Chapter 24: INTERLUDE 22.5: Leaked Video

Jared Cortez presented to his men a patient façade. Nothing worse than a battalion thinking their commander was about to fly off the handle at the next FUBAR to come his way. It wasn’t professional. Worse than that, it wasn’t good leadership. So Lieutenant Colonel Cortez resisted the urge to tap his foot impatiently outside the cell door of one of their current guests.

“[…please…please, just kill me…I—aaAAH!]”

The rest of the noise coming out of the cell sounded typical this deep in the dungeon. Cortez did not approve, though his disgust was over matters other than the act. Impatience was the Marine’s majority emotion and his soldiers’ off duty activities were their business, not his.

After more time than Cortez found himself reasonably managing, only the sobs of a young woman were heard before the door opened and out walked Keith Sanders, still belting his pants up and holding a cheap datapad under one arm. When he noticed Cortez, his leer dropped, standing up ramrod straight.

“Sir!”

“Not in the Unit anymore, Sanders,” Cortez said, but the irritation in his tone spoke something else, his hands resting on his enchanted machete and Beretta. “Just want last night’s report.”

Sanders relaxed, finishing with his pants as he slapped the door to the cell he just left and handed the datapad to his commander. “Don’t know how you can pass on this piece of meat, Colonel. This Dolly girl is as tight as a drum.”

Cortez snarled, his disgust plain. “I like getting my dick wet as much as the next jarhead. I prefer my girls human. Understood?”

Sanders gulped and nodded. Cortez marched down the hall quickly, Sanders falling into step next to him after a beat. The walls, the eerie off-white of bleached bones, were regularly spaced with steel doors on both sides, the long hallway filled with the moans and tears and occasionally the abuse of one of Cortez’s men having their fun.

Without turning his head, Cortez continued speaking. “Just remember the Boss wants that creature next week, so be sure to use those potions the incubus sends us.”

“We’ve got a problem, then.” Cortez stopped and whirled on Sanders, but the younger man held up his hands in defense. “Not right now, I forced ‘em down her throat, just the stock of potions is low. Gonna need more by tomorrow, or else the rest of the men and some of the girls might revolt.”

Cortez paused, giving the glare his full weight before turning and coming to the end of the cellblock. “That was something I needed to know earlier. The Boss can’t use them if they’re sick or pregnant.”

“Sorry, sir, the men get lonely with all the extra shifts they’ve been pulling and only so many women in the guild proper.”

Cortez rolled his eyes. In his mind, the men needed a little restraint, but it wasn’t up to him. With a grunt of dismissal, Cortez quickened his pace and went to his office, closing the door and letting all his facades down. Colonel Cortez, the calm and collected Raid Commander of the Master Blasters guild, became Jared Cortez, former Marine Lieutenant Colonel and more old and tired than his demeanor typically revealed. His shoulders slumped, he took off his belt with his weapons and hung them near the door. Running the operations here at their base in the Bone Castle was an unending nerve-wracking affair. It drove his people crazy with the stress and all these captured creatures made it tempting to just ignore their inhumanity and stick a cock in some twat.

Sitting down at his computer, Cortez opened the datapad and looked over last night’s report. Three groups attacked the bridge, but the first two made it away clean. The last one was some punk kid who actually fought about halfway across and destroyed a full hundred of their skeletons before he was deemed robust enough for capture. Guess the kid was now in a cell, but loosing a hundred skeletons remained unacceptable. He’d need to talk to the Lich.

With a beep and a ring, it looked like this morning Cortez would begin his day with a video call from Solomon Church. His eye twitching, Cortez put his facades back on and answered the call over the Di-Fi connection.

“Cortez.” Solomon was an ugly bug, some kind of blue demon from the nightmare side of Hell, but the Boss insisted on using the pimp. There was no way Cortez would cross the Boss.

“Church.” Cortez played the game, pulling over the datapad to appear like he was studying numbers but just stared over a blank screen. “We’ve increased employee shifts and need a shipment of your potions ASAP.”

Solomon said nothing, but that was usual for dealing with the pimp. Instead, the large creature gestured to someone off-screen. In a few minutes, Cortez received a video file on his desktop. “I’ve run into a bit of a supply problem, my pet alchemist was taken away from me. If you and your employer want more potions, I need my alchemist. However, I am an equitable man, and I think this video will be enough payment to give us both what we want.”

Cortez opened the file and watched as a redhead succubus ballooned her tits out of a shirt and bra. Then, with his eyes widening, he watched as a small black woman became a succubus and the redhead turned human. “Are you absolutely sure about this?” Cortez questioned Solomon when the video ended, the intensity of an old marine a powerful thing.

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“Do you know of anybody other than a Herald with that kind of Class ability?” Solomon replied, a small smile peeking through his thick, fang-filled mouth.

Smug creature, Cortez thought, knowing Solomon had him. This was game-changing news. “Done. Where are they?”

“They are currently residing at the dilapidated housing complex Arun Nair built for his widow, along with a few other low-level females.”

Nair…Nair…Cortez remembered reading that name earlier. Going back to his datapad, he was serendipitously surprised to see the kid they picked up last night named Aruna Nair. Smiling a rare smile, Cortez’s mouth soured a little as he glanced at the incubus. “Shouldn’t be a problem, I’ll have your succubus gift-wrapped by next week.”

“And you’ll receive your potions shipment the next day.” Solomon ended the call without any farewell.

Can’t be helped, the old Marine thought, wondering how the troops will take getting a box of condoms instead of potions for their fun.

Cortez watched the video again, just to be sure, then he transferred the file over to the datapad and stood up, putting his weapons back on. Outside his office, his pace left no room for misinterpretation: he would not be stopped. Human guards from the guild showed up less and less the deeper into the Castle he traveled, more undead minions of various beasts standing deathly still in their sentinel of the hallways.

At the end of a long hallway, near where the Marine knew the creature resided, the gaudily dressed Lich stood in his path and didn’t look like she would move. Even though she was on his task list, Cortez sighed in frustration. He didn’t want to see her right now. Taller than the old marine, her clothing jangled from all the necklaces and other opulent baubles she wore. Her robes were multi-layered and left her form indistinct and a bit distracting with the bright colors washing over her. She wore a gold mask designed and detailed to appear female, the entire effect covering her from head to toe so not even Cortez knew what she looked like, but from how she talked and moved it remained clear she was no longer human.

“I need to speak to you, Colonel.” The voice of the Lich haunted the hallway, like the echo a tomb would make if it spoke.

“Out of the way, Baroness.” No one was sure what her name was, but the Lich called herself the Baroness. Uncaring, that’s what humans called her to her face, mostly. “The Boss needs to see me right now.”

“Your filthy god can rot for all I care, the terms of my Contract are fulfilled! Release me!”

Cortez glared her up and down, giving her a moment of his irritation. Pulling out his gun, he shot her in the leg. She crumpled with a clatter of her jewelry and other inhuman noises underneath her hollow scream. There was no blood. Stowing his gun, he kicked her out of his path and looked down at her with contempt. “You should have paid closer attention to the wording of your Contract. It isn’t over until the Boss dies and not even an army of your bone fodder are able to do that.” He kept walking, leaving her to sob without any tears on the floor. “Now raise another hundred skeletons on the Bridge by tomorrow or I’ll shoot you again.”

It took walking down another hallway and a massive entrance hall, the distance to his goal not far. The throne room of the Castle would be an impressive sight if it wasn’t wholly unlit, only the light from the hallway behind him allowing Cortez to see. Bone sculptures lined each wall, a crowd of various alien creatures and even some humans all in poses of complete agony and sized twenty feet (6 m) tall each. Cortez felt it was a good idea he couldn’t see much in here, he knew it was a grotesque sight. The problem was the immensity: it was about a mile (1.6 km) long to cross the throne room and reach the person seated at the end.

The light this far inside grew too dim to see anything other than a bit of an outline and some shapes. Cortez wasn’t rebuffed. He worked here long enough with the Boss to know that a fifty-foot man sat naked on his throne made entirely out of skulls. Kneeling briefly because of the Boss’ eclectic tastes, Cortez pulled up the video file and held the datapad over his head. The former marine didn’t look for the hand that snatched it, but he followed the screen’s light as it drifted close to the enormous face. Cortez turned his head to avoid looking at the visage of the man the old Marine followed, having seen it before. The nightmares it brought kept him up some nights, so he just glanced down at the dark floor and waiting with patience he really didn’t possess.

“Ha. Haha. HahaHAHAHAHA!!” The laughter coming from above him was like naval cannons as he felt more than heard each booming resonance, forcing the jarhead to brace himself.

“Solomon Church wants the succubus, but the other girl is yours,” Cortez shouted, trying to speak over the powerful giant. “I’ll need to put together a team to retrieve them.”

“Do it.” Cortez couldn’t see it, but he heard the smile. Cortez felt it. The giant brought the tiny screen up to his face again and chuckled softer.

Cortez turned to leave, a lot to do and plan, but he stumbled a little when the last words out of the Boss’s mouth behind him sent even his hardened nerves to run for cover. It was almost tender, loving, but from the Boss’s mouth, it gained such a malicious foulness the gloomy throne room felt darker and claustrophobic.

“There’s my delicious Honoka.”

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