For some reason, Apartment 4F was not on the fourth floor, but the sixth. For more obvious reasons of decrepitude, the elevator didn’t work. The government agents had no problem climbing six floors, but Rian struggled with the steps in her platform shoes, eventually taking them off and carrying them, but making a face every time she stepped on a gap in the floor tiles.
Una glanced at Susan, who nodded. The taller agent knocked on the door. “Ms. Carlisle? Or um… Autumn or Bethany? We’d like to speak with you.”
The door swung open immediately, revealing a red-eyed woman in a black bathrobe, her head surrounded by a frizzy halo of auburn hair. Una tensed, but the woman didn’t seem surprised or concerned. Her face looked drawn, and she held herself in a hunched, protective pose.
“Okay,” said Bethany Carlisle. “You’re here now. I guess that’s good.” She turned to look at Rian, her gaze traveling up and down her teaching assistant’s body. “Huh. I saw the beginning of your change, but this is what you’re into, Ryan? You seriously want to date someone who looks like an extra in a teen soap opera?” Rian flushed and crossed her arms over her breasts.
“Fuck you, Bethany. I know your loser girlfriend’s behind this. All because you wanted to get out of our debate? Really?” Rian rolled her blue eyes.
Carlisle looked angry for a moment, as if she might say something, but then closed her mouth.
“Can we… come in, Ms. Carlisle?” Una was doing her best to sound non-threatening, Susan noticed, but the tension in the hall was palpable, and the young teacher didn’t look convinced.
The PhD student shrugged. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea. Ryan’s right, as you’ve obviously figured out. I’m not the magic worker here. My girlfriend is, but she doesn’t like visitors.”
Susan stepped forward to the doorway. “Professor Carlisle, your girlfriend has cursed several people, including Ryan, two of your students, and possibly your co-teacher, Professor Berglund. I’d like to understand the nature of the curse, and see if there’s something we can do to reverse the effects. I imagine you must want to protect your partner, but I can honestly tell you that the welfare of the victims is our first priority.”
Bethany looked from Susan to Una, to Rian, and back again. “You don’t understand. I was expecting you because she’s expecting you. She knows who you are—Susan Miller, Una Belmont.”
The two agents stiffened and exchanged a glance. Una spoke. “How could she possibly know who we are?”
Carlisle stared at the far wall of the hallway with a weary expression and made a vague gesture. “She has sources. Teachers. I shouldn’t say any more, they… frankly, they terrify me. But if you want to deal with her… please, be my guest. You’re right, I don’t want to see her hurt, but…” She trailed off.
Una nodded. “Sandeep, Jason, Ryan and even Professor Berglund don’t deserve this.”
Bethany exhaled, a sound of deep resignation. “Yes. That’s right.” She stepped through the door, ushering them inside.
Una and Susan entered, followed closely by a hesitant Ryan. As the student closed the door behind them, Bethany called out, “Autumn? We have company, babe!”
The living room and dining nook of Bethany’s apartment looked like a cross between a new-age shrine and a poor scholar’s studio… if a store full of goth accessories had exploded all over both. Shelves of books competed with stacks of books for dominance of the floor space, along with boxes containing more of the same, plus piles of papers and notebooks. Bottles of herbs, candles, and other paraphernalia crowded the tabletops and shelves, while the walls bore occult symbols and posters of goth bands.
Susan noted pictures of Bethany and an attractive, smaller woman: black hair falling in a blunt-cut bob around a round, cheerful face, dark eyeliner framing wide brown eyes. Rian, meanwhile, wore an expression of utter shock and disgust.
“God, Bethany. I cannot believe you live like this. Are the two of you trying to promote stereotypes or something? It’s like the set from an old horror movie…”
Susan shot her a warning glance, but Bethany was already responding. “You even sound like you stepped straight out of Mean Girls, Ryan. And you wonder why Autumn cursed you?”
Una lifted a hand, and her presence seemed to fill the apartment. “Shush now,” she commanded. Both of the bickering students looked at her, startled, their mouths closing. “Which way?”
Bethany quietly nodded at a pair of sliding doors on the right side of the living area, and Susan slid them open, revealing the master bedroom. The walls of the bedroom were painted black, covered with posters of bands and occult images, and lit with strings of tiny lights. The air smelled of incense and candle wax.
A four-poster bed occupied most of the bedroom’s far end, but the sight in the center of the floor demanded far more attention. Concentric circles of salt, ash and chalk formed a complex mandala on the hardwood floor; the outermost circle contained sigils and characters written in a dark, oily medium that Susan recognized as dried blood. In the middle sat a pentagram, fashioned from staves of dark wood fastened with brass bands, and in the center of the pentagram sat a figure shrouded in a large black hoodie.
“Very well,” said the figure, her voice deep and throaty but unmistakably feminine. She rose to her bare feet in a smooth motion, then pulled the oversized hood back with surprisingly thick, strong-looking fingers. Susan almost failed to recognize the woman from the photos on the wall; though her hair was still an inky black, she’d cut it short, buzzed on the sides and back but spiky on top. The round, friendly features Susan had noted had somehow grown angular and harsh, emphasized by dark eyeliner and a piercing through one brow.
“An angel and a demon come visiting my parlor,” Autumn continued. “How quaint. How very fucking cliché. You probably think you can stop me, thwart my justice.” Her eyes, bloodshot and rimmed with smudged mascara, flashed with anger.
“We’re just here to—” Una began, but stopped when Autumn spat in her direction, the gob of blood-flecked saliva landing just outside of the ritual circle. The succubus frowned, and the woman in the circle let out a short, barking laugh.
“Autumn, will you just listen to…?” Bethany’s voice dwindled to near-silence by the last word, stifled by a burning glare from her girlfriend.
“I hear you lust after magical essences, Una Belmont. You’re welcome to lick that up like a dog, if that will satisfy you. But you won’t be lapping any more without a fight.” Susan saw Una’s fists clench, then relax. That’s right, my love, thought the scholar. You see it too, I’m sure. You’re too clever not to.
Autumn reached over her head and pulled off the sweatshirt, tossing the garment aside. A quiet gasp from Rian echoed Susan’s reaction as well. What has she done?! The young witch wore only a tight sports bra and a pair of black sweat shorts, but that wasn’t what drew the eye. Autumn’s garments barely contained the cords of sinewy muscle covering her arms, legs, and torso. She flexed, the muscles of her shoulders, arms and neck standing out in sharp definition; the effect was not that of a gym rat trying to show off, but of a predator preparing to leap. She had the form of a female wrestler, or a bodybuilder, with a thick neck and massive thighs, with only the slight swell at her chest and the curves of her hips showing a feminine form.
“How long has she been like this?” Susan asked, without breaking eye contact with the witch, whose lip twisted in a snarl at the question.
Bethany answered hesitantly, but with a tone that suggested she’d already considered the explanation. “Just a few days. She gets bigger, bulkier… every time she changes someone.” Bethany glanced over at Rian with a guilty look. The recently transformed student was staring at the witch with wide eyes and a shocked expression.
“Shut up, Bee… don’t help these bitches! You know this is my strength, my power! What I’ve been working for all this time…”
Una held up a hand again, and the lights in the apartment flickered. Autumn flinched, looking up at the ceiling, and Una spoke.
“Muscle is not power. Neither is anger, or aggression.” The succubus spoke in a low, resonant voice, and Susan felt goosebumps on the back of her neck as she listened. “Autumn, you’re clearly feeding on the energy of those men. Taking what they lose in pursuit of their objects of desire.” Her yellow eyes flicked towards Susan, who nodded.
“It’s a feedback effect. I think I can guess how the curse works now; it’s a desire loop, intensifying based on the victim’s fantasy… but there’s an exchange of energies involved. The remainder of the balance flowed up the aetheric connection into you. Huh, fascinating, I wonder if—” She almost reached for her notebook, but stopped herself. Not the time, Susan.
Autumn hadn’t moved from the center of the circle, but she looked tense, as if she was about to leap. Una went on. “You’ve stolen what is not yours, and—”
“How dare you, you hellish fraud?” Autumn shrieked. The witch pointed at the succubus with both hands. “You’re just a fucking parasite! You feed on the lust and pleasure of mortals, you drain them dry. I know you’ve been transforming men into women! Don’t think I haven’t heard the stories. And you yourself… you’re just a man, under it all, a priest! You pretend to be something else, but you can’t escape your own corrupt nature, your true—”
“Enough.” Una’s word rang like a hammer striking metal, and the lights flared, then burst in a spray of sparks and glass. Rian screamed, and darkness enveloped the room, save for the glow of the ritual circle’s many candles, and the faint illumination filtering in from the street. A powerful gust of wind swept through an open window and around the apartment, sending papers flying and rattling the furniture. Susan could barely see Bethany cowering in the corner, Rian backed against the wall near the kitchen, and Una standing tall, her eyes glowing like twin suns in the shadows.
Autumn stood defiant in the circle, her arms extended and still surrounded by flickering flame; not a single candle had gone out. She glared at Una but didn’t move or speak. Una stepped forward, and Susan nearly cried out for her to stop, but the succubus’ boots rested just short of the ash circle’s edge.
“I am not your judge, but I neither am I a hypocrite.” Una’s voice sounded resonant, with a slight echo. “I am not Yael, she who fed on the follies of men. Nor am I Father Michael Belmont. I am no longer a mortal priest, nor a man.” Susan couldn’t help but hear her mistress’s emphasis, and shivered.
The succubus extended a long-taloned finger towards the witch, who still showed signs of effort as she maintained the ritual flames. “You claim to seek justice, to show others the harms they wreak by objectifying women. But oh, young witch, how little you understand desire.” Una’s lips curved in a cruel smile, and Susan saw in her lover’s face the cast of an ancient demoness.
“You profess feminism and instead summon from unbridled fantasy those caricatures of womanhood you scorn; you forced it onto your victims in a twisted echo of societal pressure.” The wind grew stronger, and Autumn’s face grew pale as her arms shook.
“The power we wield as women, as harlots, as demonesses,” Una intoned, “is the strength of liberation. To choose, to consent. To realize our desires and to embrace them. We do not take them, nor force them upon anyone else. Do you understand me, follower of Hekate? Do you see why you’ve grown into one of the forces you despise?”
“No!” The witch screamed, her defiance grown furious. “It’s not like that! You don’t—you can’t know what it’s been like! The way they stare, and laugh, and grab… The way they hurt—the way they treat Bethany, even now.”
Una exhaled and lowered her accusing hand. The swirl of wind around the apartment died, and a few lightbulbs flickered back to life, though most remained shattered or dark. “Oh, child,” Una said, sounding weary. “I do know. I was a boy on a hard church pew, hiding who I knew myself to be.” She glanced at Susan. “I was a girl at home alone in the desert, a whore on a blood-stained street corner, a refugee desperate for a bed of straw.”
Susan stepped close to Una. “Come out of the circle, Autumn. We can fix this, we can get you counseling…”
In response, Autumn only lowered herself into a crouch. “She said you’d offer me counseling.” The witch spat again, and this time, her spittle was black with flecks of red. “I’m not coming with you anywhere. Why don’t you come in here and get me?”
Susan looked at Una, who stood still, her arms crossed. “Sure,” said the succubus. “So we can walk right into this ward you’re so desperate to maintain around yourself.”
The scholar smiled. “Surely you must have realized we’d figure that out after the barrier downstairs? Impressive to put it over an entire building, but all it did in the end was cost me a dress shirt and a pair of panties.” Susan unbuttoned her suit jacket, revealing a pale expanse of skin and the simple black bra that cupped her ample curves.
“This small one must be far more potent. What does it do? Break bones, twist flesh, melt the skin? I suppose I could find out. Or would you rather we wait while you run out of power to sustain it?” Autumn looked stricken, but didn’t reply.
Susan took another step forward. “What’s your endgame here, Autumn? You want a fight?”
The witch, never moving a foot from the center of her pentagram, sneered in Susan’s direction. “I hear you’re quite the Amazon when you unleash your powers fully, Miller. Let it out, let me see it.” She licked her lips, showing a hint of white teeth. “If you do, I’ll come along quietly. Surely an angel can wrestle even a strong girl like me into submission?”
Susan regarded the woman in the pentagram gravely for a moment, then rolled her neck from one side to the other, cracking it loudly, and flexed her fingers in a brief stretch. “Tempting,” she said. “We could get oiled up, roll around on the floor, grab each other’s asses… what do you think, Agent Belmont?”
“I think she’s trying to buy time,” came Una’s reply, and Susan saw the succubus’ gaze locked on Autumn. “Or just get you to step across that boundary and into her trap. What do you think, Agent Miller? Who gave her all this information about us?”
The scholar sighed. “Your old torturer, Sister Mary Elizabeth, obviously. But Mary Liz doesn’t know how far we’ve come since she ambushed us. Oh well, no more fun. We’ll have to call for backup and quarantine this place until these wards fail. Bethany, you’ll have to come with us for now.”
Autumn laughed. “You think it’s that easy? You’re already inside my wards, remember?”
“Uh, guys?” Rian sounded nervous, and Susan looked over to see her kit bag slung over the blonde girl’s shoulder. “I’ve got, like, no bars. No data either. And it’s the same on Agent Miller’s phone. Is that part of her spell, or…?”
“Shit,” muttered Susan. Rookie mistake, again. Didn’t even think to call it in before we entered. A smug look flickered across the witch’s hardened features.
“You’re damn poor excuses for ‘agents.’ What are you going to do, lecture at me some more? Sit here until I faint from dehydration?” Autumn took a swig from a small metal bottle at her side. “I assure you, you’ll be here a while.”
From somewhere behind the ritual circle, the chime of a kitchen timer sounded. Autumn clapped her hands, and for a moment her expression softened, offering a glimpse of what she might have looked like as an ordinary young woman. “My baking’s done!”
The other four women, two at the edge of the ritual circle and two watching from the corner of the kitchen, looked at each other in confusion. Una’s eyes widened as Autumn opened the lid of a small copper teakettle and pulled out two strips of wax paper, dripping with a steaming brown liquid.
“Autumn… no! Not again, please!” Bethany’s voice broke as tears ran down her face. “I’m begging you. You don’t need to do this.” The teacher looked around desperately at Rian, standing by her side with a confusion on her doe-eyed face, then to Susan and Una—but the agents’ attention remained locked on the witch and her implements.
“I told you to shut up, Bee. It’s not like I want to do this, but here we are.” The witch inspected the two dripping rolls of paper, then smiled with satisfaction and turned her gaze towards Una and Susan. “Yes, all properly set! I’m getting faster and faster at making these, did you know? Half the time, and twice as many in a pot. Two times the transformative fun!” She winked.
“Oh my god,” Rian said, her voice rising in a loud stage whispered. “She’s going to change someone else? Another kid from class?!”
Una bared her teeth in a grimace of contempt. “I can’t let you keep cursing people just because you disagree with backwards gender politics. Rian, get Bethany out of here.” The succubus removed her suit jacket, her crisp white dress shirt clinging to her curves.
“No…” Bethany’s protest emerged as a hoarse whimper as she pushed herself back against the wall, her legs trembling. Rian caught her arm. “I can’t leave her! This is all my fault…”
“What are you going to do, you cross-dressing succu-freak?” Autumn sat cross-legged in the circle again and picked up a small glass bell. “You gonna punch my barrier down, or maybe fuck me into compliance?”
Autumn’s tone was mocking, but Una didn’t even spare a glance towards the witch. “Susan, can’t you use that hooked knife to cut through the barrier again? I’ll risk getting burned to grab her out of there.”
Susan pulled the blade from her pocket, but the twist of her lips looked hesitant. “Doubtful. This circular ward probably repels magic. Try a simple spell if you want, or we can just do this…”
Susan lowered the Arctavo of Guiseppe Vittorio in a slow motion from above her head to a point just above eye level, where the blade suddenly encountered invisible resistance: waves of force and ripples of flickering blue flame spread outward from the point of contact.
“See?” Susan asked through gritted teeth. “Not even a scratch.” With a sound like shattering glass, the blade rebounded and flew from her hand, embedding itself in the far wall with a thunk.
“Watch out!” Rian yelled. “That could have taken my eye out!”
“Both of you, get out of the apartment!” Una yelled back.
“Someone’s going to lose a lot more than an eye in a moment,” Autumn said, and rang the glass bell in her left hand. The sound was high and sweet, but the tingle that passed through the atmosphere felt uncanny: a magical effect.
“Stop! Don’t finish the ritual, Autumn. You’re in enough trouble as it is.” Una’s words rang with authority, but the witch ignored her, instead lifting the first strip of wax paper towards a candle.
Susan cried out as she saw what Una was about to do, but the succubus was already in motion. Lifting her hands over her head in a smooth arc, she clasped one around the other and brought them down in a hammer blow on the barrier. Magical flesh contacted the warding barrier. This time, the reverberations were far more violent, as if a thunderclap had burst from within the demoness’ fists. Susan felt a wave of energy rush through the room, and the air crackled and sparked with energy. The barrier held, but its surface was now covered with cracks.
“Una, no!” Susan yelled, her ears ringing. “If you break the barrier, the energy will rebound into you… maybe on everyone nearby!”
The succubus didn’t respond. Instead, she stepped back, took a deep breath, and wound up for another strike. Inside the circle, Autumn touched a flame with a curl of paper. The strip immediately ignited with a bright white light, burning with a heatless fire that consumed the wax paper completely.
Una hit the ward again, and Susan winced at the sound of the impact; the barrier’s surface looked like the cracked, dry clay of some ancient ruin. Instead of a third blow, Una dug her long, black nails into a crack in the shield’s surface; her face twisted into a pained grimace as the ward resisted her.
“Stop!” Susan wrapped her arms around the succubus from behind and tried to pull her away from the barrier, but Una wouldn’t budge. “Susan, we can’t let her keep cursing more students!”
“It’s too lay-ay-ate!” The witch sang triumphantly as the second roll of wax paper disappeared into flame, and her eyes shone with a fierce intensity. “Spell’s done. Would you like to know whose names were on those cursed fortunes?”
As if released from a burden, Una’s arms dropped limply to her sides. She straightened, with Susan’s arms still encircling her from behind. They both stared at the witch.
“Just tell us already, bitch!” Rian called from the kitchen. “Who did you change? Connor? Sam?”
Autumn smirked. “Oh, I don’t have to do a big reveal, Ryan. I think they’ve already figured it out.” The witch gestured at Una and Susan, who exchanged a glance.
“You’re not serious.” Una’s yellow eyes narrowed in consternation.
Autumn nodded, her expression smug. “Susan Sunghi Miller. Una Michael Yael-Belmont. Prepare to face the truth of your desires.”
Uh-oh. Or not?
TFTC