Chapter 34: The Wand Heist
The red emergency lights strobed across the greasy linoleum, casting long, jumping shadows that made the narrow laundry chute corridor feel like a dying heartbeat. The squeals and chitters from the ducts had reached a fever pitch, a chaotic symphony of tiny claws on metal.
“They’re herding,” Fatima shouted over the din, her eyes sharp even in the bad light. She pointed to the large, square opening of the laundry chute set into the wall, its stainless steel interior stained with bleaches and soaps. “Listen. They’re all moving in one direction. Down.”
Jan, crouched by a vent cover, snapped her compact shut. “They’re after the shiny. They took the resonator bait. They’re gonna follow it all the way down.” A grin split her freckled face. “We don’t chase. We wait at the finish line.”
“A net,” Vivian suggested, her voice barely a whisper but cutting through the noise. Dale stood close to her, his body tense but his eyes clear, present. “At the bottom.”
“A bag,” Jan corrected, already rummaging in her patchwork satchel. She pulled out a large, durable canvas sack, the kind used for hauling gym equipment. It smelled faintly of sandalwood and forgotten picnics. She tossed it to Hank. “You and Liam. Bottom of the chute. Hold it wide.”
Hank caught the bag, looking from it to the dark, cavernous opening of the chute. “You want us to catch gremlins. Like fucking butterflies.”
“Aye, and I’d rather be drinkin’,” Liam grumbled, but he took one side of the bag’s opening. “Haud it steady, lad. Dinnae let the wee beasties scratch ye.”
The two men positioned themselves beneath the chute’s lower opening, a smaller hatch that emptied into a wheeled laundry hamper. They stretched the canvas wide, a gaping maw of off-white fabric. The chute above them rattled and clanged.
Jan gave Fatima a nod. Fatima raised her hands, her fingers tracing intricate, glowing sigils in the air. A pulse of gentle, persuasive energy—a Green Moon coaxing spell—shot up the chute shaft. It wasn’t a command, just an amplification of the gremlins’ own obsessive desire for the buzzing, glittering prize they were pursuing.
The effect was immediate.
A waterfall of gremlins erupted from the chute.
They were a tumbling, shrieking mass of grey-green skin, oversized ears, and needle-sharp teeth. They poured out in a squealing cascade, dozens of them, falling directly into the waiting canvas bag. Hank and Liam grunted with the impact, stumbling but holding firm, pulling the drawstring tight around the writhing, scratching bundle.
Then the lights died.
Not the emergency reds. Every light. The absolute, pitch black of the ship’s deepest interior. The sudden silence was more deafening than the noise had been.
“What the fuck—” Hank’s voice was swallowed by the dark.
A split-second later, the fluorescents flickered back on with a harsh, buzzing glare.
Hank and Liam stood braced, the bag in their hands. It was squirming, but not with the frantic, bulging pressure of a moment before. It was half-full, at best.
Liam looked inside, his bearded face paling. “There were twice this many. They’re gone.”
Fatima spun, her eyes scanning the corridor. Vivian’s shadow-tendrils unfurled from her shoulders, probing the darkened corners. Dale moved with tactical precision, checking behind laundry carts.
Jan’s gaze swept the area, then landed on the spot where Bethany had been covering the rear, her Golden Wand sunglasses scanning the ducts.
The spot was empty.
“Bethany?” Jan’s voice was a blade.
Scattered on the linoleum were Bethany’s clothes. Her vintage cherry-print blouse, her high-waisted trousers. Her bra. A tiny pair of black lace panties, crumpled and still holding the warmth of her body. The clothes were empty, discarded in a hurried pile.
Her tech bag—the “TARDIS” handbag that held her Golden Wand arsenal—was gone.
A high-pitched, triumphant squeal echoed from a vent high up on the wall. They all looked.
A gremlin, larger than the others with one notched ear, perched on the vent lip. In its clawed hands, it held Bethany’s antique-looking phone. It waved the device like a tiny, steampunk trophy. It let out another mocking chitter and vanished back into the duct.
For a second, there was only the hum of the ship and the muffled struggles from the canvas bag.
Jan’s hands clenched into fists. Green energy, raw and crackling, spiraled around her knuckles, snapping like static. Her freckles stood out against skin gone pale with fury.
“Those little fuckers,” she snarled, the words dripping with venom. “They took her. They’re gonna regret touching my best Wand.”
The bag in Hank’s hands gave a violent jerk. “What about these ones?”
“They’re the decoys,” Fatima said, her voice cold. “The others split off. They planned this. They took Bethany somewhere else.”
In Mara’s stateroom, the air was still heavy and sweet with the smell of sex and spice. The aftermath of the game lay in languid, tangled bodies. Mara was reclining against the bed, one hand idly stroking Zack’s hair as he dozed with his head on her thigh. The power of her victory thrummed gently in her veins.
Stacy caught Molly’s eye across the room. A silent communication passed between them, forged in years of friendship and shared chaos. A look that said: The counselor won. Let’s make her win harder.
As one, they moved.
Mara saw them coming, a lazy smile touching her lips. She didn’t resist as Stacy, all sculpted muscle and intent, pinned her shoulders back against the mattress. Molly, with her actress’s grace, climbed atop her, capturing Mara’s wrists and planting them above her head.
“A coup, counselor?” Mara murmured, arching an eyebrow.
“An annexation,” Stacy corrected, her voice a low growl. She bent her head and took one of Mara’s dusky, peaked nipples into her mouth, sucking hard, her tongue rough and demanding.
Mara gasped, her back arching off the bed. At the same moment, Molly’s hand slid down Mara’s flat stomach, through the damp thatch of dark hair, and plunged two fingers inside her without ceremony. Mara’s gasp became a choked cry, her hips bucking against the invasion.
“Zack,” Stacy said, pulling her mouth away with a wet pop. “Your boss is being disciplined. Get over here and help.”
Zack, awakened and instantly hard again, scrambled over. He looked at Mara, his eyes wide, seeking permission.
Mara, her breath coming in short pants, her body alight from Stacy’s mouth and Molly’s skilled, fucking fingers, met his gaze. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, dark with a lust that had shifted from controlled to surrendered. She gave him a single, sharp nod. “Do it.”
That was all he needed. He positioned himself between Mara’s spread legs, replacing Molly’s hand with the thick, broad head of his cock. He pushed inside her in one deep, relentless stroke, filling her completely. Mara screamed, a raw, unfiltered sound of perfect penetration.
Stacy switched to Mara’s other nipple, biting gently, then soothing with her tongue. Molly leaned down and kissed Mara, swallowing her moans, her free hand groping Zack’s ass, urging him on. “Fuck her,” Molly breathed against Mara’s lips. “Fuck your brilliant, beautiful boss. Make her forget every case she ever won.”
Zack obeyed, setting a hard, driving pace. Each thrust slammed Mara’s body up the bed, forced helpless cries from her throat. She was surrounded, consumed, a queen overthrown by her most loyal subjects in the best possible way.
Across the room, Mike and Casey shared a look of their own. A quiet, intimate nod. They moved in practiced symmetry.
Casey swung a leg over Charley, who was lying spent but willing on a pile of cushions. She guided him into her, sinking down onto his length with a soft sigh, her head falling back. She began to ride him with a slow, grinding rhythm, her eyes locked on her husband.
Mike, meanwhile, turned to Rebecca. She was watching, her lips parted, one hand between her own legs. He kissed her, softly at first, then deeper. He laid her back on the rug, hooked her legs over his shoulders, and pushed his cock into her wet, welcoming heat. Rebecca cried out, her body accepting him with eager enthusiasm, her fingers clutching at the carpet.
The room was a tapestry of movement and sound. The wet slap of Zack’s pelvis against Mara’s skin. Casey’s low moans as she rode Charley. The slick, rhythmic sound of Mike fucking Rebecca with deep, measured strokes. Ginny, for her part, lay on her back near the balcony door, spent and glistening with sweat. She turned her head.
On the bed, propped safely amidst pillows, baby Rick was awake. His blue eyes were open, calm, staring at the ceiling where the fan made slow, mesmerizing circles. He wasn’t crying. He was just… observing.
Ginny stared at the infant, then at the sweaty, thrusting, groaning adults around him. A weary, dark laugh escaped her.
“I really hope you don’t remember this later,” she said to Rick, her voice barely audible.
Rick blinked once, slowly, and let out a tiny, contented bubble of spit.
Deep in the ship’s infrastructure, in a network of ducts reserved for high-speed data cables, Bethany came to. She was naked, bound not with rope but with what felt like thick, sticky bundles of fiber-optic cable wound tightly around her wrists and ankles. The air was cold and hummed with data-stream energy. A dozen pairs of gleaming, curious eyes surrounded her in the dim glow of server LEDs. One of the gremlins, the one with the notched ear, cautiously poked her Golden Wand tech bag with a stick.
Bethany Xander, Agent Pendragon, took a deep breath. This was, professionally speaking, a fucking nightmare.
But personally? She’d never been more interested in her life.
The cold air raised goosebumps on her skin. The bindings were tight, chafing, but not cruel. This wasn’t a torture chamber; it was a curiosity cabinet. She was the exhibit.
She forced her breathing to calm, her mind to analyze. Her training kicked in, pushing past the indignity and the chill. The notched-ear gremlin wasn’t just bigger. It moved differently. The others gave it space, deferred with tiny head-bobs. An elder. A leader.
It held her antique phone, turning it over with a delicate, almost reverent touch. Its long nose twitched, sniffing at the casing. The other gremlins had pulled everything from her tech bag: her bronze disruptor disks, her scanning sunglasses, her shielded charcoal suit. They were arrayed on a makeshift table of an old circuit board, poked and prodded by dozens of tiny hands.
They weren’t destroying the items. They were studying them. A flash of insight, cold and clear, cut through her panic. They couldn’t tell the difference. To their primal, tech-drawn senses, the arcane signature of Golden Wand magic—disguised as advanced steampunk contraptions—smelled identical to the cold, anti-magic tech of the Consortium. They were drawn to the energy, but they didn’t know friend from foe.
Her eyes swept the circle again. Most were fascinated by the gadgets. But one, a smaller gremlin with luminous yellow eyes, wasn’t looking at the tech. It was staring, unabashed, at her body. At the curve of her hip, the swell of her breast, the pink hue of her nipple in the cool air. Its gaze held a simple, fascinated hunger.
Bethany nodded slowly to herself. A plan, audacious and ridiculous, assembled itself in her mind. She stopped struggling against the cables. She let her body go limp, then shifted, deliberately arching her back to stretch her bound form. The movement made her breasts lift, her stomach tighten.
The yellow-eyed gremlin let out a soft, chirping sound.
In Mara’s stateroom, the rhythm broke apart into finality.
Charley cried out first, a sharp, helpless sound as he came inside Casey, his thin body shuddering beneath her. She clenched around him, milking his orgasm with practiced pulses, a low, satisfied groan rumbling in her own chest as she ground down on him one last time.
Beside them, Rebecca’s gentle moans spiraled into a high, breathy wail. Her back arched sharply off the rug, her inner muscles fluttering and gripping Mike’s cock in frantic, fluttering waves as her climax took her. Mike followed seconds later, driven over the edge by her tight, rippling contractions. He slammed into her one final time, groaning her name as he emptied himself deep inside her, his body collapsing atop hers.
For a long moment, the only sounds were ragged breaths and the distant hum of the ship.
Mike rolled off Rebecca, lying on his back on the carpet. Casey slid off Charley, sitting cross-legged beside him, catching her breath. She looked at Mike, then at the blissful, glowing faces of Charley and Rebecca.
“Nine,” Mike said to the ceiling, his voice hoarse.
“Solid nine,” Casey agreed, wiping a sheen of sweat from her brow. She nodded at Rebecca. “Both of you. Nine.”
Rebecca, still panting, pushed herself up on her elbows. Her blonde hair was plastered to her temples. “What… what does that mean? A nine?”
Mike and Casey shared a look, a silent conversation of raised eyebrows and suppressed smiles. “It’s nothing, Teach,” Casey said, leaning over to plant a soft kiss on Charley’s cheek. “Just our weird thing.”
Rebecca looked to Charley for explanation, but he just smiled dopily, still floating in his post-coital haze, and pulled her close to nuzzle her neck.
Casey stood, her limbs feeling loose and heavy. She walked to the bed, moving quietly through the aftermath. Rick was awake, his little hands waving at the slowly rotating ceiling fan. He was dry, content. She smiled, running a finger over his soft cheek. “You’re the only sane one here,” she whispered.
She grabbed a clean blanket from a drawer and returned to the main floor. She draped it over the snuggling forms of Charley and Rebecca, who murmured thanks, curling into each other like spoons.
From the bed, where she was still pinned and thoroughly fucked by Zack under Stacy and Molly’s command, Mara lifted her head. Her hair was a wild dark halo on the pillow. Sweat gleamed on her collarbones.
“Truth or Dare,” Mara stated, her voice husky but regaining its edge. “New game. Less clothes, more secrets.”
Zack, buried inside her, paused his thrusts, waiting for her order.
Deep in the cable duct, Bethany put her plan into motion. She made eye contact with the yellow-eyed gremlin. Then, slowly, she smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile. It was a presentation.
She called upon the basic, innate magic every Golden Wand agent knew for field operations: a subtle glamour, a highlight. It wasn’t the Green Moon’s awe-inspiring Power of Exposure. This was a targeted lure. To the gremlin’s eyes, her skin began to glimmer faintly, like mother-of-pearl. The curves of her body seemed to soften, to promise a fascinating, complex texture more intriguing than any machine.
The yellow-eyed gremlin took a step forward, utterly enthralled.
Bethany then glanced at the elder, at the phone in its hands. She whispered a command word, a low-frequency activation code. The antique phone, inert a second before, suddenly lit up. A holographic display, a shimmering, complex schematic of the ship’s electrical grid, erupted from its surface in a cascade of golden light.
Every gremlin head snapped toward the new, shiniest thing. The elder squealed in delight, poking at the hologram.
The distraction was perfect. The yellow-eyed gremlin, now completely focused on Bethany’s glowing skin, scampered forward. It didn’t untie her. It started, with fastidious care, to lick her ankle. Its tongue was rough like a cat’s, and surprisingly warm.
Bethany suppressed a shudder, keeping her gaze on the elder. “You like that?” she whispered to the yellow-eyed creature. “There’s more. But I need my hands.”
She subtly shifted her bound wrists toward it. Enraptured, the gremlin began gnawing at the fiber-optic cables, not to free her, but to get at the skin beneath. Its sharp teeth severed the tight bundles with a series of tiny pops.
Her hands came free. She didn’t move them yet. She waited as it moved to her ankles, repeating the process. The second her feet were free, she acted.
In one fluid motion, she rolled toward her scattered equipment. The gremlins around the hologram were too mesmerized to stop her. Her hand closed around a stack of her bronze disruptor disks. She didn’t aim them. She simply scattered them across the duct floor like coins, activating each one with a slap as it left her hand.
They skittered and spun, each one emitting a soft, enticing hum and a pulse of harmless amber light. To a gremlin, it was the most beautiful toy imaginable.
A collective, captivated sigh went through the group. The elder abandoned the phone hologram. The yellow-eyed one forgot her ankle. Every single gremlin scrambled for a disk, grabbing them, tapping them, holding them to their ears.
Then they all, simultaneously, pressed the activation studs against their own chests or the backs of their neighbors’ necks.
There was a chorus of soft zapping sounds. Twelve small bodies went rigid, then toppled over in a scattered pile, unconscious, the disruptor disks clattering to the grated floor.
Bethany let out a long, shaky breath. She stood, naked and victorious amidst the snooring pile of mythical pests. She began massaging the raw, chafed marks on her wrists.
That’s when Jan’s head, crowned with fiery red hair, poked up from an access hatch in the duct floor. Godfrey’s wet nose appeared next to her, sniffing. Then came Liam, Hank, Fatima, Dale, and Vivian, all climbing into the cramped space.
They stared at the scene: the unconscious gremlins, the scattered tech, Bethany standing tall and naked in the center, rubbing her wrists.
Jan’s eyes were wide. “What the hell did you do?”
Bethany looked down at the pile, then back at Jan. A slow, supremely smug smirk spread across her face. “I neutralized a hostile magical entity through appropriate application of field tactics.” She gestured at the gremlins. “You see, Jan, just as succubi are clearly a Green Moon jurisdiction…”
She stepped over a snooring gremlin, picking up her vintage blouse from where it had been discarded.
“…gremlins are really more of a Golden Wand problem.” She pulled the blouse on, not bothering with the buttons yet. She looked at Liam, her smirk softening. “You have my trousers, MacDougal?”
Liam, his face a picture of relief and admiration, grinned. He held up her neatly folded high-waisted pants. “Aye, Agent Pendragon. I’ve got the lot.”