Font of Fertility Ch. 36

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All Characters in sexual situations are 18 years or older.

This story is a continuation of the Font of Fertility series. I suggest starting with Chapter 1 if you have not already. This chapter includes explosions, car chases, vigorous and fast MF, and sarcastic remarks.

Jeremiah tries to connect with a Magical Tinkerer and things go off the rails.

Returning Dramatis Personae

- Jeremiah 'Jerry' Grant - Seat of Fertility, aka. Powerful Sex Shaman

- Leandro de la Roca - Spanish Paladín of the Orden de la Espada de Piedra, protector of the Stone Sword, Sworn bodyguard to Jerry

- Stacey Wilde - Girlfriend/Concubine, athletic, old family friend of the Grants

- Lindsey Parker - Girlfriend/Concubine, gal-genius, former neighbour of the Baxleys

Referenced Characters

- Shelton - Ascended gun-nut from Utah, built his own moderately-successful rocket

- Lauren Baxley - Public girlfriend, Jerry's Prime in the magic world, closest friend and confidant

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"Alright, the closer we get, the more ridiculous this feels," I said.

Leandro snorted softly, then cleared his throat like he wasn't sure if he was allowed to laugh at something I said. "It is definitely not the most... understandable dead drop," he said.

We were walking down the street in Tuba City, Arizona. Cars were whizzing by on the busy four-lane, and there wasn't a sidewalk so we were sort of half on the gravel shoulder, half on the red-brown desert dirt. Despite my previous jumping down into New Mexico for Annalise and hunting her father, when I'd been a little preoccupied to really take in the scenery, a short walk from the door of the 7/11 that I'd used to teleportal us down this time gave me the chance to really take in how fuckingdeserty it was. The town was built on a slight slope, or at least this part was, and from the direction we were walking, we could see the edge of civilization and miles into the desolate wasteland that was the desert.

My first thought was 'Who the fuck decided to settle here?' followed closely by 'And who the hell decided the first guy had a good point?'

The KFC where we were supposed to ask for 'Billy' was two lots ahead of us, and I couldn't help but start thinking maybe I'd made a mistake listening to Shelton. I'd already burned some of my stored-up power hopping Leandro and I to the gun shows, and then I invested more into making sure the gun nut didn't die in a fiery explosion so he could live his dream of soaring through the sky on his homemade rocket. This whole part of the excursion to get Leandro the equipment he needed to do his job as my oath-sworn bodyguard would be a flop if Billy turned out to be as skilled as Shelton in his creations. The 'tinkerer' was my first decent lead to someone who was already doing magical enchantment work though, so it was hopefully going to be worth the time.

"Should one of us stay outside as backup?" Leandro asked me. "I don't know how you go about these sorts of things."

"I don'thave a way of doing this stuff," I sighed. "Though you make a good point. Billy might get spooked if-"

BOOM.

The KFC exploded.

The fiery blast blew out the windows, shooting yellow-red fire out of every gaping hole, and then began pouring thick, black smoke clouds into the sky as cars screeched to a halt and horns honked up and down the street.

"Holy shit," I said, blinking and working my jaw to try and decompress the sudden pressure change in my ears.

Leandro was standing up, his instincts to drop to the ground for cover leaving him a little dusty but otherwise unhurt. "Do you think Shelton called and warned him?" he asked.

"I- can't see why that would bring onthat," I said.

Then three black Escalades sped out from the back of the KFC parking lot, pulling onto the street and heading right towards us.

"You've got to be shitting me," I said.

The windows were tinted dark, and the driver of each vehicle was wearing black, with black sunglasses, laser-focused as they wove through the stopped traffic. The middle Escalade was rocking a little on its shocks and a muffled shouting was coming from inside before the engine revved as they picked up speed.

"There's no way," Leandro said as we turned and watched the three vehicles speeding away. "That thosedon't have anything to do with our man."

"Yep. That's not a coincidence," I sighed. Then I remembered I could do fucking magic and could have just stopped the fucking cars. "Fuck."

"Magic?" Leandro asked, possibly reading my mind.

"We need a ride," I grunted. The distance and the speed meant it would take a decent chunk of power to stop them, and I wassupposed to be trying to build my reserves.

"On it," Leandro said, and he darted into the parking lot next to us. It was some sort of a storage rental place and there were a few cars in the parking lot, but he made a bee-line for what looked like an older Pickup/SUV hybrid thing - I had to get a look at the front to see it was a Bronco. The car was an old, beat-up piece of shit, and my Spaniard compatriot didn't exactly help things when he smashed the driver's side window so he could reach in and unlock it. He unlocked the passenger side and I got in as he started to efficiently start hotwiring it.

"You picked this over the newer ones?" I asked, gesturing to the other two cars in the parking lot.

The engine thrummed to life after a spark. "This one is too old to have alarms," he explained and threw the Bronco into drive and started to quickly peel out onto the street. Sirens were already starting as the local cops or firefighters responded to the burning chicken place - I had to guess that the fryer grease would be abitch to handle.

I hurried to put on my seatbelt as Leandro cut across three lanes to get headed in the direction the dark Escalades had gone, a serenade of honking rising behind us as the sirens continued to get louder.

"Have you done this before?" I asked, watching his intense focus on the road as he seemed to be trying to watch ahead of us and all three of the mirrors at once.

"Only on the other end," he said. "It isn't so different, I think, running and chasing."

"Sure," I grunted, bracing as he whipped the truck around a minivan that hadn't yet reached the backing-up traffic. Tires screeched, and the lady slammed on her horn, adding to the chorus. "Just, uh, since we haven't really gotten into deeeetail-" Another gut-wrenching swerve to miss a car that had stopped to try and make a left-hand turn. "About what I can do - my magic can do alot but I don't have unlimited fuel for it. And the more time I have to plan what I'm doing, the more efficiently I can use it. But the big thing is right now, compared to all the other Seats with their centuries of building reserves, I'm basically trying to start funding my first savings account."

Leandro grunted, and even he winced as the Bronco sideswiped some sort of luxury sedan that tried to cut us off for some ungodly reason. "So why did we do that whole thing with Shelton and the rocket?"

"I didn't know we'd be getting into a high-speed chase!"

He shook his head, sparing a glance at me as I had one foot braced on the front dash and my arms wide holding onto both the 'oh shit' handle above the door and the centre console. "We should probably talk about operational preparedness."

"Right now!?"

".... No," Leandro said. The Escalades had come back into view ahead of us, making a right turn onto a side street. "But are you able to doanything right now?"

"Get me closer," I said. "That'll help."

"Getting closer," he nodded, and I guess he wasn't already putting the gas pedal to the floor because somehow the truck started moving even faster.

There was a moment, making the right-hand turn, when I was sure the truck was going to flip from the inertia. I had to guess that whoever owned the beat-up old piece of shit had replaced the tires in the last six months because theonly thing that could have kept us on the ground was good tread.

"Can you take out the back one?" Leandro asked me.

"Gimme a second," I said. We were maybe thirty yards back and gaining, and theyhad to have noticed us by now.

My options were technically limitless, but having almost no guidelines always led me to option overload so I immediately focused on what I'd seen in movies and TV. How would spies or special forces stop a moving vehicle?

My first thought was a magnetic bomb - I couldn't rememberwhat movie I'd seen with that, because it seemed alittle much, but it was what I jumped to first. The second was blowing out the tires. A flat wouldn't do it; they could keep driving on a flat, and continue making themselves a problem. And if they were kidnapping people and leaving behind exploding fast food places I doubted they cared much about their vehicle's long-term maintenance costs.

"What are the chances the vehicle flips if I blow up both tires on one side?" I asked quickly.

"Immediately?" Leandro asked. "Less than fifty per cent."

"Really?" I asked, kind of surprised.

"Life is not a Michael Bay film!"

"We just watched a Kentucky Fried Chicken blow up in a fireball!"

Someone stood up out of the sunroof in the Escalade. And then raised a rifle and aimed at us.

"Do something!" Leandro shouted.

"I'm doing something, I'm doing something!" I shouted back.

I blew both the tires on the left side of the SUV. It helped that I knew how a car tire generally worked, so the spell just doubled the air inside them at an exponential rate - it took less than half a second for both of them to pop like gunshots going off, and the Escalade bounced heavily. The person standing up in the sunroof bounced too, half falling out, and then got swung around wildly as the vehicle immediately veered hard left, crossing the other lane and narrowly missing a parked car before slamming into a fire hydrant. Red-brown dust kicked up all around the wreck as we zoomed by it.

"Holy shit, that worked," I said, craning my neck back to look. Then I looked forward again and saw that not all the bangs had been from the tires - two fresh bullet holes were letting in wind through the front windshield, right between Leandro and I. "Fuck!"

"It's fine," Leandro said. "It's fine. Probably fine."

"Just probably?"

"Well neither of us has been shot yet."

"... It's fine, we're fine." I agreed.

The two black SUVs ahead of us sped up and then started weaving, taking up the whole lane for a moment before they reached a four-way intersection and the front one pulled a hard right while the back one went left.

"Follow the right one," I said as my brain finally started fucking computing at a fast enough speed to react to shit. That explosion had rattled me. Thankfully I now had the presence of mind to quickly reach out and double-check where 'Billy' was.

Leandro made the hard turn, following my direction. "He was in the middle one, though?"

"They must have switched positions while driving. He's in that one ahead of us," I said.

The Escalade in front of us began weaving through a series of fast turns, trying to lose us, but Leandro stuck on them. "Who the hell are these people?" Leandro muttered.

"Not sure, but I think you can back off," I said. "I've got a fix on him now, so let's see if we can get them to lead us to wherever they plan on taking him."

"You don't want to just take them here?"

I shook my head. "At this point? We could do that, but I'd rather find out a little bit more about who is kidnapping the guy wehappened to try and contact."

Leandro didn't want to make it look like we suddenly just gave up, so after a few more hard turns he made it look like he didn't react quite fast enough and missed a turn, letting the other car speed off. "You have them?" he asked.

"Yeah, I have them," I nodded, feeling the little 'blip' that was Billy moving further away.

"And if they bring him out to the desert and shoot him?"

"Uh..." I said. "Maybe... we should follow them."

Leandro got us back on track, and between GoogleMaps on my phone and my 'tag' on Billy, we followed the Escalade through Tuba City to a weird building on the northern outskirts. It was a sort of warehouse-looking structure made out of corrugated metal but had a big brick portion on one side that looked older than the rest. We pulled up down the street and around a corner so our car wouldn't get spotted and then got out, starting to walk down the street slowly like a couple of... well, in this part of town, on the edge of the desert, we weren't tourists so we had to be locals.

"There's the vehicles," Leandro muttered. The big building was surrounded by a chain link fence topped with loops of barbed wire - not exactly themost secure but it would likely stop casual vandals and people trying to get a better look around. People like us.

"No sign of Billy, but he's in there," I said.

"We don't know what Billydoes, do we?"

"Shelton might not have known, but yeah, I didn't ask either," I said.

"So, technically, he could have 'blow up buildings' powers, and that place is going to blow up at any time," Leandro said.

"... Could you stop being right all the time?" I grunted.

We walked past the warehouse, stoppingalmost at the edge of the property but still on the other side of the road at another street corner.

"They have a patrolling guard," Leandro said.

"I saw," I sighed.

"I didn't bring any of the guns we just bought," he grimaced.

"You did say you wanted to clean them and test them before bringing them anywhere," I reminded him.

"Well, I'd prefer a handgun to no handgun right now," he grumbled.

"It's fine," I said, expanding my 'locator' spell to include the kidnappers. "There's only- fuck."

"What?"

"There's like thirty people in there other than Billy."

He looked at me. "That's too many for me to fistfight."

"And I don't feel like blasting thirty people with magic, kidnappers or not," I said. "But I have an idea. Just wait here."

He nodded, and I crossed the street and waved at the patrolling guard. "Hey," I hollered. "Hey, excuse me?"

The guard looked left and then right as if I could be talking to anyone else, and then shook their head and waved me off. They were wearing a ballcap, sunglasses and baggy clothes so I couldn't see all that much of them, but I could tell they had a bulletproof vest on over the bulky hoodie. No rifle, though I had a feeling if the cops drove by and saw a guard with a rifle questions would get asked, but I did see a holstered pistol.

"Hey, you!" I called over, waving some more. "Could I talk to you for a minute?"

My perseverance paid off and the guard shook their head again but started stamping over towards me. As they got closer I saw that they were shorter than I expected, and despite the bulky sweater and baggy cargo pants, I realised it was a woman.

"This place isn't open to the public," she said gruffly as she got closer. "Fuck off."

"I just need some help finding someone," I said, then tapped into my pool of power as she walked within ten feet of the fence and we could lower our voices. "I'm your favourite person, you love me, and you want me to know everything I need to know." My words paired with the spell in my head and I saw her rock back on her heel for a moment.

She immediately smiled and took off her sunglasses, revealing pretty brown eyes and carefully manicured black eyebrows. She was stoically pretty as she smiled. "Well, hey there, buddy," she said, a slight hesitation at not knowing me but feeling like she did.

"Jeremiah," I said, 'reminding' her and then immediately kicking myself for not using a fake name. "How are you? Long day?"

"You know it," she said, cocking a hip and resting her hand on it as she sighed. "Not that it should last much longer."

"Why is that?"

"We got our target, so we'll be pulling out soon."

"Billy, right?"

"William Abbot," she nodded. "Son of a bitch deserves what's coming."

"And you guys are sure you can handle him?" I asked.

"For sure," she said confidently. "He's not labelled dangerous up close. Unless you know something I don't?"

"I don't," I said honestly. "Just think it's good to be cautious."

"Fair. Some of these magic fucks can be real assholes," she said.

"Too true. So where are you taking him?"

"I'm not taking him anywhere. I just got called in for the operation, then I'll go back home until they call me up again," she said. "You know how it is."

"Sure," I said, not knowing how it was at all. "Hey, who's the boss of this operation?"

"Colonel Cournover," she said. "And he's running a tight ship. I really shouldn't be taking time out to chat, no matter how much I might like you, Jeremiah."

"Makes sense," I said. "How secure is William? Like, if someone with your credentials could get inside, could you walk him back out?"

"If folks weren't paying attention," she shrugged. "And after the extraction team got attacked on the way here, everyone is on high alert trying to track what happened through social media and traffic cams and stuff. It would be possible."

"You know, that sounds like your security should probably get tested," I said, tapping my magic, hopefully, one more time. "You should go do that. Try and see if you can get Billy and bring him out here to me, I have some questions I need to ask him."

She sighed, giving me a look with a raised eyebrow. "Really, Jeremiah? If it works I'll piss off the other team members, and if it doesn't they'll still be pissed with me but so will the Colonel."

I shrugged. "I mean, what if someone who reallyshouldn't get to Billy could do it just like that?"

"Alright," she said. "Wait here, I guess. I'll see if it's possible." She put her sunglasses back on and turned, stomping her way back towards the warehouse. I was pretty sure she was putting more hips into it than when she'd been walking before, and I noticed her glance over her shoulder back at me.

My phone rang as she headed towards one of the doors. "Yello," I answered.

"Did you just magic her or something?" Leandro asked.

"Yeah," I said. "She's going to try and walk Billy out to us."

"From under the nose of thirty paramilitary personnel?"

"Apparently we shook them up with the car chase," I said. "Go get the car ready if we need it."

We hung up, and I waited a few minutes, starting to wonder how long I should wait before moving to a Plan B, when the door opened back up and the guard came back out, tugging a person I assumed was Billy after them. He was hooded and handcuffed, stumbling behind her, and she encouraged him to move quickly. They were almost to me when some sort of alarm kicked off inside the warehouse.

"Better ask him your questions quickly," the guard said as she pulled him towards me and then yanked off his hood. "They'll be out here in a second and they won't be happy."

Billy was a sort of lanky guy, dark hair buzzed down, and sporting a black goatee and moustache. He was wearing a black polo with the KFC logo stitched into the left breast, worn slacks and black sneakers - he really did work at the chicken place. Billy blinked furiously as his vision was returned to him, whipping his head around. "Where am I?'

"Billy," I said, snapping my fingers until he focused on me. "Do you know who I am?"

"Wha-?" he mumbled, narrowing his eyes and looking closer. "Oh!"

"I assume you don't want to be in this situation?"

"Hell no," he said. "These fuckin' witch hunters blew up my job and kidnapped me!"

"I know," I said, then glanced at the guard. She was looking confused. "Sorry," I said. "You're kind of a babe, and I'm not looking to get you in trouble, but I need him." I released another spell as her frown started to deepen, and she sank to her knees and then curled up in the dirt, completely asleep.

"Dude," Billy said.

I turned to wave Leandro over, but he was already driving towards us. Instead, I focused on the fence in between Billy and I and tapped into the cinnamon flavour that still sat near the bottom of my pool of power from the last time Annalise and I had been together. With a thought, I turned my forefinger into a blowtorch and quickly cut a big hole in the fence. "Come on," I waved Billy through.

The truck screeched to a halt behind us just as people started streaming out of several different doors in the warehouse, all shouting.

"In the truck," I said quickly, opening the door and shoving Billy, still handcuffed, inside before slamming it shut and hopping into the open back bed. Bullets followed me and I grimaced as I tapped my poweragain, raising a shield to block them as Leandro peeled back away from the curb and the beat-up truck roared as it kicked into gear.

Leandro didn't actually go too far, skimming into a residential neighbourhood until he spotted another vehicle. He pulled right up beside it and hopped out. "Swapping cars," he said curtly. I assumed he had a reason why and didn't question it, instead focusing on getting Billy out of the truck and into the back of the minivan as he babbled something. I slammed the sliding door shut and went around and got in the passenger seat while Leandro quickly hotwired the second vehicle in a row and we tore off deeper into the residential neighbourhood to get distance from the truck.

"I should really just fuckin' make a second key or something for Victorious," I muttered.

"For what?" Leandro asked.

"My- I have a flying demon car, but I leant him to Angie," I said.

"... Right," Leandro deadpanned.

"Any chance I could get these handcuffs off, fellas?" Billy asked, leaning into the front area from the middle seats.

"We need somewhere to go," Leandro said. "Do you have a safe house for us to figure this out?"

"Well, if they knew where my office was, they probably know where my house is too," Billy sighed. "I... Uh... do have one place."

"Where?" I asked.

"Well, you gotta promise you're not going to, like, pull Seat-privilege on me or whatever and take all my stuff."

"We just saved your life from Humanistas," I said.

"Whydid they come after you?" Leandro asked.

"I don't know!" Billy protested. "One minute I'm sitting there dealing with the weekly orders for the restaurant, the next thing I know everything is real quiet and then my office door is getting kicked in. I hit my panic button, but it didn't go off in time."

"You blew up the KFC?" I asked.

"Well if itworked properly I would have disappeared through my escape hatch," Billy said. "But I set the fuse too long."

"Jesus Christ," I grunted. "Where are we going, Billy? I'm not planning on robbing you."

"My warehouse," Billy said. "Well, it's notmy warehouse, but I keep some stuff there. And Delia won't mind us stopping by. Probably."

Leandro followed Billy's directions, taking a weaving course through Tuba City that had us ducking through different residential areas, lingering behind a gas station for a while, and doubling back several times to make sure we weren't being followed. We burned almost an hour on that until finally we reached the east side of the town and pulled up in front of a dingey-looking one-story blocky building sandwiched between a larger building of a similar make and a strip mall closer to the corner of the street.

"Alright, so... Maybe you guys want to wait here while I talk to Delia?" Billy suggested.

"With or without the handcuffs?" I asked.

"Oh, right," he grunted, apparently having forgotten he was still wearing them.

Leandro and I got out and I opened the door, helping Billy out and onto his feet as he sighed in relief and stretched his legs. It took barely a smidgen of power to release the handcuffs once I could get a look and have my hands on them.

"Fuck, that's better," Billy said, rubbing his wrists. "Those fucking witch hunters were real dicks, y'know?"

"Sure," I said. "Let's get inside before they spot us with a drone or something."

"Right, right," Billy nodded, leading us to one of several rusty metal doors along the back of the 'warehouse.' The whole length of the building was peppered with graffiti, and trash was building up around the dumpsters that looked like they might have been filled up sometime last decade and never emptied. He pounded on the door a few times with his fist, then looked back at us a little sheepishly. "Uh, so... Delia can have a bit of a temper. Don't mind her. Just maybe stand, like... over here." He directed us away from the opening of the door.

I raised an eyebrow, glancing at Leandro, but didn't have a chance to say anything as a grating metal lock triggered behind the door and it made a nasty metal-on-concrete noise as it popped open. "Who- Aw, fuck no, Billy. Get the fuck out of here." The door started to swing shut almost immediately.

"No, Delia, babe, wait-" Billy said, grabbing for the door and holding it open.

"Don't you fuckin' 'babe' me, Billy," the woman on the other side growled, and the muzzle of a shotgun appeared and poked into Billy's chin, tipping it down into his neck as his eyes bugged out a little.

"Come on, Delia," Billy mumbled. "It wasn'tthat bad. And I've brought guests."

"Itwas that bad, you fucking thief, and I don't give aflying fuck about whatever aaass- Holy shit, you're the new Seat." Delia had stepped out from the building, pushing Billy with her shotgun, and finally came beyond the door and spotted me and Leandro. I don't know why I was surprised, but for some reason based on Billy's whole schtick and the location he'd brought us to I'd been expecting some sort of a tweaker, homeless woman or something. Instead, she was a coppery redhead, maybe in her mid-twenties, with apple cheeks and pert lips who, other than her clothes, looked fairly clean and put together. Shewas wearing a thin, dirty t-shirt that hung loose and long on her but hugged her bust in a way that I was very familiar with, showing she wasn't wearing a bra underneath. A pair of cotton shorts were poking out from beneath the low hem of the shirt, and she was wearing equally dirty running shoes on her feet.

"That would be me," I said. "And I just had to rescue Billy from a pack of military-ish witch hunters, so do you mind if we come in?"

"Um," she said, blinking in surprise. "Yeah, OK. Sure."

We followed her inside, and Delia pulled the door shut with a slam and slid the thick metal deadbolt home again. We were in a small, crowded entryway lined with cinder blocks, an old mop and bucket and some sort of an air conditioning unit that definitely wasn't working at the moment. One open doorway out of the little space led to a cinder block hallway heading left and right, deeper into the building. Delia turned back to us, scowling at Billy. "What the fuck did you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" Billy protested. "I was just atwork."

"Which work?" Delia demanded.

"Why does that sound ominous?" Leandro murmured.

"Pay-the-bills work," Billy said. "And pay-you-back work." The last part came out as a bit of a whine.

"Fuck," Delia scoffed, shaking her head and then turning to me. "I'mso sorry, Mr Seat, uh, sir. Billy and I have a history."

"The Seat wants me to get into my workshop," Billy said.

Another scowl shot his way from Delia. "Of course he does," she growled, then looked at me. "I've sort of banned him from my place, here, until he pays me back after pawning some of my shit so he could buy some of the stuff in there."

"Youknow it was important!" Billy complained. "And I had a limited-time offer to get the material I needed. Ihad to do it. And you got the stuff back!"

"Fuck you, Billy," Delia sneered.

"Maybe we focus on the problem at hand?" Leandro suggested. "What have you been doing that would bring Witch Hunters down on your head, Billy?"

"Nothing!"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Delia asked.

"Well, nothing recently," he corrected.

"Only because you've been working on the last runic formulas for your stupid bomb."

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked. "Did you say bomb?"

"It's not a bomb," Billy said, raising his hands as if that made him seem more innocent. "It's not gonna blow anyone up. Well, that one isn't going to blow anyone up."

"Billy is an Ascension Ascent conspiracy nut," Delia said.

"It's not a conspiracy!" Billy protested. "We're an organised underground revolt dedicated to the revision of the mistakes of the past." Billy turned to me, looking pleadingly. "Honestly, Mr Seat, think about it. Why are people like us forced to live in the shadows? Why can't we have the respect and power from the mundane people around us when we can do magic? I mean, I respect the hierarchy of our world for sure, it makes total sense that you and the other Seats are in charge, but why aren't you in charge ofeverything? Like, we manage territories and stuff fine as it is, why isn't society in general like that? Anarchy is the only system that's a true meritocracy, and we can't getthere unless we start taking apart the systems that have built us to where we are now."

"Hold on," I said, interrupting him as he paused to suck in a breath. "You're an anarchist?"

"He's an anarcho-terrorist, domestic edition," Delia said.

"I haven't killed anyone," Billy said.

"On purpose," Delia countered.

"That was anaccident," Billy raised his voice.

"That's what Isaid," Delia raised hers right back.

I rubbed my face with both hands. "What the fuck is this bomb?" I asked.

"It's not a bomb," Billy said. "Nothing will blow up. Mostly."

"I feel like I should shoot him," Leandro said. I almost agreed. Unfortunately, we were still dealing with the 'no gun' situation unless he took the shotgun off of Delia.

"It's just a magical EMP," Billy said quickly. His panic was clear. "It'll reset all of the technology in the world. Imagine our society without computers or electricity! Sure, it would be a little chaotic at first, but the people would need the Ascended and we could reorganise society the way it was meant to be. You would bethe dominant force in the world, Mr Seat, and people like us wouldn't be hiding who we are, we'd be celebrated for it."

I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose and closing my eyes. "You're not a druid, are you?"

"What? No, fuck those guys," Billy said. "Elitist pricks."

So there weretwo apocalyptically-inclined groups in the world.

"Billy," I said. "Let's-"

"Ah!" Billy shouted, pointing past us.

I couldn't believe it when I realised I'd fallen for the oldest trick in the book, and turned back around from looking at the completely unmoved steel door, along with Delia and Leandro, to find Billy disappearing around the corner, his scampering footsteps on the concrete floor fading quickly.

"Fuck," I said.

"Aren't you supposed to be all-knowing or something?" Leandro asked.

"Aren't you supposed to be my experienced bodyguard or something?" I shot back.

"It's fine," Delia said. "He'll just lock himself in his workshop until we promise not to hurt him or whatever."

"And if he happened to finish that last rune he needed?" I asked.

Delia pursed her lips, giving her a bit of a chipmunk look. "Well, I mean... Yeah, that would be bad."

I sighed and started to follow Billy.

"Um," Delia said loudly.

I pivoted on my foot. "Something I should know?"

"He, uh, has his half of the place... rigged," she said.

"To explode?" Leandro sighed.

"Yes," Delia said. "But also, like, a dozenother kinds of traps too. He's got his whole collection of equipment, and plans, and ancient texts and shit in there."

I groaned at the back of my throat and rolled my eyes. I'd already used so much fucking power on this stupid fucking trip, and if I had to make myself and maybe Leandro impervious to all those traps it was going to be abitch. Not to mention having power in case Billy decided to blow the place to kingdom come and I had to keep it from destroying the surrounding neighbourhood.

"Do you know the way through the traps?" Leandro asked her.

"I might," Delia said.

I opened my eyes and looked at her. "And what would it cost for you to lead us through them so we can stop Billy from doing something super fucking stupid?"

Delia licked her lower lip and her eyes travelled up and down me a couple of times. "You're supposed to be, like, a sex god. Right?"

"Something like that," I said. I could see where she was going with this already.

She pursed her lips again, smiling a little. "How about you rock my world, and I'll do it? It's been a while since I got fucked, and even longer since I hadgood sex. And pegging Billy was never really my thing."

I quickly tried to erasethat picture from my mind. "I think I could do that," I nodded. She was hot, there was no denying that, and Iwas supposed to be building my power and not spending it like this.

"Cool," she grinned.

"Do we have time for this?" Leandro asked.

"It'll take him a while to actually apply the rune work if he's figured it out," I said, making an educated guess. "And this'll only take me... seven minutes."

"That's pretty specific," Delia chuckled. "Why only seven?"

"Because I'm that good," I said. "And anything less than five just wouldn't fit the reputation I'm trying to build."

She laughed, a warm sound from her chest, and offered the shotgun to Leandro. "This is the only way out that isn't blocked off," she said. "Unless you want to come with? I've never done a Devil's Threesome before but I'm down if you guys get freaky like that."

"Uh-" Leandro grunted.

"I'm not a big sharer," I said, shooting Leandro a look to assure him we weren't gettingthat close.

Delia shrugged. "Alright," she said, then stepped towards me and bit her lip as she looked into my eyes. "Gonna rock my world then, Sex God?"

"That's the deal," I said, and pulled her towards me with both hands on her hips and kissed her. She smelled like sweat and paint, oddly, but she kissed well.

"Come on," she said, grabbing my hand and leading me left out of the little entryway instead of right to follow Billy. We walked down a short hall and then through an old wooden door with glass window panels in it, and into a big, airy space with blank white walls and bright halogen lights. The floor was covered in a paint-smeared drop cloth and there were multiple easels and leaning racks of big framed canvases, along with shelves of paint.

"You're an artist?" I asked.

"Trying to be," she said as she led me deeper into the room. "Doesn't pay the bills just yet, so I'm a stripper by night. Thatis paying the bills."

I stopped her by pulling her back towards me, wrapping my arms around her comfortably, weaving my fingers together at the small of her back with my forearms against her hips. That pulled her shirt a little tighter, emphasising her braless breasts, and she looked up at me cutely. "Got any finished work around here I can see?" All of the canvases on the easels were blank.

She shook her head. "Anything finished I take back to my place," she said. "I don't want hours of work going up in smoke if Billy does something stupid."

"Good thinking," I said, leaning in and kissing her again. She kissed me back, smiling into it and moaning softly. Blindly, I slid my hands down to find the bottom of her shirt and then up under it to hold her at the waist, feeling her skin under my hands.

"So does this count as the start of your seven minutes?" she asked teasingly, her lips still brushing mine.

"Not yet," I murmured back. "This is just getting to know you a bit. What's your magic like?"

"I can make and control wind," she said, then sucked my lower lip between hers for a moment. "Gusts, mostly, unless I get really emotional and then I'm more powerful. Billy thinks I could summon a tornado or change the weather if I put my mind to it, but that's the kind of stuff I'mnot supposed to be doing."

"And what's he do?" I asked, my hands slowly sliding further up her sides.

"Moon shit," she murmured, our kisses making it difficult to talk.

I snorted softly. "What doesthat mean?"

She chuckled, pulling away a little and rolling her eyes. "Hesays he can tell the future when he looks up at the moon, but mostly he just gets vibes about whether stuff he's going to do will have a good or bad consequence. How direct it is depends on how full the moon is."

"And how often does he listen to what the moon tells him?" I asked.

"Not enough," she smirked. "Now, is this supposed to be foreplay or what?"

"Start the clock," I said and helped her pull the baggy t-shirt over her head.

I could only guess that Delia was a favourite down at whatever strip club she was working at - to go along with her cute, chipmunk face with the apple cheeks and pursed lips, and her long copper red hair, she had a pair of nice-sized, jiggly tits capped with soft pink areolas and nipples, and a tapered waist that flared nicely to her rounded hips. She wasn't as fit as Lauren, let alone Stacey, and not as pure 'sex' as Lindsey, but she was definitely one smokin' hot babe.

My lips went to her left nipple like they were magnetic, and my hands pushed down her shorts as she hummed a delighted laugh. It took moments for her nipple to go hard, and I swapped to the other one as the shorts and her panties slipped down past her knees and fell to the ground. Once her other nipple was stiff as well I went to my knees and quickly buried my chin in the gap between her thighs as I started licking her pussy roughly, exploring it with my tongue.

"Oh, hell, Mr Seat," she moaned, running her fingers through my hair.

"Jerry," I prompted her.

"Jerry," she moaned. Thank God I made sure the door shut behind us, I didn't need Leandro being forced to listen in.

"Do you want a regular rocking of your world, or do you want me to amp it up with magic?" I asked her before nuzzling my nose against her clit hood.

"Um," she said with a slight hiccup. "Fuck it, blow me away."

I snorted, not sure if she was making a pun about her magic or not, and dipped into my pool and felt the trickle of magic that was already starting to feed it from the encounter. It had a sort of fresh scent, and I couldn't tell if it was right before or after a storm. I tapped it and siphoned off a bit to first do the Cleaning Spell as usual, followed by amping up her erogenous zones for the next ten minutes, along with reducing her inhibitions just slightly so she'd feel more free - and I did that last part feeling like it might be a little risky, considering she was already a stripper and had offered up the deal to fuck pretty quickly.

"Ooooh, motherfuck," she moaned once the spell went to work. "Holy- God. Sex God for real!"

I raised from my knees, pulling off my shirt as I stood and starting on my jeans as I kissed her. She didn't care about the taste of her on my lips, and her hands urged me to go fast until my pants and boxers were around my shins and she got my cock in her hands.

"Fuck," she said. "That's big."

"But not too big," I said.

She looked down at it, then back up at me grinning. "Not too big though," she agreed.

I turned her around and she spread her legs, reaching back with one hand to spread an ass cheek. It took a moment for me to line myself up, another to wedge my cock into place and feel the tightness of her cunt start to give way, and then I was pushed almost all the way inside her as she had her first proper orgasm with her enhanced erogenous zone.

Then we fucked. I had about six minutes left on the timer.

Fucking Delia from behind was fun. I could reach around her and maul her tits, or let them bounce free. Her ass wasn't very big, but there was enough meat on it to make a solid clapping noise as it slammed against my pelvis. Her hair was wonderfully grabbable too.

She also happened to be vocal as hell, moaning in a wordless torrent punctuated by our thrusting and the occasional yelp as she peaked and rolled over through another orgasm.

I was aiming for one per minute, so with about three minutes left I pulled out of her and manhandled her, picking her up and settling down onto her back on the drop cloth, spearing into her again in missionary as she flung her arms up around me and I pushed both her legs back to her sides, keeping her good and open for my pounding.

"Fuu-uuu-uuu-uu-uuu-" she started, the moaned curse never finishing as she fucked back at me as best she could. She pulled on me and I lowered down, kissing her fiercely as I continued to pummel her, feeling and hearing her juices squelching between us as she rolled into yet another orgasm.

The sex was good, those orgasms didn't really feelearned though. It was too easy.

Right around seven minutes, as she was coming down from her latest, I slowed to an easy thrusting that let me actually appreciate the feel of her pussy around my cock, how warm and pink her labia had gotten in such short order, and how wonderfully jiggly her breasts were with each stroke.

"What do you think?" I asked her. "Rocked your world?"

"Um. Hubbuda. Um. Ye- What?" She babbled, blinking.

I chuckled and kissed her again. She responded after a moment, kissing me back, and I slowly pulled away. "Have I fulfilled my end of the bargain?" I asked.

"I think youfulfilled me about five orgasms ago," she panted.

"Then I just need to know where to finish," I said. "I'd prefer to finish just like this."

"Inside me?" she asked.

"Unless you particularly want it somewhere else," I said. "And you don't need to worry, I'm not going around getting gorgeous redheads, or anyone else, pregnant."

She let out a breath. "Fuck it, then. Drop a load in me, Jerry. Creampie my little snatch."

I kissed her again, running my one hand up and down the smooth skin of her thigh as I held it up high and let my other hands grab her tit as a handhold. My own orgasm wasn'tsuper close, but I was a sex shaman after all and another minute later I was reaching my peak and groaned as she sucked on my lower lip while I unloaded into her.

"Fuuuuck," she groaned right back, wriggling under me. "Fuck, that feels gooey and warm." Then she laughed lightly. "I've never let a guy dothat before."

"Then I feel honoured," I said, blowing out a long breath.

We separated, and Delia insisted on cleaning me up with a few sucks before we started to get dressed again, her hoping that her panties would keep my big load at least partially in check.

"I'm just saying," she said as we were both pulling on our shirts. "I don't know if I could have handled much more of that high-speed shit."

"To be fair, I prefer my sex longer and a little slower," I said.

"I... could go for that, if you're offering," she said with a little smirk.

"That could probably happen sometime in the future," I replied with a grin.

"I also happen to know a couple of other redhead strippers who are super hot, and who I fool around with sometimes," she teased me. "How'sthat for incentive?"

"Pretty damn good," I laughed. "Don't let me leave without getting your number."

She agreed, and we headed back out of her workshop and into the hall, finding Leandro leaning at the door to the entryway. One look told me that the glass-paned wooden door had done some of its job, but not all.

"That was longer than seven minutes," he grunted.

"We needed a minute of warmup, and a minute or two to clean up," I countered. "File a complaint with HR."

"I'm just saying, you bragged about seven minutes," he snorted.

"To be fair, he went above and beyond," Delia said. "Now, you guys are gonna want to follow me closely, OK?"

We did, moving single file behind Delia as she led us down the hallway and into what I could only think of as a damn maze constructed with the sole purpose of Billy being a paranoid fuck. The cinder block walls were only half the construction, the rest was a mishmash of wrought iron fencing, random pieces of furniture and even a fake wall made out of paper mache. Delia had us stepping over tripwires, avoiding pressure plates and ducking under an honest-to-God swinging axe trap. At one point we even avoided what looked like an empty hallway and climbedthrough a dresser into another corridor.

When we finally reached the centre of Billy's stupid maze we found a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot open area surrounded by a cage that was humming and occasionally sparking. Inside was a chaotic mess of shelves holding all sorts of weird tools and materials - glass bottles and beakers filled with powders and liquids, odd-shaped pieces of metal, power tools, and stacks of books both new and old. There were also several chests, like old pirate treasure, hanging open with a variety ofstuff inside.

And in the middle, hanging from a trio of chains from the ceiling, was what looked an awful lot like an old spherical sea mine that had been heavily modified and covered in engraved and inlaid runes.

"You're too late!" Billy cackled. "It's already on and warming up. Honestly, my guy, you'll thank me."

"Billy, I'm a fucking Seat," I said. "I can turn it off."

"No you can't!" he said, almost giddy. "I got my hands on an ancient text with an anti-magic null field and inscribed it onto theTechno-fucker. You can't stop it, or me, because I'm not leaving my beauty."

I reached out with my senses and found... a void in the world. Like reality and unreality juststopped in about a ten-foot bubble. And he was right, he was just inside it.

"Iknew some Seat would get butthurt about me trying to do the right thing for all of us," Billy ranted. "And then, just as I'm finishing it, youand the witch hunters show up? What are the fucking chances? Zero."

"If it's in a null magic field, how is it going to do the EMP thing?" I asked.

"I turn that part off when I trigger the final Boom," he smirked, holding up a remote control with a cartoonishly big red button on it. "Face it, I'm just smarter than you andall the rest. But don't worry, once the meritocracy gets sorted out I'm sure you'll be just as important as I am."

"Billy, what the fuck?" Delia asked in exaggeration.

"Fuck you, Delia!" he shouted.

"That's not what you were squealing last time I pegged you," she countered.

He flashed her the middle finger, then pointed it at me. "Magical Science, Bitch! I got you beat!"

I sighed and shook my head, turning back to Leandro. "I'm going to have to destroy that thing with something more... mundane," I said.

"I saw something we can use," he nodded and went back into the maze.

"Fuck," I said, turning back to the smirking Billy. "I really didn't want to fucking do this."

"Youdid come here to stop him, right?" Delia asked.

"No," I said. "I'm looking for a magical sword for Leandro. We met a guy at a gun show earlier who pointed us to Billy. This is all literally just a coincidence."

"... Jesus," she said.

"Yeah. And now I'm about to need to potentially destroy a lot of valuable information and stuff to deal with this stupid shit."

Leandro came back a minute later holding two slim, pale beige bricks with small devices stuck into their sides.

"You put fucking C4 in here?" Delia shouted at Billy.

He cringed and shrugged. "It's homemade, technically it's just C-3."

"Is that any better?" I asked.

"... technically it'smore toxic?" he hedged.

"Fuck you, Billy, you fucking bitch!" Delia shouted at him.

I shook my head, taking the two dangerous bricks from Leandro. "Alright," I said, letting out a breath. "So I need to get these inside the cage, stuck to the dumbfuck bomb thing, and have them go offwhile I try to make sure it doesn't blow up this entire building and the rest of the block."

"I electrified the fence, there's no way you can get that shit in here," Billy crowed.

"No shit, Sherlock," I called back, shaking my head. Then I glanced at Leandro. "Get Delia out of here," I said. "As fast as you can. I don't know how long we have until that thing is ready."

He didn't hesitate, he nodded once with a grim look and clapped a hand on my shoulder.

"This is my place, I'm not-" Delia started, then gave awhoop! as Leandro picked her up, tossed her over his shoulder and started back into the maze.

"So it's just you and me, Seat," Billy laughed from inside his little cage.

"Billy, this is the most idiotic, short-sighted plan I've ever fucking heard of," I said. "Evenif the thing works, and evenif the Seats and other Ascended end up taking over the world more directly, do you think people are going to behappy about you destroying all the amenities we have right now? Fuckinglightbulbs andindoor plumbing andcellphones?"

"They'll... get over it. Eventually," Billy said. "Sacrifices need to be made for the world to right itself and find the proper path."

"You're really fucking demented," I sighed, shaking my head as I tried to focus on the sequence that needed to happen. The detonators on the two bricks were supposed to be triggered by some of those tripwires, I was pretty sure, so all I needed to do was make sure the pin got pulled on one and they should both blow. That just left getting them inside and attached.

"Just let it happen, Seat," Billy said. "Honestly, I don't know why you're fighting it. You're just going to getmore powerful. More influential. You'd be free to do literally anything you want. Build new pyramids, or whatever you guys dream of doing. You wouldn't need to hide your power."

"That's where you just don't get me, dumbfuck," I said. "I like my life."

Now it was Billy's turn to shake his head. "The voice of the youth, before they understand how shit the world really is."

Something beeped loudly, drawing Billy's attention. "Hey," he said, starting to grin. "It's done!"

I didn't so much throw the explosives as I sent them shooting forward with my mind, phasing out of reality and into the unreal as they passed the electrified fence, and then back in before they reached the null field - except when they came back they weresticky. And still flying through the air. And just before they passed into the bubble of null space at high speed I latched onto the pins of both detonators and tugged them out.

Both bricks hit the EMP bomb and stuck with a weirdschlock.

"Hey!" Billy shouted, glaring at them and then me, and went to thumb the button.

KRA-KOOOOM!

The explosion ripped through the ceiling, filling the entire space within the cage with fire. The shield I'd erected, just inside the fencing but not close enough to be affected by the null bubble, funnelled the power up about forty feet into the air and then let it spray out into the sky. I was a little interested to know if it made a mushroom cloud or just a column of fire, but I had more pressing concerns. Namely that I hadn't accounted for thenoise of the explosion even if I had remembered to handle the fire and the kinetic blast. Dust still rained down from above, and I was pretty sure I heard a couple of the other traps go off behind me in the maze, as the whole building shook.

The fire dispersed, leaving just thick smoke, and I dropped the shield.

My ears were ringing like I had a permanent school bell between them, and I touched my power and cleared that out quickly as I blinked and coughed from the continuing mix of smoke and dust.

"Fucking asshole," I muttered as I looked at what remained of Billy's workshop. The chests of magic stuff, the research notes, and even the bottles and beakers of reagents were gone. I briefly considered what it might take to try and reconstitute the items that had been in there before the explosion, like re-atomizing them or something, but the immensity of the power required to do that without even knowing what HAD been there dwarfed the power I was holding onto at the start of the trip, let alone now.

I made my way back out of the maze carefully, avoiding the traps that were still remaining, and stumbled out of the warehouse to find Leandro and Delia waiting for me.

"Is he-?" Delia asked.

I nodded. "Sorry."

She winced, but then sadly shrugged. "He brought it on himself. Fucking prick."

"That blast is going to bring the cops," Leandro sighed. "And those witch hunters, I'd bet. We should get out of here."

"Is your name tied to this place?" I asked Delia.

She shook her head. "No, I rented it using a fake name and paid cash every month," she said. "It should be clean."

"OK," I nodded. "Uh. Do you have a car, or-?"

"I'm parked out on the street, just around there," she said, gesturing to the building that backed onto the warehouse. "I'm good, and I'll keep my head downlow for a while. Um... thanks for saving the world and shit, I guess? And for the great fuck?"

"No problem," I said, still a little shocked at everything that had been going on. "Uh. Alright. Well..."

"Cellphone?" she asked, holding out her hand. "So I can give you my number?"

"Right, right," I said and handed it over. She plugged it in and handed it back. "I'll text you."

"You better," she said, then smirked a little at me. "Bye, Sex God. Thanks for the carry, Sexy Spanish Dude." She shook her head again and then left, jogging towards her car.

I looked at Leandro. He looked back at me.

"Yeah, I know," I said.

"You don't know what I'm thinking."

"Your face says enough. We'll get you a sword from somewhere else. Hell, well get a regular old mundane one and I'll figure out how to enchant it myself."

He shrugged.

"Come on," I sighed, nodding him back towards the warehouse door. He knew the routine by now and I grabbed his wrist so we could step through the warehouse door andinto the front entryway of the Penthouse.

"Hey, you guys are back," Stacey said, looking up from the couch where she was spread out and doing homework. She was smiling, and there was music playing from over towards the back bedrooms where Maya and Annalise must have been still getting unpacked and settled in. "No sword though?"

"I don't want to talk about it," I grunted, heading towards the kitchen. I needed a drink.

"No sword," Leandro said.

"Bummer," Stacey said and went back to her homework. Which reminded me I still had to finish that essay for Ancient History.

Lindsey came out of the master bedroom. "Hey, get anything good from the 'magical tinkerer' guy?"

"He doesn't want to talk about it," Leandro said, accepting the bottle of water I tossed to him.

"Oh, was he a dud?" Lindsey asked me.

"More like a blast," Leandro said.

"Really?" I asked him. "Jokes already? Really? Too soon, man."

"Uh oh," Lindsey said. "What happened?"

I sighed as she came and wrapped her arms around me, looking into my eyes sweetly. "Well," I said, giving in to her almost immediately. "The good news is I met and fucked a very pretty redhead."

"I like where this is going," Lindsey smirked.

"Yeah, well, wait for the rest."

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Thanks for reading! Votes are great, and Comments are even better.

Font of Fertility is an ongoing series that will continue to see updates moving forward. If you have enjoyed the series so far, you might want to check out my Pushing series, or AMA: The Boyfriend series, for similar romantic harem elements.

Cheers!

~Break

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