Evil Masterminding for Idiots!

“Yah, Grok come.” A misshapen figure trudged out of the door, carefully carrying a mahogany wardrobe that had to weight several hundred pounds. Grok was human – barely. His hands, if they weren’t full of furniture, would have reached nearly to his knees at the ends of heavily muscled arms. His hair hadn’t seen soap in at least a fortnight, and his gait was a surprisingly speedy lopsided shuffle. He set the wardrobe down next to the marble-topped table he’d also carted out as if it were a teacup.

“Jess!” Ker hailed her as he approached. They’d pack up her belonging first, then Ker’s, and finally Javin’s. Everyone was supposed to meet at Jessenia’s first.

“Growr!” Grok proclaimed viciously, setting himself between the newcomer and his mistress.

“Back, Grok!” Jessenia ordered. “This is a friend.” Still regarding Ker with slitted, suspicious eyes, Grok fell back.

Ker raised an eyebrow. “Your apprentice?”

“My assistant,” Jess corrected him. “I couldn’t find an apprentice applicant that I’d trust as far as I could throw. And besides, I’d just as soon not entirely rely on you and Javin for my physical safety,” she smiled slyly. “Grok, as you see, is a devoted bodyguard.”

“Indeed,” Ker said appreciatively. “And he carries heavy objects. Always a plus. As for me, I’ve taken on... Justin? Justin, where are you now?”

A small, weasel-faced man sauntered out of Jess’s front door. “What?” the sorceress sputtered. “What are you doing in my house? Or coming out of it without carrying a crate, for that matter?” Grok growled.

“All clear, boss,” the weasel-faced man reported. “Joint’s mostly empty, no one inside... whoa, down, Fido,” he addressed Grok.

“Hello? It’s my house and I’m moving out of it,” Jess insisted. “Of course it’s empty!”

“Justin, this is the sorceress Jessenia. Jessenia, my chief of security, Justin.”

The mage regarded him coolly. “I thought you were looking for a spymaster?”

Ker shrugged. “Well, when you get right down to it, I realized that that’s the job I want. But I could use a fellow with experience in death traps, ambushes, poisons, all that sort of thing. A bodyguard of a different sort, if you will.”

“Hmph.” Jess remained somewhat unconvinced. “Well, Justin, Grok, be useful and bring out some more boxes. Javin should be along with the cart any time now, and we can start loading.” Ker nodded to Justin, giving him permission to go, and the pair respectively stalked and limped back to the house.

“It’s been a good little house,” Jess said fondly. “I’ll miss it, I think. Remember? I bought it with my winnings from that cutthroat ch’lorba game in the Frozen Wastes.”

“Remember?” Ker grumbled. “I think a third of the pot was my money... oh, here comes Javin!” He shaded his eyes against the morning light, hoping to get an early look at Javin’s Evil Captain. The big man had sent Ker a note indicating that he’d picked one from his applicant pool. Javin’s crabbed script had gone on at length, enthusing over her professional skills and finally concluding, “And she’s a looker, too!”

He glanced over at the sorceress when he realized she was staring at him. “You’re drooling,” she noted. Ker wiped his chin and, before he could offer a plausible excuse, the cart had rolled up next to the pile of crates and boxes. Javin jumped out of the driver’s seat, a big smile plastered on his face.

“Jess! Ker! You gotta meet Kali, she’s my new captain. Great, great idea, Jess. She’s tough, an’ mean, and is gonna be a great captain!” he enthused. “Kali! Where’d you go? You gotta meet – ”

“I’m over here, sir,” a strident, alto voice proclaimed. Kali, exiting the other side of the cart, had circled around to the back. Ker swallowed, hard. A long, curling mane of wild dark hair was held back with a stylish headband. Her outfit – not much armor for moving day, after all – was the expected tight, black leather, with little interesting cutouts located in strategic places. An array of improbable knives graced her full hips, as did – Ker swallowed again – a long, coiled bullwhip.

He had swiftly rearranged his face into “suave” when Jessenia burst past him. “Colleen!”

“Jessie!” the leather-clad dominatrix squealed. The two women fell into an exuberant hug. “Nine hells! You’re the sorceress Javin told me about?”

“Yeah!” Jess chirped back, holding Kali at arm’s length. “What a coincidence! Guys, I met Colleen...”

“Kali now,” the Evil Captain corrected. “It’s got more ominous connotations.”

“I met Kali during my postdoc. Damn, you look great!” Jess said admiringly. Then a dark scowl crossed her features like a sudden thundercloud and she whirled on Javin. “Why the hell did you feel the need to dress her up like this?!” Justin and Grok, re-emerging with loads of boxes, only caught the end of the conversation. Justin knew when to keep his nose out of other people’s business; Grok was too busy staring to parse the sentence out.

Javin flinched as Jess brought her hand up in the familiar “pig spell” gesture. “I didn’t! I didn’t! Honest, Jess! You shoulda seen what she wore to the interview!”

Jessenia halted her “Circe Special” in mid-cast and turned back to Kali. “That’s your outfit?” she asked incredulously.

Kali heaved a heavy sigh, causing all four men to forget to breathe momentarily. “Jessie, come here,” she drew the sorceress a bit closer and lowered her voice. “Before you launch into one of the many variants of the ‘empowered woman’ speech, let me ask you: what word is at the root of ‘empowered’?”

Jessenia shrugged. “Power?”

“Right,” Kali nodded. “You’ve got the power of your spells. I have the power of my strong right arm. However, I also choose – choose, mind you, and I can and will throw the ‘woman’s right to choose’ rhetoric right back at you – to use my sexuality to gain power. Come on. Maybe I wasn’t a post-doctoral like you, but I my committee thought my Master’s thesis on sex and power was worth expanding into a PhD. If I hadn’t gotten that offer from the Hells’ Belles mercenary company, I might have even done it.” She jerked her head towards the guys. “I mean, look at them,” she said contemptuously. “Clay for the sculptor."

“Really?” Jess asked, unconvinced.

Kali nodded, then smiled wickedly. “Anything breakable in those boxes Ratface and Igor are carrying?” Jess glanced over and confirmed that they were clothing. “Bet you I can make them both drop them without so much as saying anything.”

Jess frowned. “That’d be a powerful mind-control effect if you could pull it off without an incantation...”

Kali’s smile broadened. “Exactly.” And the warrior woman, much stronger than the mage, suddenly pulled her quite close and delivered a long, passionate kiss.

A few moments later, Jess was sputtering, “Colleen!” and the warrior graciously released her. She then gestured to where the men stood. Both crates were on the ground, Javin’s jaw had become unhinged, and Ker looked like he was trying to burn the scene into permanent memory. Kali tapped the sorceress on the chin and winked before sauntering over to the boxes. There was a cart to get packed up, after all.