6. Don't Turn Around.

I was exploring everything in one of the upstairs bedrooms and opened the safe there. There had been those cash cards and money as well, as well as a few guns, so I had one sports bag with me, where I put most of my possessions. I was about to go through the contents of the safe when my phone rang.

"Mimi," I answered.

The creepy, impersonal, evil voice talked to me, "Hello, baby, my wife. That's right, that's where you'll find it. I never reset it, never. And I never divorced you."

I reached into the safe and looked at the damn marriage contract under Damien's name. How I had missed it in my mind. Oh fuck, my rage flared up, and well. I remembered how I tried to make him nullify it, but no. 

Damien continued, " Look outside and you'll see what I look like now. Out here I'm looking at you, just behind the bubble. You see, I remembered this house even though I don't know who the fuck had caused this thing that those Damons to have been multiplying and why, but I've been waiting for you to get here. Come on baby, come on out and we'll talk. I'm not coming at you. You're in a protective bubble, you're perfectly safe. "

Fine. If he wanted to talk, fine by me. He is not knowing everything about our bubbles. So I had my plan. I also took my loaded gun out of the safe and made sure it had the bullets in it, and it worked. I took my old pink denim jacket and pulled it on. It had been a long time since I last time wore this. I put my gun in my jacket pocket and went out.

I walked behind the house where Damien was leaning against a tree. This version was tall and dark-haired, with a thin face and an evil look on his face. It was clear that he had chosen certain types of vessels for himself. This one is a bit like Steven Seagal, but not my type.

He looked at me and said, " Nice hair, but I like brunettes, so you'll learn to please me. When I catch you one day and program you to be with me, I'll do anything that I want to you. You will be my willing victim in the end. Even if I fill your abdominal cavity with tranq jelly every morning to get you all drugged up for the rest of the day, I'm going to program you so you don't fight me too much unless I permit you, but you know exactly who you're with. "

I yawned, supposedly bored, and said, " You don't want me like that. You won't get any pleasure out of it if you can't beat me all the time, keep me in chains, drug me, torture me. I have discovered the real reason why you have an obsession with me. I've figured out why you're going to do that to me."

I kept my voice bored like he was nothing, and I was utterly disgusted to talk to him. "You need someone to talk to. When you love your voice, and you need to be allowed to talk all the time, you need to get me to do it. No one else, not even your dear Mr. Sark, wants to listen to you all the time. Now I get it. Yeah, that's all right, Damien, but you know what? When I don't want to listen to you."

His gaze fixed on me, his hands clenched slightly, as if he wanted to lash out, suggesting that I had a knack for provoking him. His eyes were almost flaming with rage as I had hit the nerve and big time.

So I carried on, "I could never decide what was the worst part of the shed sessions, the equipment, and the pain or having to listen to your chronic speech diarrhea day after day. Whenever I got so sick and injured, I couldn't understand what you were saying. I was relieved. At least one part of that damn torture was beyond my understanding."

Damien's face lit up with sinister glee as he closed the distance, his voice dripping with malicious delight, "Just wait, baby, one day when I catch you, the satisfaction of seeing you suffer will be my sweetest triumph. Then my talking will be the least of your worries. I will destroy you, hell I might just have to kill you. What would sweet Adam or St. Charles do if you were again strapless in their mind, put there by me?"

I did not bother to answer. He came closer as to trying to get me out of the bubble. Oh, really, had it his little plan, to rile me up, trying to get me to venture outside of the bubble, well here is a little surprise for Damien. I did not change my expression at all; I kept it bored and arrogant. 

I took the gun out of my pocket and shot Damien straight in the chest three times and once in the head. Let him wake up somewhere else then. His little links from our houses had been destroyed, more or less, so there was no fear of him waking up in our houses. And if he would have, well, portal rooms were locked, and there was the spell that alerted if someone outsider was inside the house. And witches, well, they were merciless and effective to kill if necessary.

He did not know that I could shoot him from this side of the bubble. He could not get in, but I could get out as the bubble was called soft mode, meaning I could get in and out, but bad guys could not. If the bubble had been in hard mode, I could not get out or shoot him. Then it would be only Damon or Mariella who could grant access in and out. I was glad that Bubble was rarely in hard mode.

Then I stepped outside the bubble and went through the body carefully, grabbed his wallet and phone, and went back inside. I had planned this. I went into the bedroom to go through both carefully and sent the phone details to a Flea who knows about Damien and is keeping an eye on him. He would have the most use for those and also he would share them with our hacker squad, who then might get more information on Damien's plans.

There was one interesting piece of information. Damien had been trying to find wizards or witches who could just move someone into jewelry. But he had found none. I knew Damien had had such wizards, but they had all been killed now. I had killed most of them, and some of them had been killed by Constantine and Dresden, maybe even Magnum.

There was also a rumor that Damien was looking for certain jewels that had been stolen from him—several dozen rings and pendants. I suspected that there was little Damien in the jewelry and he wanted his backups into safety. Not gonna happen if I can help it.

I started to do some fleawork in passing again and paid little attention to the time. I went out for a meal and stocked up on snacks for myself while I worked. When you concentrate on your work, you get things done, and then you don't have time to be pissed off. And as usual, as soon as I made myself available for work, I had my hands full. It seemed that there was always something for me to decide, help, plan, or permit, being a leader. Once you get on with that job, it is truly a full-day job. 

Oh, I wanted to have a go at Damien, but I didn't know where he was yet. At some point, I'm gonna hit him and show him. Let's see if at some point the gentleman's contingency plans disappear. I needed to find out more about those, but I had many people to look into him as well. There was a specialized group watching Sark and making sure that we spoiled as many of his plans as possible. And save those who needed to be saved. 

As we saved people, we needed to find a place for them. If they needed a hospital, could they go to my hospital or did we have some other clinic available? If they did not need hospitalization, would they be willing to testify, and if so, then it would be time to get in contact with the FBI or NSA or whatever instance that wanted to start to investigate this case? It was a lot of work and I was very thankful that we had enough people usually to get everything done. 

It was usually that those contacts in higher up and authorities wanted to talk only with me, and it was up to me to direct those victims willing to testify in the right direction and get the necessary evidence to them, too. And if the case would be deemed something that prosecutors would want to work on, then it was good to give a little hint about where that facility had been and where these had been saved.

It was done in so many ways, by anonymous phone calls to hint phone or then some victims miraculously remembered something about the place or there was some hint of a few documents. Every time I had to decide how we give information. It was up to me to get the best chance for the prosecutor to nail this case.

I was just wondering when I was doing the flea work, whom I always give what. I had learned to delegate, and I always ended up passing on a project I was working on. But the fleas had continued to grow, and I did not always know so well everyone so I knew that somewhere in between I might go to some base to work for a few weeks or months, as long as I had time off.

It seemed a little bit that the pack really did not need me to be around, and it was what it was. I tried to convince myself that it was just that was because this was a lust pack and I wasn't feeling too lustful or they had deemed me not fuckable, despite being without a cock for over two years soon. So I immersed myself in work, going through plans, talking to people, and thinking that I really needed at some point to get to know these new guys properly. 

Because that's when I got to know a bit about these newcomers and others. I know what everyone likes or can do, and I'm pretty good at seeing who I want to do what. It's a different matter whether I always get the right people for the job. And it was one stark reminder for me that time had gone by so long since I had started the fleas.

So many of my originals had died, had left, and few oldies were around, or if they were, they were on desk duty as their bodies had gotten old. Not even my blood could grant eternal youth to them. It helped a lot, but it then stopped working at some point and, according to my sources, it was typical for vampire blood to lose its power. So I had just to accept that I could not keep my friends forever by my side, fighting the good fight. 

Mariella and the Damons had woken up after the power cleanses very eager and had now got the wolves and Adam and Charles in the same bed, and they were going wild, no one even thinking about what Mimi was doing. Now they required fucking. They did not think of Mimi and it was like she was something that they did not need when females had their alpha power. The alpha female book was left alone in the living room. No one bothered to read it anymore.

They fulfilled that need and then moved on to the Irish castle to continue. Somehow it was better to fuck there when Mimi wasn't there. Damon knew that Mimi's alpha power would have to be cleaned at some point, but it wasn't time yet until they got this sex drive under control. He wanted to see how strong Mimi's alpha power was, but now they had this obsession with just fucking and not doing anything else. It was like they were almost spelled to fuck,

Where the rest of the pack has always had a lust for sex, I've fluctuated over the years. You can have a lust for sex, but also the other lust that's driven me has been a lust for revenge, and it's strong because I'm not an energy being and I haven't necessarily turned my lust into sex, it can then be satisfied in other ways.

The lust for money. Well, I'm so rich it's never been an issue, but even today, I'm driven by the lust for revenge, sometimes even pure murder, when I know my victims. And the rest of the pack has never understood it. With my rage and my lust, let's just say that I can be quite an impressive killer when I need to.

I have my darkness inside me, my true beast, my killer side, not just my rage and it loves my lust, when it is awakened, I am consumed by the lust of killing, the lust of death, I am true soulless killing machine then, not fucking machine as rest of the pack.

Pack does not know how to use their lust much anything else than sex and carnality. And I don't think they ever will. Age brings wisdom, well I don't know about that, but it brings such insights into my own past and myself.