Greed God chapter 205

April 8th 2016 Brightedge City, Grayson Pier, 12:00 PM EDT

"Huh."  Said Cherry from beside me. "This place is less swanky than I would  have expected. Like I know our house is pretty amazing and there was no  way it could compete, but still, I expected more than this." Most of the  girls I brought along this time were E rank, with the exception of Amy  of course, but Cherry was still at the F rank and allowed to come  anyway.

Aside from her ghost abilities, the Soul Shredder  was a legit D rank weapon, and being able to bond with it gave her the  ability to do serious damage. Walking through walls and having a super  dangerous sword was pretty much peak combat efficiency. I'd also brought  Barbie, Sindara, Waylon, and Sally (Waylons sweetie, not my new goth in  training. I wasn't going to waste the work of snagging the pretty witch  to be by putting her against vampires).

The whole crew  was strong enough to be seriously effective, though I'd left out Strega  because I was concerned her blood manipulation would be more of a  hindrance dealing with vampires than a help. Barbie, of course had to  snipe at Cherry when she brought up an opinion, and immediately  disagreed. "I think you're just too used to the luxury. This is a pretty  fancy house, it's not the vampires fault they can't compare to our  daddy."

Cherry, usually unperturbed by the redhead,  shockingly sneered back at her. "Our daddy? I think one of us cares more  about him than the other. Have you even made any time for him lately?  Or have you been having so much fun with all that muff diving you don't  need him anymore? Maybe you should just give up on him entirely and be  the live in pussy polisher. I'll let you practice your tongue work on me  even. You can get me ready for him."

I was honestly  surprised by the venom in her voice, but when I looked over I caught a  quick wink from my little ghostie. Someone was playing matchmaker. I  smirked internally, knowing I'd be getting a nice rough fuck from Barbie  out of the angst. I'd make sure to pound some worship into her when I  did it too. I could have two devoted redheads praying to me by the time I  was done.

Sure enough, despite being brilliant, Barbie  was easily riled by Cherry. "How dare you!" She hissed darkly. "I care  way more about him than you do you sociopathic whore. Just because I  keep the other girls entertained doesn't mean I PREFER them. No one is  as good as my daddy. But he's busy sometimes, and I enjoy the company."

"Alright."  Said Amy soothingly. "That's enough girls. Barbara, no one is upset  that you spend time with the other girls, but if you're feeling ignored  I'll make sure you get the evening to yourself tonight with Mammon.  Charise, don't tease her, you know she adores him. It isn't nice to  start arguments." She reached up to put an arm around each of them.  "Really girls, this silly rivalry is pointless. We're all one big  family. When are you going to put this grudge aside."

Cherry  was the picture of innocence, but Barbie looked like she was sulking.  Finally, the redhead sighed. "I...I guess at this point it's a silly  grudge. We're both his. I'm still upset about what she did before, but I  know Mammon is too smart to let her run amok like that again. I suppose  I can try to at least be a bit more reasonable. If she promises not to  take shots at me."

My specter's face melted into a happy  smile as she agreed, and I saw Barbie roll her eyes as she caught on to  the plan. It wasn't important right now though. "Everyone have their  weapons?" I asked, forcing them all to focus back on the matter at hand.  "Once we're all strapped for sure Cherry will go in and scope the place  out." I fixed her with a pointed glance. "Be careful. Just do a once  over to check the numbers, stay invisible if you can. Also if you catch  some of them in the open maybe drop a Dawnbreak grenade in the room as  you bail."

She grinned at me widely before vanishing in a  flicker of mist. I chuckled at the theatrics, but settled in to wait,  watching the house for any sign of a disturbance. My little ghost was  too useful to lose, if things went bad I could always just blast my way  in. That would be a waste of planning and equipment though, and I  doubted it would come up. Cherry had been able to rob the Opal vault, so  this should be a piece of cake.

I felt a tap on my  shoulder and turned to see Sindara looking at me nervously. "I've been  doing a bit of research, and I think I, might be able to help out with  this. If you want to let me try." The gorgeous living lich hadn't been  doing much since we got back from Gemworld, and I knew it bothered her,  so since we had to wait anyway I figured I'd let her show her stuff.

She  held out her hands, murmuring for a minute or two under her breath. The  words were...weird. Faint and indistinct, but not like they were too  soft, more like they were somehow insubstantial. Like the vibrations  were dissolving into nothingness. Finally, she opened her eyes, which  blazed green, and held out her hands. The shadows nearby collected into a  series of pools, and out of each pool rose a black crystal skull.

The  skulls were lit with ghostly green fire, and they drifted through the  air lazily, bobbing up to float at about eye level with Sindara. She  turned to grin at me, looking a bit shaky. "These." She said gesturing  to them. "Are a new kind of construct I've been researching. Obsidian  demiliches. It's a unique kind of being that I was able to create by  mixing my living lich abilities with my bloodline. They absorb lifeforce  when they bite something, as most demiliches do, but they're also much  more durable."

She looked so proud of herself I had to  smile. Reaching up to pat her head I gave the things an appraising once  over. "They're terrifying." I said matter of factly. "That's fantastic. I  kind of wish I'd had a chance to send them in before Cherry." I paused  to think. "Actually, how far can they go from you? Can you send them in  with a bunch of grenades to drop?"

Unlike Cherry, I didn't  care if the demiliches got crushed, so exposing them to the vampires  after they woke was fine. She looked excited by the possibility and we  spent the five minutes we had to wait for Cherry to come back pulling  the pin on the Daybreak grenades and letting the liches hold the clip  down with their teeth. Took a few tries and I got bit, which actually  kind of hurt, but finally we got them all ready, just in time for my  ghost to reappear.

"I'm back." She said quickly from  behind Sindara, who almost jumped out of her skin. She hid her smirk as  the Opal girl whirled to glare at her for the scare. "Ok, so good news  and bad news time. Good news, they ARE asleep. I even peeked into some  coffins. They're there and unconscious. Bad news, they're ALL in  coffins, so the bomb thing wasn't a viable idea. I considered dropping  one into a coffin, but only taking out one vampire with seemed like a  waste of the twenty grenades we have since theres fucking fifty of  them."

I winced. "Yeah, that'd do it. Good plan though." I  pondered for a minute or two. "Ok, how heavy are the coffin lids? We  talking heavy wood caskets, stone lid crypts, shitty wooden boxes shaped  like a ring pop?" I gestured at the demiliches. "Like could one of  those things open one without using their teeth?"

She  shook her head. "Wooden caskets, but big ones. I don't think one of  those could get an angle. Though I guess it might be possible to knock  them over? I guess they would have protection though."

"Fair  enough." I said thoughtfully. "Alright. Sindara? Can these things make  noise?" At her affirmative I finally got a plan together. "Alright,  perfect. So here's what we do. Send the three skulls each with a grenade  in there. Have them try to scream for attention. If that doesn't work  then try knocking over a coffin to make some noise. Once the vampires  open to check drop the grenades. Try to hit as many as you can get with  the three you have. Once we spark up a few of the bastards we bust in  and hose the place down with the paintballs, then do a once over with  the flamethrowers to get the ones we missed. That should take out the  little guys so we can focus on the big fish." I patted the stakes on my  belt.

To my surprise, even as the demiliches entered the  house, Barbie raised a hand. "I can help too actually. The sun is a  star, and my bloodline magic is star based. I should be able to fire  blasts of concentrated sunlight with a bit of time to tee it up. Won't  work on more than one of them, but it WILL work. At the very least it  should hurt like a bitch. Think you can give me the time?"

That  was a pleasant surprise, and I told her I'd make sure she got to test  it out, and that she should work with Zee on the ability and others like  it when she had the chance. Which was about the time there was a huge  flash of light, followed by two more, from inside. Grinning at the  girls, I bolted forward toward the house, making sure to dragon shift to  my full hybrid form as I did.

I hit the door at speed,  smashing it apart, inhaling as I did, and spat a ball of green fire at  the first figure I saw, planning to destroy another vampire before they  could process what was happening...only for my flames to smash into a  new figure, a massive black furred werewolf, and roll off the monster,  almost harmlessly.

There was a musical laugh as a redhead  appeared from behind the beast, patting his head. "Good boy." She cooed,  then turned to me. "You know, that wasn't very nice. You killed almost a  dozen of our fledgelings. Would have been more without our...friends  here." She gestured to the surrounding room, which was filled to the  brim with fucking werewolves.

A quick appraisal told me  that they were exactly what I thought. Fear constructs. The fucking Fear  host had partnered up with the vampires faster than I'd expected. I  looked around, but he wasn't here. Or at least, if he was he hadn't been  at the meeting like I'd thought. Either way, he clearly didn't require  proximity to function. I sighed. "Miss. Seward I presume. I don't  suppose I could convince you to just leave town?"

She  laughed again, still musical, but scornful as well. "You? No. I came for  a reason, and I absolutely won't leave. But don't worry. You aren't  going to be upset about it for long. Because you're not leaving here  either." She flashed me a fang filled smile. "Part of my payment for  these lovely servants, I'm afraid." As the girls made it through the  door behind me and pulled up short, I grimaced and got ready for a  fight. We might have to pull our of here. If we did, I'd make it a point  to find and kill that fucking Fear host before we met the vamps again.  Asshole caused me nothing but problems.