18)

Cassy- At the Exchange

My boss sat down in the chair behind the desk as Khalid held it out for her with a smile. "Thanks for the use of the office Khalid. I'd ask you to stay but I think this may be a "Cut your own throat after hearing" type of thing."

The djinn held his hand palm out, "Say no more Miss Thibedeau. I have grown quite fond of my throat staying intact." before he gave a sort of bow and left the room to me, my boss, Johanson, and Kinkade.

As soon he closed the door behind him she began lining the room with layer upon layer of warding against listening, scrying, vibrations, and a dozen other forms of spying and divination.

She then laid her elbows on the desk, fingers interlocked and held up in front of her. “Report.”

Kinkade started to speak until I held my hand up to her. "Me." she gave me a sharp look but nodded.

“Tarnell Riggs was turned on behalf of someone matching the description of and using the name of Grimaud.”

Natalie dropped her head down to her hands and whispered a soft drawn out “Fuck...”

We gave her a moment.

“How sure are you about this?”

Kinkade decided she just had to contribute. “We got a necromancer to call his spirit up and commanded it to speak, it may have had bad information, but it believed what it said.”

Natalie waved her hands around. “Wait, why did you need a necromancer?”

Me and the witch both started to speak before I snapped out a quick “

Still your turn."

She narrowed her eyes at me but continued. "Someone put a curse on him to set his heart on fire if he started to speak Grimaud's name to anyone else. He looked pretty surprised about it, like no one warned him that would happen."

My boss leaned back in the chair “Yeah, that does sound like Grimaud.”

The silence between the three of us was finally broken by Johanson. “Ah? Who’s Grimaud?”

Natalie gave a little frustrated laugh before covering her eyes and sighing. I broke the news to the young agent.

“He’s one of the Thibedeau’s problem solvers and the personal hatchet man of the Patriarch of the family.”

My boss dropped her hands to look up at the ceiling. "Or as I call him. Father."

Donovan. Freaking the hell out in the apartment above the Party-mart.

I tried to jump back as the hand clenched into a fist, then sprung open and closed a few times before twisting around like it was trying to feel for something. But all I did in trying to get away from it, was to back up into the door frame hard enough to bump the back of my head against it.

For a moment the hand managed to clamp onto Linda’s right tit and squeezed it a few times as she held the severed arm in her hands, getting an "Ooo, naughty.” and a giggle from her before it suddenly opened up and snapped back at the wrist and began shaking side to side as if in denial.

Damia was glaring at each of us in turn as she tried to find the right words to express just how angry she was but it was Clarice who spoke up first. “It’s not bleeding.”

We all looked at the arm which was, as a matter of fact, not leaking blood all over Linda as she held it up against her chest then up in the air as she looked at the cleanly cut muscles, skin, and bones.

Then she licked the end. “Huh, nothing. No taste to it at all..”

I stared at her whole thinking what the fuck is wrong with you?

Then she ran her tongue up the length of the arm from the not so bloody stump to the wrist. "The rest of it tastes nice, can I keep it?" she hugged the now struggling arm up close. "I'm going to name it...Palmer?"

Damia finally found something to say. "No! Every time you name something you get all pissy about it if we have to give it back. No names, it's just... the arm"

Linda gave her a disappointed look, then bent over the first and outer two fingers of the arm, with a grin before wiggling it at the redhead who in return just rolled her eyes. “Very mature.”

She turned to me and Clarice waving a finger of her own at the big gal, “I was talking and unless you really thought he was a danger to me, then it should have been my call on whether or not we went from diplomacy to violence."

Clarice gave her a casual nod. “My bad, I just got excited, I’ll try not to let it happen again but...” she shrugged and left anything else unsaid.

She turned to me finally. “Pull any shit like that again and I’ll make sure you remember the next time Linda feeds on you.”

I blinked. What now?

She turned her attention back to the now almost fully repaired mirror. "Hopefully he's still in the other room and willing to talk." She grinned. "and I got something he cares about to negotiate with."

I started to try to dig myself out of my hole. "So what I did was a good thing, and what do mean when Linda feeds-”

The redhead flicked a finger at me and Clarice dropped one of her man hands on my shoulder as Damia spoke to me out of the corner of her mouth “You, hush. Adults are talking.”

I looked away in to avoid giving her the look she deserved and spotted one of the little blue fuckers that had peeked out at me from the bathroom window. Now it was looking at us from around the corner of the door to the other bedroom across from us.

More of them began darting from the direction of the bathroom door into the kitchen. I started to point and say something, but she-hulk put the squeeze on my shoulder bones when she noticed me start to talk.

You know what? Fine. Go ahead and just keep up with your typical bullshit and see if I warn you. As if I care, I'm the one who's immortal.

I could see Roxir's head tilted to look at the door across the tv room as well, but he just made a snorting sound and went back to his game.

Damia began leaning side to side to try to see around the room on the other side of the now self repaired mirror. "I don't see him anywhere."

Then the lights went out. All the lights, the computer in the other room, the clock.

And the tv.

The little prince gave out an angry shout to let us know he was not happy, but as all hell was breaking loose, no one had a shit to give about him at the moment.

Martin- Reeling back in shock in the apartment above the Party-mart.

My arm! “Ahhhhh! Fucking hell!”

Normally I do not swear. I do not look down on those who do, but it just was never my thing. But right now, with my arm cut off. It seemed like the right moment to give it a try.

“Going to kill that snuskig fitta...wait, why is it not hurting?”

That last bit was in Swedish, and I would rather not translate, but more importantly. My chopped off arm did not hurt.

This was more than just the lack of pain from immediate shock, My left arm which was severed just beyond the elbow was not spraying out blood from a severed artery.

I did not feel up to looking at the end of my arm. Instead I tried to make a fist and could see the muscles on what was left of my arm clench. I opened and closed my unseen hand a few times and began to wiggle it around which twisting it from side to side.

Not only could I feel my hand and arm moving around I could feel someone holding it in their arms, I reached over to them and closed my hand on something soft, giving it a few squeezes before I realized what it was.

"Oh, I do beg your pardon. I did not mean to... I would never..."

I shut up. Whoever had my arm, she, and it was definitely a she, could not possibly hear me.

Whoever it was did not seem too upset at the inappropriate touching as she was not throwing that portion of me across the room, instead she licked it along its full length.

…and I truly do not know what to think about that.

I finally braved a look at the end of my arm to see a rather wet looking anatomical like sectioning of my arm. It all seemed fully functional, but everything just stopped at the end of my now shortened arm and appeared to start up again somewhere else.

I considered poking at it the wet looking end of my stump, but no... not happening

A quiet voice called from the door to the room "...Master?" then began making a keening sound that quickly called together the entire tribe.

"The Master is hurt, Master's arm gone, start fire, burn wound."

Burn... oh, to sear the wound. "No, no, none of that. Stand down!"

They stopped to stare at me in confusion, but at least they stopped. I held up one finger for them to give me a moment.

They cut off my arm. I was trying to negotiate, I was working on a plan and a deal that would make everyone happy.

And they tried to drag me down to Hell with them and managed to, instead, cut off my arm.

“If they want violence...”

Tosser looked up at me and gave me a slight, encouraging nod. "The Master is angry?"

I nodded back at him "The master is more than angry my little friend. The master is enraged, the master is pissed off beyond all measure. The master is ready for the nuclear option, and the master has gone to his unhappy place."

Tosser began to grin and nod along with me as I vented, the other members of his pack catching on to his excitement if not my words.

“They have let me know I can reach them through the mirrors, and so we shall, but first, let me show you where to find the fuse box once you cross over."

Wait...?

“What the heck are they doing with my fingers?”