“I detest children,” Jezebel looked around the school gymnasium and sniffed.

Her nose wrinkled from all the teenage angst whirling in the æther. There was lust in the air, but it was unfocused, unbridled lust. Lust was like wine. You could get drunk off just about any brand, but some vintages were better than others. The unbridled lust of a teenager in heat was like boxed wine. It did the trick, but there wasn’t much else to it. There weren’t any hints of seduction or the finer points of sexuality that made lust so much more than a carnal emotion.

What she sensed here was a lot of passion, fumbling, and thirty seconds of thrusting before the man’s lust peaked and the woman’s plummeted. In her experience, that was how first times usually went, and someone had their first time in this room only a few hours ago.

Still, she was a lust-powered Infernal, so with a deep breath she sucked in the lingering æther.

“Really?” Vicky followed Jezebel into the gym. “Your snatch is basically a dong-magnet. Are you telling me that some random dude hasn’t knocked you up, and nine months later you pooped out a kid?”

“My kind doesn’t work like yours, Soulless.” Jezebel envisioned herself tearing the Souless’ leg off at the knee and shoving her foot down her own throat. “My children are never children at all. They are hatched at maturity. To be a child is to be weak and helpless. Anything I breed is born ready to serve.”

“Well, that’s creepy as fuck.” Vicky stepped aside so Jeb and Lono could roll in the supplies they’d need.

“Is there anything else you need, Ms. Jezebel?” Janitor Joe was basically salivating next to the sexy Infernal.

“I will need you soon, my love. Please be patient. “She didn’t even look at the elderly man. She didn’t need to. He was completely enthralled with her and would do anything she asked…anything.

“Ah, the American public school system. Good times.” Anton was the last into the large space where half-finished banners and decorations littered the floor.

“When did you ever attend school,” Vicky raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“I spent a decade teaching down in Charleston. It seemed as good a way as any to attain some loyal feeders. You can’t imagine how many teenage girls swoon over a man quoting Shakespeare.”

“Oh I can.” Vicky didn’t let Anton see her smile. She’d been one of those once. Of course, she’d been the one that took advantage of that relationship.

“Enough!” Jeb was tired of the chattering. “Let’s get this over with.”

The greed-powered Infernal clearly thought this was beneath him, but the Dux had commanded they handle it.

The Dux’s lieutenants – no matter the management – rarely worked together on projects. There were several reasons for that: different management styles, they hated each other, competing over the limited æther in the city, and they hated each other.

The ætherial pie could only be split so many ways. What was the real difference between greed, lust, and gluttony? If someone lusted too much were they not greedy? If someone engaged in too much sex were they not gluttonous? Their ætherial power was not clear-cut. It was more like a vendiagram with overlapping circles, and those overlapping sections could be explosive. As a rule they kept to their individual territories around the city, but they were now all together in one place under one roof.

“The site is secure.” Anton informed. He had a squad of his Soulless watching the perimeter. It was unlikely that anyone would stop by this late, but better safe than sorry.

“The cameras are on loop.” Vicky informed. Elisa was in the school’s security office, and Vicky had compelled the guards to forget they were ever here.

“Let’s get started.” Jezebel commanded Janitor Joe to lie on the floor while Lono brought the cart of supplies forward.

Making wards was a fickle science: ingredients, intentions, and power were all at play in their creation. Most importantly, they needed someone motivated to get them done properly. Right now, they were all motivated by the fear that Gerry and Lucian would dismember them if they failed.

“We need four outward concealing wards in each corner of the ceiling.” Jezebel started out with the most obvious. “I can handle those.”

“The ceremony calls for three ætherial conduits at the center, but we’ll need another four to power the wards.” Jeb pointed at the center of the basketball court where the school’s mascot was emblazoned and its four corners.  “We’ll make a triangle with an inward concealing ward in the center.”

“We’ll need dozens of protection wards calibrated for the Divine. I’d say three on the side walls, six on the ceiling, and three on the floor. If we are attacked it’ll be from above or the sides. Might as well throw containment wards on each of the doors,” Anton added as he surveyed the space.

“Too many conealment?” Lono spoke up for the first time in his broken English. It sounded like the fat of his triple-chin was strangling his attempt to speak.

“He’s right.” Jezebel nodded at the biggest Infernal in the room. “Too many inward concealment wards are going to dampen the other wards’ effectiveness.” That would be a big problem.

“That’s an easy fix.” Vicky shrugged. “We’ll get these banners finished and hang them over the wards to hide them. I’m the chair of the homecoming committee, so I’ll be here early to supervise the finishing touches before the dance. We’ll only need the one interior ward to hide the trio of conduits at the center. Everything else can be covered up.”

“An elegant solution.” Anton gave her a nod and then turned to the Infernals.

“Fine…”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Whatever…”

Lono just nodded along, and they got to work.

Jezebel started with the outward-directed concealment wards. Their purpose was to keep the eyes of the Divine off the school while the Duxes completed their little ceremony. One was enough to hide an Infernal wielding æther. Two was enough to disguise a dux in their true form. The penthouse Gerry lived in had three just to be safe. If four were called for then there was going to be some serious shit going down. On a simpler level, the wards affected the senses of anyone nearby. There could be a fire raging the middle of the gym and no one outside would know any better until they crossed the threshold.

The ward wasn’t overly complicated, but it required enough power that it wouldn’t simply burn away under the intensity of what was occurring within it. That required one key ingredient: blood. Not just ordinary blood, Infernal blood. The other ingredients were simple: six ounces of dead-man’s soil as a binding agent, a gallon of black paint you could get at any home improvement store, a sprinkling of frankincense, a sliver of silver, and a drop of dragon’s blood to fortify it against mundane methods of destruction. She stuck it all into a large pewter cauldron, lit a fire with her magic, and mixed it all together for six minutes and sixty six seconds.

That actually made it seven minutes and six seconds of mixing, but that’s not how the instructions explained it. There was a power in symbology that was as integral to the process as the ingredients themselves.

She added the ingredients in the proper order, and stirred for the first six minutes before taking out a small dagger and slicing her palm open. The wound started to heal quickly, but not before she got the required amount of drops into the potion. She hit it with a solid amount of motivation at six minutes and sixty-five seconds. There was a loud poof, a shower of sparks, and the black tar-like substance transformed into a luminous shade of silver.

She snapped her fingers and the fire went out. That was step one. Step two was getting the pattern right. Drawing a ward wasn’t like spray painting of vandalizing the surface of a building. It was an art. The complex geometric designs had to be painted with a masterful hand or it would just be shit scribbled on a wall.

Jezebel worked slowly and meticulously. It was shapes within shapes within more shapes. Sweat was flowing freely down her back by the time she carefully swept the final brushstroke across the white, brick wall. You could tell it was done correctly when the silver liquid seemed to solidify and sink into the surface of the wall.

It took her an hour to do just one, but she had it easy. Jeb was doing the power conduits in the center with Anton’s assistance. Their potion was much more complex with rarer ingredients. If Jezebel screwed up then they just needed to go to the nearest cemetery and dig up another grave. Jeb didn’t have that luxury.

Power conduits required a lot more of his blood to start – a full liter. On top of that was a dozen crows eyes, the heart of a newborn baby, a shard of Infernal Iron, and an ounce of plutonium of all things. A human even attempting to concoct an ætherial power conduit would die of radiation poisoning before being burned to a cinder by the powerful energy.

Unlike Jezebel’s wards, the power conduits were a brilliant gold in color. They contrasted sharply with the black interior concealment ward Anton was constructing. The ward would normally conflict with the ceremony, but by the time it was time to start the sacrifice the ward would no longer be needed, and the activation of the conduits would scorch it from the floor.

The three Infernals and two Soulless worked diligently into the early morning. Wards were not something that could be thrown up at a moment’s notice, and ideally they’d have time to settle before needing to be used. They didn’t have that much time, so they had to make do.

“Get it in place!” Vicky growled at Anton.

Everyone’s nerves were starting to fray after a night spent do intensive work.

“I’m trying.” They were securing the last banner over the exterior concealment charm in the far corner of the room and having a little trouble tying it off to one of the rafters.

“Ms. Jezebel, I’m tired.” Janitor Joe’s eyes were partially rolled into the back of his head as his body’s needs fought against Jezebel’s enthrallment.

“Soon, precious, very soon.” She patted the prostrated man’s cheek and his whole body shuddered with pleasure.

Her smile slipped as she turned away from him and focused her attention on the Soulless. They’d finally attached the banner and were giving the room one last look. The homecoming committee would find little to do when they arrived today. The banners on the walls and ceiling were already completed and hung. More giant signs were plastered over the doors. Plastic tables with cheap, white tablecloths were set up and ready for the punch the high school’s students would inevitably try to spike. It looked like just about every other budgeted school dance in the school’s history. The banners might have even been a slightly higher artistic quality since people more than a few centuries old had completed them.

The students would come to enjoy the socialization, grinding on each other, and hope to get laid, high, or drunk while the chaperones weren’t looking. They wouldn’t even notice they’d walked right into a trap, and Janitor Joe was the final piece of the puzzle.

“Joe, sweetie.” Jezebel took a seat behind the old man. She could feel his arousal spike as she ran her hands over his chest. “I need you to do something for me. Is that ok?”

“Yes, anything.” The exhaustion had vanished from the man’s eyes.

“I want you to give yourself to me fully.” She smiled as she continued to caress him, but moved her hands lower.

“Of course,” he exhaled with pleasure.

“I need you to say it. Say that you give your life to me.”

“I give my life to you.” There was no hesitation in the man’s response. He was so thoroughly caught in her web he never stood a chance.

“Good.” She nibbled on his earlobe playfully.

Joe shuddered as her teeth grazed his flesh. He arched his back, craned his neck back to look at her, and sealed his own fate. As he arched his neck, Jezebel’s hand moved from his belt up toward his head. As it moved it transformed. It shifted from the finely-manicured nails to a large, sharp talon. With an easy swipe she drew it across his throat.

Blood fountained out of the wound and onto the floor. They were sitting right in the center of the interior concealment ward. The blackness of the ward seemed to open wide and swallowed the blood as it leaked out of Joe. The ward drank up the human sacrifice and drew power from the dying janitor’s blood. Jeb stood by to make sure none of the blood made onto his power conduits, but Jezebel was a professional.

The ward consumed Janitor Joe’s blood and then his body. He was cold and dead by the time the darkness devoured him. His soul passed through it and to the realm of Prince Seere, but it was what the sacrifice did on this plane that mattered.

“We’re done here.” Jeb announced as the concealment ward and the power conduits winked out of existence. “School starts in an hour and we need to be gone before the teachers arrive.”

“I’ll stay and make sure they see me at work.” Vicky nodded as the rest of the Infernals strode out of the gym.

Anton was the last one. He gave the gym one final look and a satisfied nod before turning to Vicky. “Can you feel it?”

Vicky was feeling a lot of things. Thirsty after seeing a man bleed out was at the top of her list.

“Not that.” Anton didn’t need her answer to guess what she was thinking. “There’s something in the air, something more. Whatever is happening tonight it’s going to be big.”

“The only thing guaranteed with all these Infernals involved is that it is going to be a big bag of dicks. I got paid and that’s enough for me.” She gave the other vampire a hard stare. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Anton, but I can’t wait for you to get the hell out of my town.”

Anton didn’t reply. He just grinned, spun on his heel, and exited the building. That left Vicky all alone to sell the hardest part of the whole operation. She needed to convince the faculty that for the first time in the four years she’d attended the school that she was actually being proactive. That in itself was a miracle, and she hoped it didn’t draw too much attention.