“High tech armor,” Reaper explained, handing Shamira a suit. “Monique gave the manufacturer your measurements. Tough-ass fibers, fluid polymers, ceramic and metal plating.”
Shamira stripped down to her skivvies and threw on her new gear. “Nice,” she said. It’s a little . . . (grunt) . . . binding.”
“No, you just have enormous knockers,” Clara said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “For luck.” Then she got her cute ass out of there to go to her casting circle.
“She never does that to give ME luck,” Bjorne muttered.
This time, Shamira was glad she couldn’t blush. Clara was just her incredibly hot friend and mentor and that was it. Right? “What about weapons?”
“Take your personals,” Henry said, donning his own armor. “Whips, take one of the fancy Desert Eagles, and –”
“How about actual fire?” she asked. “Fire works on a lot of stuff according to legend.”
Bjorne hefted a flamethrower, grinning from ear to ear. “Got it covered.”
“What’s that?” she asked, looking at something with a set of six large tubes circling the barrel.
“Net gun,” Banshee said. She pursed her eyes. “Yeah, take that.”
Shamira felt completely bitching and awesome in her new armor. Then she donned her helmet and was ready to party. “I’m so glad I don’t have to pee anymore because this is EXACTLY the moment the need would strike me.”
Even Banshee laughed at that one, and they loaded into the black hummer that Shamira had nearly wrecked.
“Nothing personal,” Shamira said, turning and looking at Lillian, “but I didn’t think you were a frontline fighter.”
“Oh, I’m not,” she said warmly through her face plate. “I’m a total chicken-shit when I’m not on the property or don’t have Monique around. I probably won’t even get out of the car until the area is secured, unless it requires my special mojo.”
“Shamira, this is your first cluster fuck, so I want you to stand back and observe. If there’s a lot of stuff that comes through, keep us from getting flanked, surrounded, or otherwise hosed. Be prepared to do whatever I say whenever I say,” Henry said.
Shamira smiled. “It’s my day off.”
“That’s okay. Soon enough, little girl.”
“Hey everyone,” came Clara’s voice. “The caster is still in the area. I just did a sweep of the area, and whoever it is has a circle up and I think they’re still inside. Feels like voodoo to me.”
“Voodoo?” Banshee muttered. “Five bucks says it’s a love-spell gone wrong.”
Reaper shook his head. “Vengeance. I’ll say vengeance.”
“Probably someone actually trying a summoning,” was Henry’s guess. “Long dead relative.”
“I’m going with Banshee,” Lillian said.
“What are you guys talking about?” Shamira asked.
“This part of Georgia doesn’t have any real voodoo practitioners. You’re lucky to find any outside of Louisiana. So most people around here who try to perform voodoo rituals don’t really understand it and are getting their spell and charms out of cheap-ass ‘spell books’ they bought at the mall. They shouldn’t work, but sometimes you get someone who has some actual mojo who finds something that’s kind of close, so something happens when they try to cast. Generally it’s not what they wanted, but something definitely happens.” Lillian sounded annoyed. “Amateurs.”
“So these are the reasons people usually try voodoo?”
“Yep. Love, hate, summoning spirits . . . the trifecta. What’s funny is that voodoo is really about understanding and manipulating natural forces, so those things aren’t far off. People just approach it with entirely the wrong mindset.”
“So this person wasn’t casting real magic? How bad can it be?”
———— —————–
Three hours later . . .
———— —————–
“Never . . . EVER . . . ask ‘How bad can it be?’ EVER!” Henry said as the six “heroes” returned from their less than illustrious outing. Banshee and Lillian had been right. Some sixteen year old girl had attempted an “off voodoo” ritual to make a boy at school like her and had accidentally brought a next of EFIs into the Earth realm. EFI, as Banshee explained, stood for Evil Fucking Insect. They looked like ants, except for being six inches long, glowing yellow eyes, pincers that could bit a normal man’s fingers off, and an extremely tough hide. There had been thousands of them wandering around, trying to get into the girl’s magic circle, which she’d been smart enough to stay inside.
Shamira learned something new every day. Apparently when you summon something, it stays in the circle or out, but as soon as the caster crosses the line, bad things happened. Lillian had calmed the girl down, cast a temporary memory blocker that would ensure that the girl would forget all about the incident by the time she got home. The necromancer also implanted the notion into the girl’s head that she might want to stay away from magic and try something safer. Like chess. Then clean up had begun, only to find a new and interesting detail. If you didn’t burn the bugs to death, then their bodies exploded, coating everything with a stinky layer of bug guts.
So Banshee, Reaper, Lillian, Bjorne, Henry, and Shamira were all standing outside the garage while they and their armor were hosed down by Raul and Monique, who were both trying not to laugh. They were failing badly.
“Hey!” Shamira replied, looking at Reaper, “HE was the one who said, ‘At least it couldn’t get any worse.’ Remember, right before the bugs started blowing up?”
Everyone stopped and paused, staring at Reaper. “She’s got a point,” Henry said.
After about twenty minutes of thorough soaking, they were all allowed back in the house under the promise that they would head immediately to their showers and scrub the remaining stink away. Shamira decided to cheat, so after peeling off her armor, she closed her eyes and stepped back into the shadows, looking through the house for her room.
‘Hmm,’ she though, I don’t remember leaving the light on. ‘Wait . . . walk-in closet!’ She shifted through what she simply referred to as the shadow world, appearing in her closet. She opened the door and almost made Clara jump through the roof.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that! Shadow jumping hussie!”
“My room,” Shamira replied, speaking methodically as if to a child. “I can shadow jump all over the damn place if I want.”
“You smell like ass. And not the good kind.”
“I’ve been up to my neck in stinky bug corpses for several hours. Nothing smells good after that.” She walked past the intruding lovely, who hadn’t changed out of her television-watching “clothes.” Clara was pinching her nose shut and waving a hand in front of her face. She got into her bathroom, thankful for the walk-in shower that was separate from the tub. She could rinse the worst of the smell away before soaking in a nice hot bath. Then she would get up . . . She stopped in the process of turning on the water. Was she ready for what happened when she woke up? Was Renata right? Was she going to go back to being submissive only to feel weird about it afterward? At least when fighting the EFIs, she didn’t have to think about such things.
“What’s up?” Clara asked. “If you forgot, you turn them to the left if you want the water to come out of the magic pipes.”
Shamira shot her a look, but it was more sad than annoyed. She’d lost a lot of her free time to the evening’s mission, so she hadn’t gotten to watch the games or do the thinking that she’d want. “Don’t suppose you recorded the games?”
“Lady, with the package that Shane’s got with the cable company, we could watch every single damn game over and over again. It’s scary. The Colts game rocked from what I saw of the scores.”
“It might be nice,” Shamira said, pumping up the warm water and stripping out of her clothes. “Start over. Just forgot that my ‘day off’ isn’t necessarily a day off.”
“Tell Shane you want to use your spare tomorrow,” Clara said. “Still thinking about what Renata said?”
“Yeah. I think I’ll do that. Do I need to send out an email?”
“Nah, I’ll let Shane know. Word spreads pretty quickly around here. Henry’s gonna be pissed though. He was looking forward to you coming back on the market.”
“So that’s what he meant by ‘soon enough.’ Bastard.”
“I think you’ll have fun with Henry. Hell, I think you’ll have fun with everyone, but it’s good that you figure things out.” Suddenly Clara looked a little . . . sad? Yes, sad. “I guess that means you’re not up to finishing our game earlier?”
Shamira was very sure of one thing at that moment. She didn’t want Clara to leave. “Like you’d want to play now?”
Clara grinned and pushed Shamira back into the steam and falling water. “With the body scrubs you’ve got in here, you’ll be freshened up in no time.”
“What body scrubs?”
“The ones I put in here.”
“Why’d you do that?”
Clara rolled her eyes. “So I’d have something to lather all over that rock-hard body?! Duh!” Clara hadn’t bothered to take off her panties or half-shirt, and both were now soaked all the way though as she stood in the shower with Shamira. Her nipples were practically saluting the other woman from the tops of those perky little hills.
Shamira smiled. “So, you think I’m that easy?”
“Easy? You? Girl, you’re NOT easy. But complicated people are much more fun.” She spun Shamira around and started undoing that long braid. “Girl, you have a whole lotta gorgeous hair here. Why don’t you wear it out more often?”
“Gets in the way,” Shamira said. This was another new experience for her, showering with another person, much less a gorgeous woman who apparently planned on fooling around. Feeling someone else’s hands running through her hair felt really nice, and there was something sensual about Clara helping her shampoo. And the girl had been right; once the body sponge and wash were broken out, Shamira was smelling much better in no time. She’d never thought of trying to smell “nice” before, but she’d not discount the idea again.
“That smells incredible,” she muttered. “Like fresh oranges.”
“It’s a citrus base,” Clara said, running her hand over Shamira’s slick and soapy buttocks, then caressed those incredible thighs. “Why do you ever wear clothes?” she said, moving her hands up the long muscles of her friend’s back. “This is a masterpiece.”
“Public exposure laws?” Shamira was shuddering under Clara’s butterfly touches. She wanted those hands on her hips, her chest, and between her thighs. And she wanted to feel those lips. “You’re still wearing clothes.”
“Yep.”
“Not fair.”
“What are you going to do about it?”