I barely managed to strap the seat belt before she slammed the gas. We bolted out of the garages and started blasting our way through the city.

  The Ferrari let Isabella swerve even wilder, but my stomach handled it just fine.

  “So,” she said, surprisingly threateningly. “Why didn’t you tell me Takezo wasn’t gay?”

  I snorted. “How do you imagine that should have occurred? Even if I somehow got the idea to tell you, there’s no natural way for that to happen in a conversation. Like, thanks for rescuing me from the cell, and by the way, Takezo isn’t gay or how?”

  “Stop making excuses. It was obvious I would think that.”

  “How was it supposed to be obvious? Like, for real. What gave you the idea?”

  She exited the highway, barely slowing down on the lower-class street. “There’s a super-hot succubus basically stalking him, to no avail. I would bang the brain out of her, and I’m not even into women. But on the other hand, he’s all over your bitch boy ass, so the obvious conclusion was that he was gay.”

  “My… what?”

  “Don’t play dumb. You’re becoming a bit manlier thanks to my masterful tutelage, but you’ve still got a whole lot of the bitch boy energy floating around you. Why is he sticking around you then?”

  “Because we’re friends, I guess.” I eyed the door. What I really wanted to do was to exit the car and slam the door, but that wasn’t happening when moving at a hundred miles per hour. And she knew that, which was why she picked the car ride for this conversation in the first place. She most likely arranged our itinerary partly to create this situation, where she could freely interrogate me. “We’re the only two people that can pass through the portal, remember?”

  She grunted, slowing down a little to drive a touch more sanely. “Sometimes. But anyway, is there anything wrong with you sexually? I’ve scanned your sheets, and you don’t jack off. There’s no trace of semen in the water either. You aren’t really hitting on me, you didn’t even try to grab a succubus at the bar, and you’re clearly not having anything with Takezo either.”

  That made me blush. She wasn’t wrong, technically speaking. “I guess I’ve been too overwhelmed with all that has been going on lately. I was a rank-and-file cubicle employee like two weeks ago.”

  Sha bobbed her head a bit, side to side. “I’ll still put it to the test.” She let go of the wheel with her right hand and rested it in my lap. No movement, just presence and the soft touch.

  All blood drained from my brain and the rest of my body, funneling into a nightmare of an erection.

  “Your anatomy seems to be working,” Isabella evaluated. “I was wondering if I would have to talk dirty or something, but it seems to be unnecessary.”

  “Talk dirty?”

  “Yeah, like about how the car is tight, but with how I’m short, I could totally ride you where you sit. Or that we could get off the road, kill the car in the field, and you could bend me over the hood there.” She withdrew the hand, grabbing back the wheel. “But it seems to be totally unnecessary.”

  I squirmed a bit in the seat. My imagination immediately played those scenarios in my mind, to the point my loins physically hurt. “Great, so aren’t you going to do anything about this?” I motioned at my crotch.

  “No, of course not.” She stepped on the gas. “It is the fate of the apprentice to lust over his mistress.”

  Well, to be fair, she would look great bent over the car’s hood… I slapped my face with my palm. Damn her. And not to Hell, because she would be an absolute rock star in there. “Where’re we going, anyways?”

  “Pennsylvania. For once, we need to do our actual job, as someone has kidnapped a bunch of employees from one of our branches.”

  Right, we were still the interventions department. The portal made me forget all about that.

  It also meant we had at least an hour of driving ahead of us. Great.

  Isabella made sure I did not have an easy time on the ride. Unlike any time before, she now found a moment to idly drum her fingers on my thigh once in a while.

  Any attempt to argue would only end up with me being tied to the chair, gagged, or something worse, so I bore through it.

  We finally left a major road and exited towards a barn in the field.

  The barn opened before we reached it, revealing Simon, Marge, a van, and an old BMW. Isabella killed the Ferrari near the barn.

  Simon and Marge slightly bowed when Isabella got out of the car.

  I did the same. Simon and Marge waved in a greeting, so I waved back.

  Isabella marched to the BMW. The car lit up, and the trunk popped open.

  We were changing cars, apparently. Isabella motioned me towards the trunk. “Take the weapon.” She sat in the car.

  I circled the car. A weapon box awaited me in the trunk. Well, there we go. I popped it open and found inside a short-barrel shotgun. A newer-looking model, though fundamentally the same weapon I had before.

  The box only had two shells. I put those into the shotgun, engaged the safety, and tucked the weapon behind my belt. The trunk started closing by itself.

  I got into the car on the front passenger seat. As usual, Isabella stepped on the gas the second I sat down.

  “So,” she said. “We are about to go rescue about twelve hostages. Intel says there are four kidnappers. Three commoners and one semi-feral werewolf. I’ll handle the commoners, and yours is the werewolf. They regenerate, so the finishing blow has to be from the shotgun, in the heart or in the brain. Got it?”

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  Was he even a kidnapper? That sounded like something she could have easily made up. At the same time, though, I had levels to get to retrieve Francesca’s soul. So, I took the potential lie as an absolute fact. “Yeah.”

  “Good. When it comes to killing, the essential thing to realize is that people are really good at preparing to fight. Take a professional boxer or an MMA fighter as an example. He arranges the fight at least three months ahead, then has a two month training camp, then flies to the location a week early to acclimatize, then prepares until the last few days, then thoroughly stretches and warms up before the fight, then he has the walkout song, then he has some ritual once he gets to the ring, and only then, he fights.”

  “He could fight without all that,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, but he fights better with it. That’s why they all do it. It’s the same for everyone. People are much better at fighting when prepared, so when you go to kill someone, it helps a lot to be fast about it. You are the attacker, so you attack. No hesitation, no doubt, no time for the other party to prepare.”

  “Like an assassin, not like an honorable warrior.”

  “Precisely, which is why I didn’t bring Takezo along. Over ninety percent of the deaths of mages are by the hands of another mage. The winner writes the story of what happened. The loser is dead. Remember that.”

  I nodded. I didn’t like it, but she made sense, especially in the context of what I had seen from the world of secret societies, so far. “All right.”

  She turned the car sharply to the side, further accelerating. We were speeding up towards a large barn.

  The targets were inside, weren’t they?

  I tensed up and checked that my gauntlets sat well on my hands.

  Isabella kept speeding up.

  We weren’t going to break down, were we?

  Isabella’s hair sneaked down, and she unlocked our seat belts.

  What?

  We rammed into the barn. The car passed straight through the wall. The impact threw me out of the seat, but the car caught up. Isabella hit a man, pushed him through the barn, and pierced through the other wall. The car stopped.

  I flew out through the windshield. Pain burst through me. As I spun in the air, I caught a glimpse of Isabella.

  She had turned into the figurine of chains, burst out from the car into the barn, her chains shooting everywhere.

  I landed and rolled. It took four rolls on the ground before I stabilized.

  The man she hit stopped his slide near me, already turning.

  Before my eyes, the man grew fur, his entire body enlarging into a human and a wolf hybrid. He lost any hint of humanity though, just feral rage and madness emanating from his beastly eyes.

  So, this was my opponent.

  I stood up and remembered what Isabella told me. No hesitation. I bolted forward with a punch. My gauntlet landed on the side of his head.

  His head jerked sideways, but he turned with the punch and swiped at me with the claws.

  I saw the move, but didn’t even bother trying to dodge. The claws ripped my suit, slashing my skin and flesh. Blood streaked out.

  But I didn’t stop. With gritted teeth, I rammed into him, ramming my left hand into his mouth. I didn’t get it all the way in, but got the steel fist between the fangs.

  He bit into the glove. The steel held. We rolled on the ground. He swiped at my back, claws digging into my back.

  I held tight to him, controlling the rolls so that I ended on top. I did.

  He kicked the ground, springing up his hips. That rolled us over once more. As my back hit the ground, he jerked his head backwards, freeing his fangs from my gauntlet.

  Damn it.

  I grabbed the shotgun with my right hand. He dug his claws into my shoulders and bit at my throat.

  I got the hand in just in time. His fangs grazed my throat and bit into my gloved hand. Blood oozed out from the throat scratch, but the gauntlet held.

  He clawed at my throat’s other side. I let him, only twisting my body, holding his jaw in place.

  The claws reached me, digging into the skin just as I put the shotgun’s nuzzle to his temple. I squeezed the trigger twice.

  Click. Click.

  Nothing.

  The shells inside were fakes.

  The werewolf’s claws dug deeper into my throat.

  Rage washed over me. My vision turned red, and the only thing I could see was Isabella’s smirk from earlier.

  I jerked up my body, throwing the werewolf off. “Isabella!” I shouted, shoving the werewolf from me.

  He instantly pounced back, jaw open wide, aimed at my already bleeding throat.

  “I’ll fucking murder you!” I screamed from the top of my lungs, raising my arm to block the bite.

  The werewolf crashed into me. But I braced on my right leg, standing my ground.

  Get fucking off me.

  I turned and shoved him to the ground. He dug his claws into my back, dragging me down with him. Fine.

  I controlled the descent, aiming my knee at his chest. With the left hand, I pinned him down first, so I got a firm mount on him.

  He slashed at my face, but I punched at his.

  At the last second, he withdrew the arms to block. My punch pushed his forearms into his head. I freed my left hand and punched with it.

  With a roar, I rained punches on him. His forearms shattered, bones splintered to dust. His skull gave in, bones and blood and teeth and brain fragments flying around. In a moment, I was only punching the ground, each hit making the ground shake.

  I roared again, face covered in blood. “Isabella!” I got up. In the process, I stepped on the werewolf’s chest, grabbed his arm, and tore it from the shoulder.

  I used the long fur on its biceps to wipe my face as I stomped towards the barn.

  Isabella sat on the edge of the roof wither her legs crossed, smirking.

  Oh, that damn smirk again. “You gave me fake shells!”

  She shrugged. “Obviously. It wouldn’t be a challenge if you got silver slugs to kill a werewolf. Any idiot can kill one with that.”

  Fuming, I got closer to her, wondering how to get up. I couldn’t really jump much. Though I could tear down the barn, probably… “Where are the hostages?”

  “Did you really believe that?” She chuckled. “There’re none. These schmucks robbed our Pennsylvania branch. They didn’t get much, but we can’t have that, so we had a message to send. You’ve done kind of all right at that.” She motioned with her hand behind me.

  I involuntarily glanced over my shoulder. A werewolf corpse with no head, crushed forearms, and a torn-out arm lay behind.

  How did that happen?

  Fragments of the past few moments flashed in front of my mind. No. That couldn’t be right. Shadow!

  Shadow appeared above the werewolf corpse, time freezing. He wheezed. “He looked wrong at your mistress, didn’t he?”

  “Oh, shut the fuck up about that. I just need the skill tree.” With a focused thought, I had the stat and skill trees pop up. Level twenty-two, so this werewolf fight got me one. I read my own stats:

  Strength: 70

  Dexterity: 45

  Intelligence: 10

  Endurance: 190

  Willpower: 10

  Charisma: 10

  Speed: 70

  Skills: Level-scanner, Void’s Gaze, System intervention

  How did that happen?

  I went over the skill tree to actually read the skills I picked. So, apparently, the stat nodes I took on the skill tree gave a whole lot of stats. The level twenty-one gave plus thirty to strength and endurance, and plus fifteen to dexterity and speed.

  That was eighteen level-ups worth of stats.

  I remembered what Shadow told me. Most classes are kind of shit. Stats are much more important. That was actually really good advice, just phrased by an asshole while omitting crucial context. Any skill had the opportunity cost of taking a fat stat node, so taking skills one wasn’t planning on using would have been a major mistake.

  “Can I see my list of passive abilities somewhere?” I asked.

  “Nope,” Shadow said. “Read up on what you put points into and write it down on a piece of paper.”

  Oh, yeah, I had like five of those in my pockets now, silly me. “Piss off.”

  He vanished, and time unfroze. Damn it. I looked up at Isabella. With crossed legs and a broad smirk, she emanated smug satisfaction and happiness.

  Well, she did teach me a lesson. “Whatever. But I’m not cleaning that up.”

  “You better not. Marge and Simon will do a whole photoshoot of it and post it anonymously all over the Secret Societies’ social media. They’ll bring us a car to go have a meal though. And I might just feel generous enough to let you sit inside the car, instead of stuffing you into the trunk.”

  I rolled my eyes and tried to clean myself a bit more. There was no victory to be obtained here. I could either fight her and lose, or keep some dignity by letting things go.

  One day, I was going to be strong enough to contest her.

  Not anytime soon though.