“Mr. Graves,” Luz’s rich voice spoke through the magical hologram, greeting him with a welcoming smile. “Your planar address has shifted drastically.”

“Tell me about it.” Tom said, rolling his eyes.

“If you insist.” She said, before taking a deep breath.

“Not interested,” Tom said. “I need a sensitive gauge, and I need a bodyguard. Is Kar’el available again?”

“Let’s see…Ms. Kar’el left a note on her account that reads: ‘I don’t help idiot sperm donors that drive through strange portals without protection at Ellie’s discount. Once you can pay full price, I’ll consider leaving this sweet-ass new body. In the meantime I think I’ll cause some chaos on Earth in your name. Maybe catch up on Jersey Shore.’”

“Shit.” Tom muttered.

“I’m sorry Mr. Graves, Kar’el is still corporeal. We could arrange for transport, but the cost would be…” Her eyes slid off of his for a moment. “Astronomical.”

Damn.

“However, the ancient and powerful incorporeal spirit you dubbed ‘Mr. Fluffybottom’ abandoned his physical form shortly after you disappeared and left a temporary hold on his account in case you needed his assistance again.”

Sweet.

“Can you send me his summoning information again?”

“Of course, and would you like to take this opportunity to rate and review Mr. Fluffybottom? Good reviews do a lot for a low-tier incorporeal being.”

Tom shook his head, chuckling. “Sometimes it’s so wonderful and magical, and other times it feels like I never left Earth. Of course, give him the highest rating and mention his forethought and creative problem solving.”

“Will do,” Luz said, a moment before pausing, glancing past Tom’s shoulder.

“What is it?” Tom asked.

“Nothing,” Luz said, continuing. “I’ve just never had so many spectators on the other side of a Soulmonger’s connection. Are you sure that’s safe?”

Tom glanced around at the stunned village women, their daily tasks suspended as they gawked at the magical transmission in the center of the gazebo, written on the truck’s detatched hood.

“Safe? No. But it will prove I have magical mojo so powerful it brushes the ground when I walk.”

“Thanks for that lovely image.” Luz said. “Will there be anything else?”

“Nope.” Tom paused before he realized he was forgetting one of his important questions. “Oh wait, what dictates whether or not something has a soul or not? Is it just humans, or…what?”

It sure as hell wasn’t tiny desert lizards.

Luz let out a short peal of laughter. “No, it’s not just humans. The dividing line for whether or not a creature has a soul to power your soul engine is a question of necrocognizance.”

“Huh?” Tom asked.

“The awareness of death, especially the inevitability of their own. Souls are tied to your consciousness, after all, not necessarily your meat suit.”

“So like, elephants, apes and dolphins have souls, but ferrets don’t?”

“Yes.”

“Good to know,” Tom said. Not that he was interested in slaughtering helpless animals, especially not ones who understood what was happening to them. But it was good to know.

“Anything else, Mr. Graves?”

Tom checked the balance on his loan, which was in the black, so he dismissed Luz. With a flash of light, a new gauge and a piece of paper with Mr. Fluffybottom’s ID dropped down into the center of the spellwork. Tom retrieved the crypt and tucked it back in his pocket before gathering the rest of his supplies.

Time to do some Math.

Tom measured his passive load of Soul pulses, and was interested to note it had increased to point seven.

Tom dropped the soul pulses into the healing crypt, then aimed to make some more, holding the gauge against his chest.

Thump, Thump, Thump.

Tom’s heart knocked around his chest as he flexed whatever was generating soul pulses inside him. He still hadn’t trained his heart not to freak out when it went by. The heart’s a stubborn muscle.

The needle trembled for a moment before it settled on one point two.

1.2X4=4.8 per diem, or 144 a month. Minus the monthly payment of 60, we’ve got 84 soul pulses to play with in a month. That’s two skeleton animations, four dupes of a liter of gasoline, or many times more of something much smaller. I knew my output was getting better.

Note to self: test if duplication cost is dictated by mass, when psycho killer isn’t stalking self.

All those numbers are assuming the limit is still one pulse every four hours. I wouldn’t be surprised if the refractory period (hah) between creating soul pulses has shortened due to practice.

Tom had basically spent a solid month exercising a muscle that had never done anything before. Significant gains in both endurance and output were to be expected.

Approximately three and a half hours later, he was able to rally his inner engine for another one point two soul pulses, proving that he had indeed experienced ‘gains, bro.’

And while they were significant, they weren’t earth shattering or exponential. They seemed to follow a natural rate of progression. So, just like a human body, Tom expected he would run into limits, sooner or later.

In the meantime, one hundred and forty-four soul pulses a month is a actually a significant amount of magical power. It’s the equivalent of eighteen dead people.

Tom paused when he realized he needed a pocket watch if he wanted to be more accurate with the amount of soul pulses he was producing each month.

A single spike of guilt pierced his guts as his thoughts turned toward his grampa’s prized civil war pocketwatch. The thing was probably half-melted in the ruins of their home on the same shelf it had rested for decades.

Not a bad metaphor for the state of my family. Lily, Grampa, Gramma, Ellie, Carol.

The unintentional inclusion of Carol as family snapped Tom out of his rumination, goosebumps raising on the back of his neck, followed by a full body shudder.

I wonder what that insane demon is doing now. Probably watching reality TV in some dead guy’s living room.

***Kar’el, Greater Wratz’got, Butcher of the Dinamor Stretch***

“Young lady, if you don’t take your feet off the bench, I’ll hold you in contempt of court.”

Carol glanced up from Jersey Shore playing on her phone, before taking the earbuds out of her ears.

“What was that?”

“Please remove your feet from the table, young lady.” The robed dumbass repeated himself, his cheeks flush with barely restrained anger.

“I’m older than you,” Carol said, putting her earbuds back in. At her public defender’s insistent urging, she rolled her eyes and put her feet back on the floor.

I thought going to court for murder would be more interesting, but it’s nowhere near as fun as Orsoth. No mob, no shouting…I can’t even challenge my accuser to a duel to the death. What kind of stupid court system is that?

Despite Carol’s hostility and indifference toward…everyone, the murder trial was actually proceeding in her favor.

The defense was successfully pushing the idea that a woman weighing a hundred and twenty pounds could not have punched through bulletproof glass, pulled a man’s sternum out of his body and used it as a throwing knife.

“Hah!” Carol chuckled at the memory of that amusing bit of creative problem solving, earning herself some strange looks from the jury.

The prosecutor – that’s the guy who tries to prove you’re guilty – went to great lengths to prove a person on specific drugs could have done it, but he was easily countered by the defense.

She asked Carol to show everyone her hands. A human’s hands would have been ruined from performing drug-fueled superhuman feats. Carol’s hands were immaculate.

That seemed to convince the jury.

The funny thing was, she totally did the deed, but nobody on Earth believed in demons. At least nobody in court. She existed in a legal blind spot.

The sternumless survivor glared at her from the witness stand with a delicious blend of fear and hate.

She waved back with a smile.

***Later***

“Well, that was boring,” She muttered as she stepped out onto the street, cameras flashing around her.

She scanned the street, deciding where to go next.

Either Ellie was already dead, or they would keep her captive for a lifetime. There was little in-between.

That meant that there was plenty of time to orchestrate the revenge/rescue. Something the Sperm Donor hadn’t understood when he drove a truck through an unstable portal.

Dumbass.

Carol’s stomach growled, making the decision on her next move for her.

Pizza sounds good. If there was one thing Earth did right, it was the food.

Carol walked through the sea of flashing cameras, towards the street. A few of the cameramen tried to get in front of her and shove her so they could hold her in place a bit longer to get a better shot, but Carol just raised her mass a little and walked through them like a pile of dry leaves.

The stunned, bruised reporters paused, allowing her to gain distance and disappear into the crowd.

Pizza, pizza, pizza...there! Carol found a sign for a little mom-n-pop shop tucked into an alleyway, and breezed forward, her stomach rumbling.

Shortly after she entered the narrow alleyway, her sight cut off as a thick bag of some kind was dropped over her head. A moment later, her arms were wrestled behind her back, and her body was lifted off the ground.

Oooh, this seems interesting, Carol thought, unresisting as they hustled her away, into what sounded like a windowless van, moments before she felt her inertia shift drastically.

“I don’t suppose it’s my birthday?” Carol quipped.

Nobody talked back, indicating some level of professionalism, as if the efficacy of her bag-and-tag didn’t speak to that anyway.

Carol twiddled her thumbs behind her back for a moment before she felt a needle inject something into her body.

She’d seen enough drama-thriller movies to know what they wanted her to do.

She went limp, head hanging in place.

Of course human drugs were worthless against a facsimile body like hers. A facsimile body with a sweet bubble butt and bitchin’ tattoos. She really had to thank Tom for getting this young woman killed.

Once she was ‘out’, they started to talk.

“Site c-six is closest, we’ll drop the target off there and let them deal with logistics.”

Carol grinned under the bag.

Oooh, I’m X-files worthy. Nice.

Carol pretended to be asleep for another half hour as they hustled her into what sounded like an underground structure, into a room that felt sturdy, before stripping her, strapping her arms down and shoving a needle in her arm, sticking a bunch of sticky stuff to her temples. The whole Kertz’begat.

Hmm…are they trying to keep me semi-permanently sedated? Interesting.

***Michelle Effors***

“Subject name, Annabelle Brittany Farris, Alias ‘Reese’, brought in as a person of interest in relation to case Oberaum 1842. Subject is listed as a known associate of the owner of the vehicle that disappeared at ground zero.

“Said owner is dead in a seemingly related incident. She may have some insight into the events that transpired.” Her boss spoke into his recorder, staring through the one-way mirror at the subject, sitting limp in the steel chair.

“Umm, sir?” Michelle said, unable to fully believe what she was seeing.

“What?” George Falls, The silver-maned director of site C-6 asked, scowling as he looked at the technician.

Michelle wanted to reflexively flinch away from the director’s grimace, but she managed to keep it together long enough to tell him what she was seeing.

“The subject appears to not have a heartbeat. Or brainwaves, for that matter.”

“What?” Mr. Falls demanded.

“She…doesn’t seem to be alive?” Michelle squeaked.

“Did you try turning your machine off and on again?” He asked with a hint of scorn.

Michelle let the casual disregard of her professional expertise roll off of her.

“Yes, I also tried bringing in new machines and replacing her hookups three times. There’s no sign of life.” She said, pointing to the subject on the other side of the one-way mirror.

“Maybe She’s one of those E.T.s. Maybe this one can mess with electrical equipment.” Mr Falls said, rubbing his chin. “Collin, move her to a room with better EMP shielding.”

Michelle wanted to point out that interference would look like interference, not nothing, but Mr Falls generally wasn’t interested in listening to her opinion. She’d long since stopped trying.

“Sir,” The Agent said before hopping to it. A minute later, they watched as a team of three entered the secure room with a gurney, ready to move the sedated potential E.T. to a more secure location.

The moment they unstrapped Reese’s wrists, the lithe woman grabbed Colin’s throat.

The special agent had a moment of terror cross his face before Reese tore out the man’s throat, then bludgeoned the two nurses to death in a matter of seconds.

Mr. Falls gave a snarl and slammed the Purge button, flooding the chamber with a deadly cocktail of agents designed to kill things dead.

The opaque mist filled the room, somewhat obscuring Reese’s features as she staggered around the room, panting.

Her retching, gagging noises as she succumbed to the poison, though, that came through loud and clear on the connected speaker system, sending pangs of guilt through Michelle’s heart.

Sure, the woman was an insane killer, but nobody deserved to die like that.

Finally Reese collapsed to the ground, twitching in death.

“What’s her readout say now?” Mr. Falls asked quietly.

“Still says she’s dead.”

“Good.” Mr. Falls said, his eyes moist. Collin had been the old man’s favorite brown-noser. Mr. Falls pressed the next button, the one that released the counter-agent.

As the room was decontaminating, he flipped on his radio and called in a cleanup crew in full hazmat gear.

When the last of the four men stepped through the door, Reese’s body lunged forward, kicking the door shut before rebounding off the heavy metal, snapping a technician’s neck on the way past.

In a gut-wrenching instant, another four men were dead. The only sound in the room was a spine-chilling laughter emanating from the speaker in front of Michelle and Mr. Falls.

“HAHAHAH!” The creature on the other side of the one-way mirror doubled over, holding her stomach.

“Two for two! You guys are so stupid!” She wheezed, before looking back up at the mirror, breaking into another braying laugh a moment later.

“You should see the looks on your faces! AHAHAHA!” She said, pointing directly at Mr. Falls.

With a trembling hand, Mr. Falls, reached forward and pressed the talk button, projecting his voice on the speakers above Reese.

“What the hell are you?” Mr. Falls demanded.

“Come now,” The slender woman in a hospital gown said, settling back down on the metal chair bolted into the floor.

This time, though, she didn’t look like a prisoner.

She looked like a conqueror.

“Is that any way to talk to your new boss?”