Sasha was idly poring through Geneology of the Great Houses Vol 16, imagining the names on the dry list of who begat who, trying to imagine their lives, and what they might have been like before their sexual exploits were condensed to just the successes and written down in a book.

Geoff En’hol begat three children, Marida En’hol, Ofnir En’hol, and finally Hanameh En’hol much later in life.

Sasha frowned, cocking her head to the side. She recognized the first two names, but not the last one.

“Sasha!” Uncle said, breaking her train of thought as he stormed through the foyer of his mansion, tearing off a sopping wet shawl of Vith make and tossing it aside.

“I don’t want you within one mile of that boy!” he said, shaking his finger as a vein throbbed on his temple.

“Did you find out why here’s here? Is he bad?”

“He’s bad news, and every bit an En’hol. Freaking stalling me until it was too late to do anything about the army at our doorstep. I hate working with those seer-monkeys. Smug know-it-alls.”

“There’s an army at the family plantation?” Sasha asked, eyebrows raising.

“Lucky for me, the Vith aren’t the most organized army,” her uncle muttered. “Turned into an old Vith lady and just walked out of the camp.” He made a smooth swishing motion with his hand.

“There’s a Vith army at the family plantation!?” Sasha cried, climbing to her feet.

“I’m assuming they’re much closer than that,” her uncle said, donning his coat.

“Stay here, don’t go outside the city. I have to warn the royal families that they have an enormous flaming shitstorm on their doorstep. I assume they both already know, but it never hurts to try.

“I reiterate. Don’t go outside the city. I don’t care how good it was the first time they caught you.”

“You know about that!?” Sasha exclaimed

“Niece, I sometimes get captured by the Vith to take a vacation from being The Immortal. Remember when I disappeared for a year when you were fifteen?”

Sasha’s jaw dropped.

“Good times. Anyway, there’s an army of Alia outside the city led by an infamous demon general and supported by a rogue En’hol. I’m gonna go talk to somebody about that. Ta.”

***Tom Graves***

“So you’re Suzie?” Tom asked, taking in his familiar’s humanoid body and trying not to be a creep about it. She looked a bit like if Darth Maul got a gender and pallet swap. And better teeth. The only thing that remained from her time as a frog was the skin color, horns and glowing green eyes.

Am I crazy or am I looking at Ilspeth eighty-nine?

“I’m sorry for the misdirection,” Suzie said with a bow. “An Outsider cannot advance beyond a certain point without a Name. I gave Luz every ounce of my accumulated power in order regress to a nameless Ilsgot so I had the chance to get one.”

“It was a calculated gamble.” She continued. “The vast majority of first-time summoners of familiars give them Names instead of numbers. That alone wasn’t appealing enough to throw away hundreds of years of accumulated power, until I noticed you were in a world with no competition for Soul Pulses. I assumed you would rise to power easily and accumulate a tremendous amount of power, enough to Molt again in a couple decades at most.”

“Please don’t revoke our deal.” Suzie said, literally grovelling in front of him.

“You’re fine,” Tom said, waving it off. “Nothing you did endangered or inconvenienced me in any way. And you did explain your reasoning behind ‘getting in on the ground floor’.”

“That bonus though, the one that allowed you to buy me Crypt Vocabulary and Material Spell Synthesis? That was your power bartered with other Outsiders, wasn’t it? Not a signing bonus. Four thousand soul pulses is a pretty big signing bonus. Especially on a loan smaller than that.”

“You’re right,” Suzie said with a wince.

Given that some of Ilspeth 89’s power had been set aside to give him a head-start, her little tactic had actually sped up his development as a Soul Monger. Good for him, and good for her.

“I don’t appreciate being lied to, but I forgive you. It wasn’t a big lie, but I was hella confused when you disappeared the next day. That was the only flaw in your plan.”

Suzie stayed silent, seemingly absorbing the criticism.

“So, what can an Ilspeth do better than an Ilsgot?” Tom asked.

“Notable features are drastically increased range of soul acquisition. Every mundane trait has a notable boost as well. Speed, strength, endurance, intelligence.”

“Can you still blend in with your environment?” Tom asked.

In response, she took on the shape and appearance of a pile of laundry.

“Alright, good.” Tom nodded as he adjusted his plans for the frog-outsider.

“The Honnuken escaped!” A Vith shouted, running past Tom toward Carol’s location. “It was The Immortal!”

“Hold on,” Tom said, pausing the warrior. “What do you mean the Honnuken’s escaped?”

“An old woman walked out saying she’d fed him, but when I ducked my head into the tent, the old man was already gone. It was the Immortal!”

“Honnuken can shapeshift?” Tom asked incredulously.

“Only The Immortal can shapeshift,” the Vith warrior said, rolling his eyes as if Tom was a dense child.

Well, excuse me for not knowing this shit.

“The Immortal vacations among the Vith as a nameless Honnuken every five years or so. He thinks he’s clever but the man has a thousand tells, which are well known among our people. Unfortunately you didn’t know them.

“He tap his fingers together when he’s nervous?” Tom asked. “Eye twitch when he’s pissed?”

“So you do know them.”

“I didn’t know they were The Immortal’s tells!”

We had the lead Honnuken in our hands, and he just walked away? Damnit.

To be fair, I’m not sure we have the capability of keeping ANY head of household prisoner. They’re all very powerful in their own respects.

The head of the fire Alia could probably cause enough damage that it would be far more efficient to just kill them.

As far as capturable Alia went, the Immortal was pretty much the least likely to be a problem. Slippery, but not dangerous.

Assuming he can’t cause heart failure whenever he wants.

Tom paused.

What would stop someone who can modify your body at will from just…making it not work anymore? Tom didn’t subscribe to the notion that a person who could mend your flesh together was only limited to that. Especially if they could shapeshift.

It was probably some Orsoth version of the Hippocratic oath mixed with good branding on the part of the Honnuken. Nobody’s threatened by a healer. Everyone’s threatened by the guy who can stop your heart at will.

You know what? Let’s just be glad he’s not too bright, and a pacifist, and leave it at that, I guess.

Now came the moment that he’d been dreading since he drafted his will before the battle. Meeting Carol again.

I really hoped I’d be dead for this, Tom thought.

“You want me to go with you?” Suzie asked, reading his emotions through the Familiar bond.

“There’s no reason for both of us to suffer,” Tom said, squaring his shoulders and heading towards Carol’s location.

“Tom, nice of you to join us,” Carol said, swiveling her seat to look at him, petting a piglet ominously. The effect would be more menacing if she weren’t in the middle of a pasture, and the piglet weren’t struggling to escape. And her swivel chair were designed to do so.

She was still wearing Reese’s body, her skin covered in tattoos.

Carol noticed his look and studied her own arms. “You like? I had to put a lot of soul-pulses into recreating this body, since I abandoned it on Earth, but this drug-dealer’s body is my favorite to date. I may have taken the opportunity to make a tweak or two but it’s still mostly the same.”

“Ring.” Tom said, holding out his hand. He’d rather cut his conversation with Carol as short as possible.

“I must’ve lost it in the Outside.” Carol said with a shrug.

“The contract specifically included that you have a control ring with you and that you give it to me or Ella upon request.” Tom said, explaining slowly, like he was talking to a sadistic child. “I request that you give me your control ring.”

“God, you’re irritating.” Carol said, reaching into the leather tunic she wore and pulling out…

Her middle finger.

“Hah, you should’ve seen the look on your face! You thought I was gonna make it easy for you.”

Was kinda hoping you would. Tom thought not letting it show on his face.

“I already tricked one of these rubes into to asking me to give Ella the ring. Your contract specified that the recipient must be you or Ellah, but not the requestor. Your precious safety-blankie is already in the mail. You can’t tell me to do shit.”

“You put the ring that controls you…in the mail. To the people we are fighting?”

“It’s a fun little countdown until I betray you and kill you in your sleep! Isn’t it exciting?” Carol asked. “I find that a death clock is motiviating and invigorating.”

“No.” Tom said. “No it’s not. Thank you for the rescue, but your services will no longer –“

“Wait!” Carol said, stopping him before he could speak the phrase that would see her yoinked back to the pit from whence she came.

“You’re in deeper shit than you think!” She said, tossing aside the piglet as she stood. “The humans got their hands on both of your stupid books. Sometime in the next year, the U.S. is probably going to launch a punitive attack on Orsoth to flex their muscles as a brand-new interdimensional civilization.”

“How is that bad?” Tom asked. “I’m an American citizen. I had to sign up for the freakin’ draft.”

“Couple reasons. First, because you’re not technically human, which is gonna cause you some problems, but mostly because my brother’s with them.”

Tom’s skin chilled.

“Is your brother as bad as you?” Tom asked.

“Pfft.” Carol blew a raspberry and waved him off. “Not nearly as bad as me. He keeps all his sadism, lust, rage, and burning need for carnage tightly under wraps like a beta pussy so people think he’s nice and helping them…until somehow their whole civilization winds up destroying itself. Too much of a bitch to ruin a civilization with his own hands.”

“So…he’s worse than you.”

“You fucking take that back!” Carol shouted, her body growing huge, jaw jutting out, filled with slavering teeth.

“In a beta pussy sort of way,” Tom continued.

“That’s better,” Carol shrank back down.

“When he shows up, you can bet your ass that Orsoth is going to become something of an oil-field of sorts. The Alia will be culled, and the population will be used as convenient fodder for soul pulses, ushering in an age of untold prosperity for Earth.”

“Makes me sick.” Carol muttered, shaking her head.

“The age of untold prosperity?” Tom asked. “Because I assume you’re perfectly comfortable with the rest of it.”

“Pretty much.” Carol met his gaze. “I’ve watched the history channel. Earth is going to steamroll Orsoth through sheer superior numbers, logistics, and technology. One Alia can potentially destroy a base, but Alia are just as weak to air strikes as everyone else.”

Tom glanced around at the bulletproof Vith.

“You know what I mean.”

“Tell you what, How about this? I’ll help you get your adorable daughter back, do my best not to kill you and get that ring back before it falls into the wrong hands. In exchange, you help me kill my brother, because that’s the only way to avoid the destruction of both Earth and Orsoth.”

“You want to save a planet?”

“I want to send my brother back to the pit,” Carol clarified. “Putting a black mark on his record is worth…”She shuddered. “Saving people.”

“And you’ll be on your best behavior?”

“I already said I wouldn’t kill you. Don’t push your luck.” Carol said, crossing her arms.

“No.” Tom said.

“No what?”

“No deal,” Tom said. “There’s no compulsion on you to tell the truth. This setup is based on the idea your control ring isn’t here, and is designed to pressure me into agreeing to your terms…but I think we both know you would never willingly hand your control ring over to someone you couldn’t immediately retrieve it from.”

Tom scanned the crowd of Vith spectators that had slowly accumulated around them. “Who’s got Carol’s ring!?”

“Shit.” Carol muttered.

“I do!” one of the nearby Vith children said, stepping forward. “She asked me to give it to you once you were done talking.”

“Yeah, we’re done talking,” Tom said, slipping the ring onto his hand. It tingled a little against his soul. Like a mild sunburn.

“I liked you better when you weren’t Inured.” Carol muttered, scowling.

“Yeah, well, it’s been a long few months.” Tom inspected the ring in the light of the burning buildings, briefly considering using it to make the demon more agreeable and repay Carol for years of antagonism.

But what Tom needed wasn’t a humiliated, hobbled immortal with a grudge against him. He needed a general. A vicious, cunning, ambitious one, with a leash, but no muzzle.

“Keep up the good work.” Tom ordered, spinning his soul pulses through the ring.

Carol’s face split in an inhuman smile. “As you wish, milord.”