Courts and cabals, p.12
Courts and Cabals, page 12
“We’ll get started in a second, but I think everyone should be aware that this is being done for a reason.” He always found it best to attach something of significance to make them cooperate better. The old ‘carrot instead of the stick’ philosophy. “A student was injured in this illegal use of magic. There was a near miss with a lightning strike that knocked the poor kid out for hours.”
He watched closely at reactions. Some were horrified at the statement, some looked concerned, but didn’t think it applied to them, and one didn’t seem to care at all. He made a mental note to focus his attention on the latter individual.
“Mr. President,” he addressed the lawyer. “I’m going to need a fresh physical for Mr. Cameron Dupree. He has a right under the WRA to know what happened, and he has a right to press charges if he was injured by unauthorized magic. There is a reason these provisions are in place.”
The last statement got a mixed reaction. For the most part, magic was unregulated. The WRA only mentioned permitting and legal registration requirements for higher-level magics, or magic use that could affect the welfare of others. Large scale weather magic fit the bill, especially after the incidents in India during the last drought. Someone had tried to make it rain and killed thousands in mudslides and flooding. Vernon hadn’t been assigned to that cleanup, or the hunt for the perpetrator, but he’d read the reports.
Since all the teachers were mages, they saw the wisdom of having limits, but being humans, they didn’t like being told what to do; especially when they considered themselves the apex of humanity. He was fine with that. They could think of themselves however they wanted, but if they took it too far, it was his job to stomp them back down.
“Mr. President?” Vernon asked when the man was slow to respond.
“I’ll call the nursing staff at once,” the sweaty man replied, and got on his phone to do just that.
“Excellent,” Vernon pulled out the same artifact he’d used for the students, and a few others he’d been saving for the people he needed to take a closer look at. “Let’s get started.”
Chapter 11
I didn’t know what Lilith had done, but the floor monitor in charge of ensuring all students were signed back into their dorms on the weekend didn’t bat an eye when I walked into the building just before nine. The guy didn’t even raise an eyebrow at the field dressing that was still wrapped around my chest. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. What did she have to do to save my ass for breaking curfew?
Generally, I didn’t think of myself as a chivalrous guy. Chivalry was long dead, and even if it wasn’t, there was no way Lilith needed anything from me. I’d seen her throw another supernatural through a fucking wall with nothing but the power of her mind. What was I going to do that rivaled that?
“Feed her my super cum,” my brain helpfully supplied. “And make that money.” I chuckled to myself and headed upstairs.
My door was locked, and when I opened it, nothing looked out of place. I half-expected to see the place ransacked by Aveena’s people, but it looked just as semi-organized as I remembered. The first thing I did was text Jerome. He lived two floors down and could be up in a few minutes. I needed a neutral third party to act as Switzerland between me and the Fae noble. As far as I knew, she had no beef with the werewolf. Her changelings bought weed from him like everyone else.
Next, I needed to get changed. I couldn’t walk around with the dressing on all day. That would bring a lot of unwanted questions. Three, I needed to take a shower. I hadn’t even washed my dick since Chloe tried to drown me.
Gently, to avoid aggravating the wound, I slowly undid the makeshift sling. My body ached as I untied the knot and slid it over my head. Next was the blood-stained bandage. The adhesive edge was already starting to peel away, but it still hurt like hell when I ripped it off, and pulled more than a little hair off my chest.
“Huh,” I looked at the wound, or more specifically, the lack of one.
The skin around where I remembered being stabbed was still a fresh pink. There was some black and purple bruising around the area, but other than that, there was no stab wound from the glamour dagger that tried to pierce my heart.
“Score one for sex magic,” I assumed. I’d literally spent all night in bed with Lilith, and if she wanted me in her harem, she wouldn’t settle for damaged goods. “Add that to the pro’s column.”
Most supernatural species had the ability to heal themselves much more rapidly than humans. Shifters, for example, as long as they weren’t hit with silverbane, could heal from bullet wounds in minutes. The ability to heal themselves was something that made the supernatural so much more dangerous than the average human. If a human soldier got shot, they were down for weeks. If a supernatural got shot, assuming the bullet didn’t just bounce off their skin, it barely slowed them down as they continued their attack. While that healing was common, the ability to heal others was much rarer.
Mages had spells to speed things along, cure cancer, and even pull poison out of your bloodstream, but it took a lot of magical energy to do simple things like make a broken arm heal twice as fast as normal. They often worked in teams and cycled among patients; giving a little bit of their energy to help the greatest number of people. I knew there were never enough of them, and they were all concentrated in big-city hospitals. Not in bumfuck nowhere.
Having access to that kind of magical medical abilities was thrilling. On top of the promise of security, Lilith’s deal was looking better by the second. I’d just tossed the bloody bandage in the trash when Jerome appeared in the doorway. He took one sniff and a shit-eating grin split his face.
“You’re a dog bro, a straight playa,” he finished up by making a ‘smack that ass’ motion. “I smell that succubus funk all over you,” he paused, “and blood, with a hint of Fae,” his face turned serious. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “Things between Aveena and I are . . . complicated. “I need you to set up a parlay. Are you two on good terms?”
“Yes. As good as they can be with an Unseelie,” he replied, pulling out his phone. “When are you looking to meet?”
“The sooner the better. I need to sort this shit out. I’ve got her product, and then some. I just need her forgiveness.” The look on Jerome’s face said ‘good luck’, but he made the call anyway.
He didn’t actually call Aveena. No one called her directly. Everything was managed through her changeling vassals. While he handled that, I grabbed a towel and headed for the showers. It was a mildly traumatic experience. I half expected the water to come alive and try to drown me again. Chloe was still on the loose, and if a water nymph was anything like an Aqua mage, I didn’t want to be anywhere near liquid while she was around. I also gave my dick a good scrubbing to clean off the caked-on bodily fluids, but that was it. I was in and out.
A good thing too, because when I emerged from the bathroom, Miller was waiting by my door. “Dupree!” he yelled. “Get to the infirmary, now.”
I panicked for a second. I assumed he knew about the fight, my stab wound, and breaking curfew. I braced for him to rip me a new asshole, and get detention until winter break, but the grouchy history professor just turned and left. I gave Jerome a questioning look and he just shrugged.
“Go, and I’ll text you once I have something,” he waved me off.
As I quickly got dressed, he pulled a joint out of his pocket, opened up the window, propped himself on the sill, and lit up. Why have his room smell like weed when he could smoke in mine? I ignored my friend’s vice, and would have joined him if I wasn’t rushing off to the infirmary.
A harried nurse was waiting for me at the door. The same old lady who I’d woken up to after my unfortunate proximity to a lightning strike. “This way,” she hurried me inside to one of the rooms. “Take off your shoes and step on the scale.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, while I followed her instructions.
“There’s an investigation into the lightning strike that almost hit you,” she replied, as she pulled out a tablet, linked it to the school’s net, and swiped through pages to get to my profile. “The school wants a complete physical.” She didn’t elaborate, but I read between the lines.
The storm wasn’t natural, someone fucked up, and if they were liable, I was about to have a third option for income. I couldn’t stop a grin from forming as she started with the basics. “Weight two-ten. Height seventy-three and three quarters inches.”
I did the math. “Almost six-two?” That wasn’t right.
Admittedly, it had been a while since my last physical – two summers ago if I remembered correctly. I’d been five-ten then, and while it wasn’t uncommon to have a final growth spurt around this time of my life, putting on nearly four inches seemed like a lot. I was surprised my clothes still fit, but I’d always preferred pants and shirts a little loose and baggy. It was easier to hide stuff that way. As I looked myself over, sure enough, the jeans weren’t as baggy as usual, and the long-sleeved t-shirt was a little tighter than I preferred.
“Not that the ladies will complain,” I mentally massaged my ego.
I didn’t weight myself often either, but I didn’t usually break one-ninety unless I’d stuffed myself at Joe’s. Adding twenty pounds was something I’d missed in the last fourteen months. On the other hand, I’d started hitting the gym more, and had filled out a bit with muscle. Working out with shifters who could bench press a truck had its advantages. I resisted the urge to make a muscle in front of the old nurse.
“Don’t want to give her a heart attack,” I thought highly of myself.
“Read the bottom line of the chart?” she continued, oblivious to my inner monologue.
I’d always had perfect vision, and that hadn’t changed; after stepping out of the sound booth, my hearing was still perfect as well. She took my blood pressure, measured my resting heart rate – an impressive fifty BPM – and swabbed my cheek for a DNA test. She checked my reflexes, which were great. She had me take off my shirt to poke and prod my abdomen. I didn’t have a six-pack, but my abs looked a little more defined than I remembered.
“My workout routine is working,” I concluded.
She asked me about the bruising on my chest, and I told her I fell. It was the universal excuse when someone got in a fight, but she bought it. She jotted some notes down on her tablet, and shook her head like this was all a waste of time. I agreed, I’d been cleared by her less than twenty-four hours ago.
“Okay, drop your pants,” she ordered. I did as I was told; thankfully, I had enough time to shower. It would have been super awkward otherwise. “Turn your head and cough,” she ordered as she examined my balls for a hernia. “Other side.”
I had my pants up a moment later, and we were all done. “When am I going to get the results of the investigation?” my question clearly made her uncomfortable.
“You’ll need to ask the Dean about that. What I can say is that you are completely healthy, probably in the best shape of your life, with no observable side-effects from the lightning strike,” she sounded very clinical as she spoke. “You can request more thorough testing; x-ray, MRI, ultrasounds and the like, but you’ll have to pay for those, and I doubt insurance will cover them.”
That put a damper on my third revenue stream. Those tests would be several grand, and I doubted the insurance, or my parents, would cough up the cash when I seemed perfectly healthy.
“Thanks,” I replied a little deflated.
“You’ll get a copy of the physical in your email,” she informed as I left, but I didn’t need something to tell me I felt fine.
I was halfway back to the dorm when I got a text from Jerome. Aveena would see me now. Thankfully, I’d planned ahead and had my offerings with me. It was a risk bringing them to the infirmary, but I didn’t think the nurse would go through my shit. It paid off, and I was waiting outside Aveena’s dorm for Jerome to arrive with time to spare. The last thing I wanted was to be late to this meeting.
As the neutral party, it was Jerome’s job to make sure Aveena and I got along. Ideally, the third party was strong enough to make the participants play nice, but the only person I knew strong enough to stand up to the Fae noble was Lilith. Having the succubus present would only make things worse.
“You ready?” Jerome asked, looking a little paler than usual. This was more responsibility than my friend was used to dealing with.
“Yeah,” I took a deep breath before pushing the door open.
Just because I was willing to treat with the Fae didn’t mean I was stupid. I texted just about everyone I knew I was going to see her. Jerome had signed me out of my dorm, and I made a point to have a quick conversation with the faculty on duty in Aveena’s dorm as I signed in. Everyone and their mother knew where I was. I was probably trending on Twitter. If Aveena tried anything, she wasn’t going to be able to hide it, and she’d have to answer for it. The price might end up being cheap for her, but I’d make her pay something if she killed me.
I don’t know what it was, but I felt emboldened as I emerged on her floor. “It’s probably the fact you survived last time,” I told myself, but that just made me realize Lilith wasn’t going to come to the rescue. “Maybe this is a bad idea.”
Too late. Aveena’s door was obvious. Two changelings stood guard on either side of it. Both were strapping young men, but both looked tired. If I had my guess, they’d been there all night.
“Cam,” I knew the changeling on the left, and he moved to pat me down. He pulled out the baggies I’d brought with me.
“Offerings,” I informed.
He pulled a scanner out of his pocket and ran them over the bags. Several beeps followed as the magical properties of each were identified and deemed unthreatening. They might just be teenagers, but Aveena was running a legit security operation with all the tools of the trade.
“You’re good to go,” he pointed through the open door, and into a room that looked completely empty.
Jerome and I stepped forward. As we crossed the threshold it felt like we were doing the ice-bucket challenge. I shivered, but from one blink to the next, the entire room changed. Every room at the academy was the same; about two hundred square feet, with either a single, or pair, of beds and desks. That was what Lilith’s room was like, Jerome’s room, and my room. Apparently, Aveena didn’t give a shit about how it should be.
First off, it was slightly hotter and more humid in this room. Instead of hardwood floor, there was a thick layer of moss acting as a carpet. Paved stones were set around the entryway, which as I turned around, looked more like an arched cave entrance than a door. The moss sloped upward away from the entrance. Several small boulders with bright-green lichen littered the area. On those boulders sat changelings, and I was positive not all of them went to St. Vincent’s.
Jerome and I walked forward under the eyes of Aveena’s vassals. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this room was much larger than it should be. I could walk the distance from one end of my room to the other in a dozen strides. A dozen strides in here, and I was still following a stone path circling up a small hill. After a good twenty yards, we came to a small jut-out with what looked like a natural hot spring. Steam rose from the crystal blue water, so you could see the naked body of the woman lounging in it.
Jerome perked up at the sight, but I’d already seen everything this particular woman had to offer.
“Hello, Cam,” Chloe smiled as she stepped out of the water. She arranged her hair to cover her nipples, but it didn’t do anything else to hide the rest of her nudity.
“Chloe,” I replied gruffly. “Surprised to see you here.” Apparently, Aveena was foregoing subtlety.
Since she was completely nude, I could see a couple of pink splotches and lines on her body similar to my own healed wound. It looked like the nymph hadn’t gotten away from Lilith unscathed.
“We were going to see each other again sooner or later,” she smiled, and despite myself, blood flowed to my dick before I regained control. “Thanks for saving me the trouble. We should finish what we started.”
I was positive she wasn’t talking about the sex.
“Maybe another time,” my return smile was strained. “We’re here to parlay with Lady Foxbelle.”
“I know. I’m here to escort you,” Chloe turned and waved a finger over her shoulder for them to follow. I kept my eyes open for more threats, but Jerome was fully engrossed with ogling her ass.
“You know her?” he whispered, but I just shook my head. This wasn’t the time or place.
The moss-covered hill continued upward for what felt like a hundred yards before leveling out. I expected something grand. I expected another power play from the noble Fae. She was already fucking with me by having my would-be murderer play tour guide, so I was ready for anything.
I wasn’t ready for what I saw.
The crest of the hill plateaued into a flat open space. There was another spring-fed bath, some scattered furniture, and more changelings. These ones looked older and were armed. Something I didn’t expect to find was a mobile armory. There were swords of cold iron and silverbane under lock and key behind magical barriers. Regular armaments from spears to bows were sitting along a wooden rack that looked positively harmless next to dozens of assault rifles and boxes of ammunition. There was even a sniper rifle that looked nearly as tall as me. What was packed away in this magically-altered space – the mechanics of which I couldn’t even fathom – wasn’t just against school rules, but federal law . . . maybe even the WRA and human-Fae arm’s treaties.
Despite all the firepower, which I didn’t stand a snowballs chance in hell of surviving, the dominant feature of the plateau was a black stone alter. It looked like a place to make human sacrifices. If Aveena was about to offer up a changeling to some dark god of the Fae, I wouldn’t have been surprised. The last thing in the world I expected was to see the Fae noble on all fours, panting like a dog, as she smacked her ass backward onto some changeling’s waiting dick.
