I've been getting chased out of towns since I was a teenager, and hunted for the last few years. Volunteering my location to the world just... doesn't sound sane to me.

"That said, it wasn't the humans chasing me out of towns, and the hunters are an aberration from the fringes of society. It could work, but I'm not holding my breath. But I'll do my best if that's what Kat wants, and make sure she doesn't get hurt in the process if I can."

Bell's assessment was a little more optimistic, "It will raise the stakes. I think we'll gather more enemies, but I also believe we'll gather more friends as well, or at least humans that think we should stick around. I think it will work out."

I asked curiously, "Why Celane, have you seen anything?"

Celane shook her head, "My seer powers don't work on the large scale. I could tell you that most likely we will work in the long term, all of us as lovers. Or that our closest neighbor is about to turn up pregnant and it will be a boy, or... you get the idea. My magic doesn't show me large events, and I'm grateful for that, it's much safer trying to guide individuals to happiness than it is to see world changing events."

I couldn't argue with that.

We got into town around eight and did a drive by of the guy's house. The houses in the neighborhood were a little close together, which would make this harder. We wanted to be in and out without being detected, but that would be hard to accomplish being in magical detection range of a bunch of neighbors.

We drove around town for a while to give Bell the feel of a few places in and around the city before we returned the rental car to the local office.

"What now? Want to get something to eat?"

None of us really needed to, but it was habit, and it gave us somewhere to plan.

Celane replied, "Sounds fine to me."

Bell just nodded.

I hoped we were up for this, I wasn't a subtle person, sneaking around just didn't appeal to me. I'd have preferred to just take the guy out and take his laptop, but I knew Bell would be good at it. It wouldn't be easy though; humans didn't sleep anymore after all.

We wound up at a Mexican restaurant, the food was good but I hardly took note of it as we discussed the possibilities.

Bell asked, "Can you blur short term memories Celane? We may have to knock him out if he doesn't leave the laptop."

Celane shrugged, "Maybe, if he was out I'm pretty sure I could yes, conscious though he'd be able to fight it off."

Bell nodded, "Last resort."

We stayed at the table ordering some drinks as we chatted and watched the sun go down outside the window. It was around eight when Celane got a message from the ghost we had watching him, and the laptop.

Celane said, "He left his house, with the laptop and he's driving across town."

I asked, "Any idea where he's going?"

She shook her head, "No, we've only been following him a day or two. We don't know enough about his habits yet to even guess."

I nodded as she described the five minute ride, we'd been in that area earlier, which was a relief since we'd already turned the car in.

Celane said, "He pulled over in front of another house, looks like he's going in, there's a woman answering the door and... oh. This is good, their kissing and heading toward the back of the house, the laptop is in the car."

I opened my mouth to say something, but Bell beat me too it, "Be right back," and she got up and went to the ladies room. I didn't object to her going solo on us, I thought of myself as the incase something needed to be stabbed person on this trip, and Celane was the tech support.

She came out a few minutes later with a smug smile, carrying a laptop bag. She handed it to Celane and kissed my cheek looking both a little excited and sheepish.

"Sorry, it was just easier going alone and I didn't want to waste any time. I grabbed the laptop as shadow and got out of there. Hopefully he was too busy to notice me."

I sighed, "It's fine," acting put upon.

I stole a kiss, "I'm not really very stealthy anyway."

She grinned at me, knowing me too well to miss the truth.

Bell and I watched as Celane turned it on. After a few minutes she frowned, "There's nothing on the laptop, hold on."

She connected to Dan's work and started checking things, really she was going so fast through screens I could barely follow what she was doing.

Celane said triumphantly, "I think I found it, "and plugged in her thumb drive and started copying files.

I felt kind of useless right now, but I was still glad I was there. If anything went wrong...

Celane cursed, "Shit, he's putting on his pants to run outside. His girlfriend doesn't look happy about it, but he's going back for his laptop. He's being defensive about it, not supposed to leave it alone. I guess we only got this chance because he was thinking with his other head."

I snorted, I supposed I couldn't judge him for that, I'd been thinking with my dick when we ended up drugged and tortured. But I said, "We need to get it back there then."

Celane frowned up at me, "Just a second, he's still in the house arguing. It won't take long to finish copying."

Every second we sat there and waited felt too long for me.

She pulled the thumb drive out, put it in standby and shoved it in the laptop bag and said, "Hurry, he's leaving the house now."

I was just about to tell Bell to go already, but shadows rose up around the laptop bag and it disappeared.

Bell said with a smirk, "I didn't need to go back. I can still feel the space where it was from when I took it."

I nodded and held my breath, which really as an undead wasn't a special feat, so I crossed my fingers as well.

"Think he'll notice it was moved?"

We waited a second, both staring at Celane. Finally she chuckled and shook her head.

Celane said in a relieved tone, "No, he didn't even look at it, just reached in and grabbed and ran back inside. His mind is clearly somewhere else."

I asked, "So what now?"

Celane said, "We go back, and I go through all this financial data and spreadsheets and see what I can find."

We finished our drinks and asked for the check. After paying on our way out Bell surrounded us in shadows and moved us back home. It struck me then, and I wondered when I had actually started to think of this place as home, and it was...

Bell and I grabbed drinks for everyone and took turns filling Katrina, Sue, and Allie in on what happened. By the time we were done with the story of our day, and had heard about the haunting mother in law, Celane had made some progress.

Celane reported, "Good news and bad news. Which first?"

Katrina said, "Bad."

Celane said, "It could take me a while to trace the money trail. Right now it's looking like it is skimmed from the company's community outreach programs. But I haven't been able to figure out who is behind it, although they have to be high up in the company to be getting away with it like this."

I nodded, "The good?"

Celane said, "Well, the second group is like the first, sixty people split into groups of ten under one leader. The third group however is new and only has one and a half cells, so just fifteen people outside of the boss. I supposed a little over a hundred people in total isn't great news, but it could have been worse."