After AnimeCon: Down and Dirty

    Whew-boy am I in trouble!! Rebecca thought with a contented purr as she made out with Brian. I am in SO much trouble right now.

    She was turned on, but she wasn’t feeling the magic. Her tongue licked and lashed against his and she hungrily devoured his kiss—but rich, verdant hues of umber weren’t inching up and down the core of her being. The problem was, she remembered those feelings, she kept falling inward deep into herself in search of them out of reflex, and finding all of that not there as a result was starting to seem less like a disconnection and more like a hunger. 

    Rebecca remembered the feel of magic, and that memory persisted now as a craving.

    “Mm-mMmmmhhh—” Rebecca disengaged from his lips for a moment to gasp for air. “Brian—”

    The craving wasn’t overwhelming, it wasn’t a persistent need. It was not even quite strong enough to drive herself to distraction, unless she allowed it to. The feeling was vexing, though, a little inner itch that she would love to scratch. To satisfy.

    While they kissed, Rebecca’s hands were shamelessly exploring Brian’s body, and there was nothing not to like. When standing, he was tall, but what drove her crazy wasn’t just a matter of height. Brian was outright bigger than her, his frame was a size larger than her, and some petty primeval part of her brain found that incredibly appealing. Grabbing up to his shoulders she found them broad, sturdy. Powerful. He was a hunk, his upper arms were thick in that specific way that threw her into a daze upon confirming their breadth—feeling out the sexy shape of his biceps there made Rebecca feel downright depraved.

    His forearms were likewise corded with muscle, and as she groped across them blind there was an absolutely salacious girthiness to them. Brian wasn’t by any means huge or swole or like some kind of bodybuilder, but the delicious ruggedness of his musculature there to discover absolutely did things for her. Every part of him was handsome and tickled out her desire to lavish appreciation on him—the unspoken fact that it seemed like Brian could overpower her at any moment teased out the badbrains horny that made Rebecca start to feel wild and reckless.

    Yep yep yep. I’m in so much trouble!

    She smacked her lips against his with wet sounds for several moments, struggling to restrain herself.

    Because her naughty hands had crept back down across him of their own accord, altogether too eager to explore. Back up his arms, following the rising bulge of each muscle as well as the decadent valleys in between—Brian was cut. His shoulders were yum, and his pectorals were delish. Urgency throbbed through her insatiable fingertips as they wandered lower, and though Rebecca’s eyes were closed she couldn’t help but mentally map out Brian’s upper abdominals—right now they read like a dinner menu.

    There is no part of him that I do not want in my mouth, Rebecca moaned, frantically pressing her hands across his shirt. These are WASHBOARD ABS. My goodness. Ohhh my goodness gracious—!

    Rebecca clutched at him, allowing her thumbs to trace inward along the lines of his abdominal V. Then there was the hem of his jeans, their button, and the straining erection lurking behind the fly of his pants. Every part of him was appetizing, but the bulge Rebecca cupped now with both hands was downright mouthwatering. Brian was packing. All of the other pleasant surprises were appetizers, and this was the meat. Rebecca found herself hungry as hell for it, but even then the shape and size of this thing was intimidating enough to have her freeze up in surprise.

    “Hhh—whew,” Brian paused as well, and they pulled back far enough apart from each other to gaze into each other’s eyes.

    AaaAAaahhh— Rebecca internally squealed. He’s SO handsome!!

    “We uhh,” Brian worked his lips and then gave her a smile that just darn charmed the pants off of her. “We—well, if we go any further… s’gonna be real hard to stop?

    “Uhh-huhh,” Rebecca agreed with a shaky voice.

    She wanted to let out a nervous giggle, but she felt altogether just a bit stunned looking up at him. A deer caught in headlights, entranced, confused. Overwhelmed. Rebecca could have put up more of a fight than this, and before these moments she would have expected to. Usually when Rebecca really let herself go all out, she would let out her aggressive side, allow herself to be especially Mara, and wanted her foreplay to be a rough and tumble cage match of passion.

    Instead, I feel strangely subdued? Rebecca felt surprised upon realizing it. In a way that I somehow really really enjoy?! Like—the lusty badbrains part of me that just wants to have violent, animal sex with him ALSO kind of gets off on presenting the soft of my neck to his teeth? Letting his hands roam across my belly, between my legs—all of my vulnerable, intimate places?!

    Her inner savagery and her inner serenity felt like they were for once in perfect balance, or perhaps harmonizing in a way they had not before. Although it didn’t feel outright magic like experiencing the charm stuff had before, it was a surreal mental state to slip into where she was simply really really enjoying herself. Rebecca felt right. This was fun. She wanted more and more of this—she wasn’t sure she would ever get enough of the way Brian made her feel.

    “Was there, um,” Brian searched her dazed expression. “Did you feel anything? Like, magic? That kind of—?”

    “Uh, so like—?” Rebecca wet her lips and broke into a silly smile. “Uhhh. It is—that was—amazing, but, I think. Uh. I don’t think we were locked onto each other in the uhh. The magic way?”

    “Yeah,” Brian nodded, absentmindedly running fingers through her hair. “Yeah.”

    “I remember what that was like, and, and—” Rebecca just couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “It’s like… like that inner… mental… port? I keep running my uh, my mental tongue over it, like feeling out a missing tooth? It feels very strange! There’s nothing there, but it feels like there should be something—that when we uhh, when we’re like this, when we’re—embracing? That, that’s where it should be, that port should be, uh. Connecting computers with you?”

    “Yeah,” Brian chuckled. “It doesn’t seem like it should make sense, but. Yeah, that’s exactly what it’s like.”

    “It’s annoying!” Rebecca gave him a cute pout. “It’s… tempting. Like there’s a missing… piece.”

    “Yeah?”

    Her thighs strained to splay open a bit wider beneath him at the admission, she felt absolutely soaked, and that certain special part of her ached because it was begging for that missing piece to sink deep into her in savage smacks of flesh—to plunge inside of her and punish her with pleasure, to—

    “I uhhhh, I miss it a lot!” Rebecca admitted, feeling her face flush red. “Being able to just, you know. Turn my mind inward, and then there’s a whole beautiful little world in there! With all of you there. It was so… intoxicating? I’ve, yes, I’ve always believed in magic, and there were times in my life I maybe felt… I don’t know, something. But that, that was something else, that was… well, it was magic. I miss it.”

    She felt very aware of the way her legs were locked around his waist, of how they’d just been making out like horny teenagers, of the very compromising position they were still in. Rebecca was so turned on that she felt like she was in anguish, but also ceding things to Brian, giving him the lead of how far—or how fast—they were going to take their physical relationship felt right.

    It was embarrassing to admit after having talked such a big game to him about proving a point, because right now Rebecca’s resolve was wavering, and she felt sorely tempted to just touch the charm and zap herself back into the harem. She craved having that magic feeling again, that special conduit that seemed to connect their souls. Rebecca knew herself to be strong of mind, she knew she had an extraordinary amount of willpower, but then also letting herself indulge in a weaker side, feeling safe enough with him to do that—that was also intoxicating.

    What a PECULIAR feeling? Rebecca couldn’t help but examine his gorgeous eyes and feel like she was falling deeply in love with him. In these rare moments where I’m not quite sure I can trust myself, I really feel as though I can instead completely trust him?

    “The dreamscape,” Brian muttered, quirking his lip at her. “That’s what we’re calling it?”

    “I… guess so!” Rebecca grinned as she tried to unscramble her thoughts. “It fits? Our own… make-believe fantasy wonderland we can share with each other. It took me a bit of… a bit of, well, not concentration, I guess. But, a bit of focus, to get into? And, that did got harder and harder over those days! I had to go… deeper. Each time, to get in.”

    ‘Did got’ Rebecca, really? REALLY? You really just said DID GOT? You let Brian pin you down one time, and already you’re comfortable using the cutesy baby-talk BABBLE you normally reserve only for your cat?! If he realizes how—

    Brian surprised her by lowering himself down and cutting her off with a single kiss.

    “H-hey…” Rebecca blushed, feeling her smile spread even wider.

    “Sorry,” Brian said. “You’re—uhh. I am listening, just, damn. You’re also really… distracting.”

    “Distracting?!” Rebecca repeated, pursing her lips in clear invitation.

    Brian darted in and kissed her again—and then again, stealing another one before bringing himself back up again.

    “Yeah,” Brian admitted. “A little. Just a little bit. Not enough to like—”

    “I’m distracting?!!” Rebecca happened to still be clutching with both hands at the massive erection tenting his pants, and she gave that thing a healthy squeeze. “Oh, Brian. Brian, Brian, Brian… what am I going to do with you?!”

    “I’m—” Brian jerked his hips down, all but thrusting into her hands. “I’m gonna say, you can do just about whatever you want.”

    Forget distracting—because of the way she was positioned beneath him, her thighs spread wide so that she could wrap her legs around him, and that movement of his squashed the back of her hands down into her pubic mound. The sudden attention there made her honeypot ache for more, for a brutal beating, for solid and sustained pounding. Rebecca found herself actually forced to whip her face to the side to inspect the messy clumps of dirt and leaves with great interest. She couldn’t stop smiling—her cheeks were starting to hurt, and it felt like years of wisdom and self control were rapidly emptying out of her head.

    “Hey!” Rebecca protested with a girlish giggle that made her face heat up even more. “Don’t—don’t do that?! I, um, okay, I know I started this, but, well—”

    “Yeah we’re in a real bad position, here,” Brian agreed, dropping in low enough to plant a kiss on the side of her jaw. Then one square on her neck. “We’re, uh. We feel kinda… compromised?”

    “Yes!” Rebecca started to carefully push Brian off of her—only to realize her traitorous hands were actually just attempting to slide Brian’s shirt up and off of his body. “S-sorry! That, uh. We. We should… we should not.”

    “Yeah,” Brian agreed. His boner disagreed, and somehow or other when it flexed she could sense that simply from the shifting, tightening fabric between them. “I’ll… I’ll get off of you.”

    “Please do!” Rebecca chirped, blushing furiously and still unable to face him.

    Her legs refused to release him, and when Brian attempted to lift up off of her, her whole body started to rise up with him.

    “Rebecca…” Brian warned in a throaty growl.

    “I’m trying!” Rebecca babbled out with a laugh. “I uh—it’s—it’s like I’ve thrown caution out the window, and uhh, and uhhh, I’m trying rilly rilly hard to reach the whole way back out and find it?! Briannn mmnng we’re so close.”

    “I know,” Brian chuckled. “Trust me, I know.”

    “Can we uh,” Rebecca scrambled to search through her giddy thoughts and make sense of them into sentences. She felt so silly right now!

    “I think that uh? Brian I know I said we were gonna like, so we were gonna not zap me back in right away? To test? To no wait, to prove that it’s not affecting me? Well, I. I feel affected. I hate to say it, but I feel affected. I want you so bad.”

    “Yeah,” Brian agreed with a sigh—but he didn’t stop kissing her neck, and the puckering soft sensation had Rebecca all but curling her toes. “I think you’re right. Damnit. I’m uh. I’m feeling that too. Feel like I’m gonna be super pissed off about all of this, well, everything. Soon as I can think clearly again.”

    “Hey—hey,” Rebecca said in a soft voice, a sober feeling coming over her. “Don’t—don’t feel bad. Please? This… what we’re feeling is a lot of things, but it isn’t bad. I don’t think. It—well, maybe okay yes, the charm is affecting us now, maybe. Encouraging us? Ramping up our libido, is what it feels like?”

    “Yeah,” Brian growled.

    His teeth grazed her skin and then caught it in a little nibble that made Rebecca quiver.

    “It um—” Rebecca giggled. “It’s good that we know. Now we know! I—I don’t think it’s a bad thing. We’re learning? Briaannn, stop that.”

    To her surprise—and disappointment—he did stop. His mouth that had been exploring the tender flesh just below her ear disengaged, and Brian pulled back again far enough away that they could see each other’s eyes. He was frustrated, he was incredibly turned on, but more than anything else Brian was in control, and seeing that self control hold him in place and begin to steady his breathing put Rebecca even more at ease—as if because he was in clear control, she was free to relax her control.

    “You actually stopped,” Rebecca remarked. “I—no, I’m just. Impressed. You’re in control. It, uh, it feels so easy to be, uh, out of control. Right now.”

    “So, I guess this establishes that the charm, the magic, it’s doing something to us,” Brian sighed. “Controlling us. Mind controlling.”

    “No! You stopped,” Rebecca’s eyes flicked to his lips and back again. “The instant I asked you to, you really did stop! It’s—well yes, the charm is definitely doing something. Encouraging us to… to have wild sex. I don’t think it’s mind control!”

    “Uh-huh,” Brian let out a bitter laugh.

    “Brian—” Rebecca allowed herself to give him a big, reassuring smile. “We already knew that it did something. Aligned our spirits, maybe, to better understand one another? Our libido… okay, yes. Definitely. Maybe well, maybe a part of it is that I was sparked into the magic back before. I do still remember having a connection at our deepest level. It makes me… really crave having that again.”

    “Yeah,” Brian sighed.

    “None of these are bad things!” Rebecca was able to lift herself up just enough to peck a little kiss on the tip of his nose. “You remained in control of yourself. I trust you even more now, because of that. I was honestly um, I was kind of just teasing you? I didn’t… really want you to stop. Still don’t! I, um well, I’m still very much of the mind that what the charm does when you’re zapped in, what it tries to encourage when you’re not zapped in yet—is just us opening up to each other.”

    “Maybe,” Brian stared into her eyes, and it felt like there was no way she could hide anything from him.

     Which is a relief, because—I AM being honest. I want him to really feel my sincerity.

    “I’ll let myself start doubting all the charm magic if, and only if it ever shows me something untrue,” Rebecca gave him a contented little shrug of the shoulders. “So far, it hasn’t. It’s shown me you, the real you, annnd you are a very lovely human being worthy of all of the trust and affection I can give to you!”

    “I…” Brian sighed again, closing his eyes. “I do see what you’re saying. We’re confirming there is an influence. It’s maybe not a uh. Sinister or bad one, exactly. Before, I guess I was just going to be completely against that just on principle. Now? Now, I’m not sure how to feel. I can’t think. You’re very distracting.”

    “Mmm-hmm,” Rebecca agreed. “So are you! Let’s… let’s take things slow? Give ourselves more time. This was nice. It was so nice! I don’t regret anything I felt. I um, I do also want cooler heads to prevail—I want you to feel just as good about this moment we’ve shared later on when looking back on it, as you do when you’re here in the moment… holding me to the ground.”

    “Hah—” Brian chuckled, looking down at her again. “Sorry.”

    “Shush,” Rebecca kissed the tip of his nose again. “I’m not sorry! Or, um, I’m a little bit sorry, that you were actually able to stop when I asked. But—not a bad sorry. It’s a sorry that I can just let turn into… anticipation.”

    “Yeah,” Brian said. “You uh. You need to unhook your legs from me and let me go, or I can’t let you up, hah. I think I do need a minute to cool down, and let my… let my brain start working again.”

    “Hnnng—” Rebecca allowed herself to put on a cute pout and one last crushing squeeze of her thighs.

    She really didn’t want to let him go. But, she did—releasing her legs from around him and relaxing back against the dirt of the mostly-filled grave. Brian kissed her forehead and then clambered back up to his knees and got off of her. There was a feeling of relief to associate with all of this, and then also a feeling of disappointment, and the conflicting sensitivities weighed on each other in very strange ways.

    “It—this also might just be, well, proximity!” Rebecca pointed out. “Like for example, the charm is right here with us. Maybe we need to uhhh, stress test this again, but next time, you’ll have the charm tucked away somewhere safe at some remote location. So—yeah, we’ll need to do this again.”

    “We will,” Brian promised.

    He offered her a hand, and with an eager grin Rebecca clasped forearms with him and he hauled her up onto her feet. Standing felt a little shaky now, her legs wanted to wobble, and so Rebecca didn’t let go of Brian. The two locked eyes again, and it seemed as though they shared a knowing smile. They seemed to agree without words that this rushing mess of hormones and lovestruck urgent infatuation was absolutely going to bring them down to the ground like that again in a sexy entanglement, and probably sooner than they would expect.

    Yep yep yep. We’re in big trouble. All of THAT and we weren’t, uh, weren’t properly plugged into each other via the charm magic. When we do this with actual colors—I’m gonna lose my mind.

    * * *

    Five high-end escorts in evening dresses lined the edge of the hotel bed, sleeping while sitting upright with perfect poise. Their faces were flawlessly sculpted, carefully corrected to his tastes, and while they were here all of the girls went silent and slipped into unconsciousness whenever his attention wasn’t on them.

    Judas preferred them that way.

    No bullshit or drama, no pointless chatter—there was no chance of guilt or starting to grow attached to them, or any nonsense like that. The escorts even benefited enormously from his talents, with him altering their bodies to perfection and conjuring currency to pay them extremely well with. So long as that money was deposited or spent before it evaporated back into puffs of magic smoke, of course.

    He considered himself a very benevolent Master. Even though he was going through a pretty difficult patch in his career and needed some extra intimate attention, he didn’t rough up the girls or abuse him. That had never been his thing. Judas enjoyed feeling suave and debonair with women. He was no gentleman, but enjoying classy drinks, some back and forth seduction and charming wordplay, and then a night full of sex made him feel downright sophisticated. Certainly compared to the tastes of most other Masters he knew.

    The row of beautiful faces in patient repose was also nice to look at as Judas paced back and forth the hotel room, holding his phone to his ear—the girls were a much needed reprieve. Calls from the circles had been pouring in lately just about nonstop, and scant few of them had been welcome ones.

    “So it is possible you allowed Patrick S. Chadley to be captured?” The voice demanded. “It’s possible.”

    “No, no,” Judas denied. “Chad was effectively killed in action. In my report, I—”

    “The name of Patrick S. Chadley is obscured in the Records rather than concluded—which usually indicates capture.”

    The Rules were a lot less lenient on having a partner captured than they were with having one killed, and for the past several days Judas had been in a back and forth with various parties of the different circles which were trying to interpret events their own way. That there even was back and forth was a point in his favor, because it meant he was a competent mid-circle Master who was valued by his peers. Some of his peers, at least. Enough of them. 

    He had failed a mission in spectacular form however, and that meant a drop in position. A drop in position meant his former peers were now his superiors—with interest in how best to use him—and his former underlings were now his contemporaries, his competition. Worse yet, Chad had somehow or other been very well-liked among the other young Masters of his ilk, and the outer circle was still abuzz with ‘RIP CHAD’ and ‘GOODNIGHT, SWEET PRINCE’ memes, or posts lampooning Judas culpability, even a whole month after Chad was gone.

    “Alive—technically, perhaps, but effectively brain dead,” Judas insisted. “He suffered the consequence of having his La Grande Petite Morte thrown back at him… probably the best way he ever could’ve gone, all things considered. But, he is gone, gone for good. I confirmed this. In the report I confirmed this. I recovered his Focus, so even if they have him, he’s completely useless to them, he’s just meat. Mindless, magicless meat. Everything is documented in the after action report, if only you would care to read it.”

    “Your report—a litany of excuses that meant very little to me.”

    “They were amply prepared for us,” Judas insisted. “The other side claimed to have a precognitive, and yeah, we were blindsided by a vampire warded for anti-magic. Everything pointed her way was instantly fucking counterspelled, so I had every reason to take her at her word. Walked away from that with my life only because they wanted to send a message, and so, yeah—message received.”

    The Rules had a provision or two that kept the circles off his back while he was recovering, but now that he had restored his disintegrated arm, it sometimes felt like he was catching nothing but flak from all directions. Judas had hoped that this whole nonsense with invincible antimagic vampires was actually secret inner circle infighting of some sort, because then it would all get swept under the rug and forgotten. Apparently, however, the unknown group that vampire code-named Misandry belonged to really was somehow a completely foreign power, that no one seemed to know jack shit about.

    Which is fuckin’ worst case scenario for me.

    “What more of the potentiate?” The voice asked. “You’ve had ample time.”

    “Nothing,” Judas said. “Accessed hospital records from remote afterwards, and got nothing but noise. You know I’m good at this—ask Spook, ask Man in Black. This is what we do. If there was anything left to find, I’d have found it by now. If you inner circle Masters can’t flag him in an Akashic fractal—”

    “—Obscured.”

    “—then, yes, nothing,” Judas shook his head.

    The Akashic Records were highly regarded because they were a complete record of everything ever known, and they weren’t able to contain anything untrue. But, that didn’t always make them useful. In fact, nowadays they were rarely good for anything. As the years went on, anything and everything interesting were words censored over in black by various higher powers, obscured, and the fractal texts were becoming more inscrutable blocked out lines than they were coherent sentences.

    Someone out there presumably had perfect omniscient knowledge at some point back when the ancient system was established, but their identity had long since been swallowed up by myth and legend. The Masters’ modern means of tapping into the records and translating them from Latin wasn’t perfect, either—and the damnable thing was a pyramid scheme of the highest order. You had to submit power to the Akashic to read it, and feed it an absurd amount of magic to obscure the available information there for everyone else. No one could afford all of their secrets exposed, so it seemed everyone in the know was forced to pay into it—which then further empowered the reach of the mysterious Akashic Records.

    “I’ve seen his face,” Judas said. “That’s about it. Whatever injuries he had, the local incident reports? Already papered over. No clues even as to how they fuckin’ did it. Had a daemon hacking through the servers, nothing. Ran discreet inquiries by phone, got run around in a big loop. Everything there got scrubbed. Memory, intake records, timestamps, security footage, medical records; everything. Honestly not sure how or why our wards there got tripped in the first place, if they had those kinds of means.”

    “But, you’ve seen the potentiate’s face. You’ve met him.”

    “Yes.”

    “His injuries?”

    “It’s in the report,” Judas sighed. “Broken ribs, concussion I think. Wrist was smashed. His name was already missing from the chart when I got there, and I do mean missing. Wasn’t just put in as ‘John Doe,’ the bit of paper where a name shoulda been was ripped. Running through the inpatient records afterwards doesn’t return shit, so far as the hospital is concerned, nobody was ever there. Ambulance and police reports likewise return nada.”

    “You’ve seen the potentiate’s face,” The voice said again. “Take the clearest memory you have of him, and impression transfer to image. Put that image into Chalice, if Chalice returns anything more, find the results in the Akashic Record.”

    “Okay,” Judas paused. “That’s it? Just the potentiate—not the vampire? ‘Misandry?’ If she’s been around long enough, Chalice will have something on—”

    “Just the potentiate,” The voice cut him off. “Dealing with her, more… qualified Masters would have to take over this investigation. If a precognitive is involved, much will be redacted to starve them out. If inquisitors are involved and in possession of a precognitive, you will be redacted. This is protocol, as recognized by the Rules. Transfer the image, and then it looks like you’ll have to submit yourself to your circle Masters for… well, non-essential duties only.”

    “But—” Judas felt as though his insides had dropped out of him. Are you fucking kidding me?

    To a newly initiated Master, non-essential duties meant almost total leeway to fuck around and do whatever they pleased. To an experienced mid-circle Master, non-essential work at best meant they weren’t to be trusted by their peers—a death knell to those who thrived on their reputation—and at worst it meant they would be given dangerous jobs or downright suicide missions, because ‘non-essential’ could also mean ‘completely expendable,’ in certain circumstances.

    And, REDACTED? Fuck me.

    Being redacted from reality was just plain bad news.

    The process got talked about a lot because it was expensive, but even after decades of supposedly using it, there was a ton of speculation on whether or not it had ever even worked. After all, there was no proof—there was literally no information or recollection on anyone or anything that had ever been redacted. Just strange historical discrepancies. In theory, it was an excellent means of invalidating a precognitive’s future sight, but Judas had no idea how—the methodology of it all was quite a bit above his pay grade.

    “If, well,” Judas struggled to gather his thoughts. “If I put an image from Chalice to Akashic Record, you can’t even exactly hide that. Right? So—”

    “No concern of yours,” The voice said. “What cannot be redacted can still be obscured… obscured enough for our purposes. Impression transfer to image. Image to Chalice. Chalice to Akashic Record.”

    Obscuring things we shouldn’t know about creates obvious blots that will stand out to anyone else reading the Akashic Records. No better way to tip them off—no fucking clue how you all think you’re obscuring that.

    “I performed better than anyone could have expected, considering the circumstances,” Judas argued. “If there’s a chance I’m going to be fucking redacted, then there’s nothing for anyone to lose in keeping me in on this case.”

    “Nothing to gain, either,” The voice reminded him. “Not if you’re as inconsequential as you were in front of the enemy a month ago. Has that significantly changed? Are you now any more prepared for that level of challenge? A team potentially consisting of, and I quote—a precognitive, two infiltrators, a close quarter combat specialist, and at least one vampire warded for counterspelling?”

    So you DO have my report right in fucking front of you.

    Judas opened his mouth to answer, but wound up closing it again. There was no solution there that wasn’t foolish to the extreme, because that was a line-up that even any inner circle Master would hesitate against. Which on the one hand made it seem more likely that it was a bluff. But, if so, it was a good one, because if those were really the opponents this time and not a bad joke, there was no good answer to respond with. Only varying degrees of messy and costly. Infiltrators and a CQC? On their own, not a huge problem. Unless they were working with a precognitive, which always turned out to be a rather dizzying force multiplier. Even if there was only one vampire, her alone being made up as a mage masher would no-sell almost anything a Master could individually throw against her.

    “This… isn’t work for an ordinary Master,” Judas conceded. “But—”

    “It is not,” the voice agreed. “If anything can be gained by either Chalice or the Akashic, perhaps that might engage the interest of one of the old monsters and put you back into good graces. Otherwise, this is just another shitty problem with much to lose and little to gain. Much easier of course to attribute to sloppy work, failure to recover a potentiate, and the loss of—possible capture of—a Master. Which is unacceptable.”

    “With his brains spurting out across the floor and his Focus in our hands, Chad could hardly be considered a Master, anymore,” Judas frowned. “A loss is a loss, yes, but—”

    “His body shouldn’t have been left behind in the first place.”

    “Oh, please,” Judas scoffed. “There was a fuckin’ vampire—any one of you in my shoes back there wouldn’t be quibbling over food that was already on her plate. Each and every one of you’d have done the same thing.”

    “Fine. Get that impression done into images,” The voice repeated. “You said this monstrous party unknown was greatly interested in this guy? We want to know why. The inner circle has our own monsters, but they’re not losing sleep over yet another Gigachad Macgee lobotomizing himself. No one higher up gives a fuck about that, and no one on my level or in the mid-circle sees this as anything other than an opportunity to take you down a peg. Or redact you.”

    “I fucking know that,” Judas growled. I’ve been dealing with this nonstop bullshit for days.

    “Vampires and precognitives? They’re a hassle to deal with, makes great for shifting blame, sure,” The voice said. “But, it also starts to look like you’re just stacking up bullshit. You’ve had time to lick your wounds. They’re pairing you up with another dumbfuck rookie. So, either show us that you’re getting sloppy and careless and can’t be trusted, or get back in the game—get Chalice to show us something really interesting.”

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