Una stepped out of Sylvia Larkspur College’s administrative building and blinked in the morning light. Susan waved and walked up, dropping her phone into the pocket of her black blazer. The shorter woman, dressed in an olive-green ribbed turtleneck, had her long hair neatly pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck. Her partner, meanwhile, still wore the leather bike suit she’d donned the night before; Susan had packed it in case flight proved necessary, since the jacket’s sleeves detached to allow Una’s wings to manifest. She looked at Susan and raised her eyebrows.
“All done with my chores!” Susan’s voice sounded bright, even to her own ears. “Headquarters is sending a van to meet Agent Mori and pick up Professor Berglund. He may have to spend a few days or weeks relaxing in a swimming pool, but he’ll be safe… and that sounds a lot more pleasant than being a mermaid stuck in a bathtub. He’s mostly just glad the curse will expire.”
Una nodded thoughtfully. “The university agreed to put him on paid leave for the rest of the semester, since he’s technically a victim. And they won’t pursue any charges against Bethany, as long as the Gender Studies department doesn’t assign her to teach classes ever again. What do you think?”
“Not the end of the world, if she can find other work.” Susan sighed before continuing. “She just has to finish her dissertation, and they give you years for that. I mean, you remember it’s been what, three years since I started my master’s thesis?”
Her succubus partner managed a half-smile. “You have plenty of excuses. A sultry demon from the dawn of civilization possessed your external advisor, you fought some demons, then got a new job as a government agent.”
They shared a grin, but Una’s expression grew more serious. “How’s Sandeep doing?”
Susan glanced down at her cellphone, then met Una’s eyes. “Still unwilling to leave his room… but very relieved and in better spirits, maybe just because he can hope to change back soon. I could be wrong, but destroying the spellcase really seemed to lift a mental cloud?”
“The Dean of students called Jason Christiansen’s parents while I was there,” Una continued. “They were incredibly relieved too. I suppose our work’s just about done, then? Other than Rian, of course.”
Susan pursed her lips. “I’m half wondering whether she’d like to stay the way she is, given her reactions last night? I gave her my card, in case… she has second thoughts. But the expiration of the curse will return her to her usual form.”
The succubus shook her head in response. “Sometimes I feel like we’re carrying some kind of transformation virus around with us. Ordinary guys like Ryan, or Cesar, or even Maria’s friend Alexandros—we stumble through their lives and suddenly they’re excited or at least interested in being Rian, CJ, or Alexa?”
“Hey, come over here with me.” Susan took her girlfriend’s arm and led her to a nearby bench that overlooked the campus quadrangle. The sun shone brightly, reflecting off the white stone facade of the administration building and casting the shadows of the surrounding trees across them as they sat.
Susan looked up at Una, her brown eyes earnest beneath the lenses of her glasses, and spoke softly. “Remember a few things, love. All three of the ‘ordinary guys’—a misnomer if I ever heard one—whatever gender they end up as, they’re unique individuals. Rian’s young and figuring things out. CJ is experimenting with presenting as a hot butch lesbian. And Alexa… I don’t get it myself, but she and her mirror image are in love with each other? Gender is weirder and less straightforward than anyone thinks.”
Una sat silently, listening to her partner’s words; Susan reached out and brushed a strand of ebony hair from her forehead. The succubus’ expression softened, and Susan went on. “Plus, those three transformations were wrought by Autumn, or Maria—even if their powers were responding to yours, somehow. It’s not your fault. You can’t keep carrying guilt around like Augustine whipping himself in his cell.”
The priest-turned-demon frowned. “The Doctor of Grace certainly tormented himself over his hedonistic youth, but he didn’t self-flagellate. As for me… I suppose you can take the girl out of the Church, but you can’t take the Church entirely out of the girl, even if she is a succubus. I feel responsible for my role in it all, even if it’s not exactly Catholic guilt.”
The younger agent sighed and ran her fingers across Una’s cheek; her lover’s skin felt cool and smooth, like marble touched by moonlight. Her complexion was pale again now, with a hint of freckles—quite unlike the succubus’ involuntary mimicry of Susan the night before.
“Oh, my mistress… we’ve talked about every curse-bearer but one: you. And you haven’t said a word about that, even last night.” Her words rang true. With their respective paranormal natures, neither Susan nor Una required as much sleep as an ordinary human. They’d spent the night curled up on Bethany’s couch together, their arms wrapped around one another as the TV played an old movie on low volume. Although the succubus and the angel-infested girl kissed and caressed, took comfort and gave pleasure in each other’s touch, Una hadn’t spoken more than words of sweet, perfunctory caring.
The succubus turned away, gazing across the quadrangle, but her fingers entwined tightly with Susan’s. The smaller girl waited, watching as her lover’s lips tightened and her eyes grew distant. After a minute, Una Belmont looked at her again, and her voice sounded steady.
“I’m upset and angry. Afraid too, I guess. This wasn’t supposed to happen to me again.” She paused, and Susan squeezed her fingers. “Not just a change to my body, but the invasion of my mind.” Una clenched her hands into fists, then relaxed them. “Jay’s nanobots were supposed to help me transform, but only at my command. They’re supposed to have… safeguards! Coded to my energy signature, my sigil. Right?”
Susan could see a glint of anger in Una’s amber-yellow eyes, but also pain. She nodded slowly. “Yes. But every form of security has its weakness. Do you remember what I said about the transformations? Autumn wasn’t directing them. The forms taken by the cursed…”
“They came from the sexual fantasies of those affected,” the succubus interrupted, her voice harsh. “I know. I transformed myself, and I’m sure that made it faster, easier than with any of the mortals. It’s the same thing that happened when Kyber drugged me—when my body compressed itself into that smaller, more powerful form while I dreamed, unawares.”
Una disentangled her hand and rose to her feet. Susan rose, and the demoness began pacing back and forth in front of the bench. “But what use are my powers, Jay’s nanobots, my strength and senses and wings… if an enemy, even an amateur like Autumn, can just manipulate my mind! Brainwash me just like—like—”
“Like Spencer,” Susan said, grabbing the other woman’s shoulders and holding her in place. “I understand, Una. You’re remembering when the Curia for Supernatural Warfare imprisoned you. Tortured you. Brainwashed you, and made you transform yourself into… a puppet for him to control.”
Una stared into Susan’s eyes. The demoness’s yellow irises glowed; her pupils had contracted into narrow horizontal lines, and her breath came quick and shallow. Susan’s heart thumped; every word was accurate, painfully so. She felt she had to say it all, for Una’s sake.
“I won’t… I can’t let it happen again!” Una snarled through clenched teeth. “I’m supposed to be stronger than this!”
“No, no, Una.” Susan’s grip tightened. “It’s all right. You’re not under anyone else’s power. Bethany’s curse was a loop connecting you to yourself. It was a malicious trap, but think about what you did? You played at being a sexpot version of me. Someone you love. You got lost, but lost inside a fantasy of your own creation.”
Susan could feel the tension in Una’s arms and shoulders. “And then I… left you behind, abandoned you to deal with the witch! I went straight to the nearest dormitory and… had my way with half of the lacrosse team. Did you see what I did to those students?” The succubus’ tone became anguished.
“I checked all of them, sweet one.” The scholar moved her hands back to Una’s hips, trying to soothe her. “They were exhausted, sleeping, but healthy. And you remember what happened. You said you didn’t compel any of them with magic, or the Nectar, or coercion…”
Una shook her head. “No. But I took advantage of… their lust for me. For that sexy librarian form, the body I dreamed up. I told them to worship me, and I fed on their desire.” She closed her eyes, her lips trembling. “If it’s not Spencer trying to mold me into his plaything, or Nezz forcing me to bend my knee… it’s Yael! You can’t tell me… you can’t tell me, Susan…”
The startling, yellow eyes of the demoness opened, staring into Susan’s. “Those aren’t my desires, are they? To be worshipped, to feed on the lusts of mortals? It’s Yael, still pulling strings, still deciding things for me, isn’t it? Even though I’ve absorbed her into myself, she’s… she’s still in my head! She’s not gone, she’s…”
Susan’s hands slipped down to Una’s wrists, and she gripped them tight, holding Una in place. “Hey!” she said. “Listen to me. You’re not Yael. But where is Yael? When was the last time you saw her?”
Una stopped struggling. Susan watched the demoness blink, a frown forming as she thought. “In… in that inner realm, while trapped in dreams. When I—when Micki journeyed with Michael, and her… until…” She trailed off, staring into the air above Susan’s right shoulder.
“Inside of you, Una Belmont.” Susan’s words came out soft and clear. “She’s part of you. She’s been there ever since you merged.” Una looked at her, her expression blank. “You’re a succubus. And still a priest too, since your monsignor refuses to defrock you. But those hungers, that lust… it’s part of you. You can’t deny that without… denying an immense piece of who you are.”
The taller woman looked down at her, blinking. Her mouth opened slightly, and she licked her lips. “You’ve been trying to tell me this for months, I know. Ride the change, become who I want to be. But that part of me wants to absorb the adoration of mortal lovers, of all those who fuck and thrash and change. I want to devour them, I want…”
Susan smiled at her lover and put a finger to the demoness’s rosy lips. “I adore you, Mistress Una. I worship you. Don’t you know that? The human part, and the ancient demoness, too.”
Una’s eyes widened, and a lambent light flickered within. “You do. This, I know. So…”
“So devour me.” Without another word, Susan wrapped her arms around Una, pressing her body tightly against the other woman. Their lips came together, mouths opening, tongues entwining. With a rush of sensation, Susan felt a hand slip down her spine, cupping the full swell of her backside, and squeezing firmly.
“Susan, my pet…” whispered the succubus, and her kiss deepened. Susan felt the force of her desire and surrendered; she moaned, pressing herself even closer against Una, her heart thundering in her chest, her stomach clenching and a flush of warmth spreading between her thighs.
Heedless of anyone watching, Una lifted the shorter woman’s feet off the ground, wrapping her arms around Susan’s hips and gripping her ass with flexing fingers, pressing her mouth hard against her lover’s. She squeezed and released, each motion matching the strokes of her hungry tongue.
Susan let her legs wrap around Una’s waist, leaning back and giving in completely. She could feel the surge of desire building between the two of them, and her only regret was their current public location. The vortex of hunger from within Una touched a chord in the depths of Susan’s core, and the angelic energy flowing through the meridians of her body echoed back, surging like a vein tapped by a needle.
“Mistress…” breathed the scholar, and Una let her go. They stood facing one another, lips wet, eyes sparkling, chests rising and falling in rapid rhythm. Susan licked her lips, trying to recover her thoughts.
“We shouldn’t be doing this here,” she finally managed.
The succubus gave a sharp-toothed grin. “Let’s go home, then.”
Susan fluttered her eyelids and brushed back a strand of loose, dark hair, glancing around at passers-by. No one seemed to pay the two of them particular attention. The scholar straightened her blazer and smoothed down her jeans, but the dampness between her thighs reminded her of what had just transpired.
“You’re more than welcome to come home with me and fuck me silly, dearest. But given what we’ve been through, I asked Demetrius to send another car for us, rather than take the train back. Our ride won’t be here for at least another forty minutes, darling. Shall we… wait? Bottle up some tension?”
Una’s gaze bore into Susan’s. “Does a priest forego earthly temptation? Does a succubus know the ways of withholding and sustaining her partner’s need?”
The scholar’s laugh rang like bells. “Touché, dark mistress. Maybe… we can edge some more in the back seat of the car. If it has a partition.”
“Fine.” Una licked her lips. “We can ask them to drive slowly. But if we’re waiting, I’m going to get some coffee. Or at least black tea! All those herbal blends Bethany had at her place…” Una made a face.
“I saw a decent-looking cafe over on the main walking street, just outside campus.” Susan tapped her cheek. “But if you don’t mind, I’m going to stay here in the morning sun and get started on the preliminary version of our report for Director Lombardi.”
Her partner raised a finely arched brow. “My, aren’t you diligent? Should I bring you back a scone, dear partner?”
“Mmm, I’ll be fine.” Susan’s fingers already danced across the surface of her tablet. “I’ll come meet you there in a while. As soon as I finish the outline. Do me a favor before you go?”
“Anything.” Una leaned forward, brushing her nose against Susan’s.
“Tell me what I should think about while we’re apart, mistress.”
The other woman’s lips touched the curve of Susan’s ear, and her breath warmed the tender lobe. Una’s voice dropped into a husky murmur. “My knee, pressing hard against your softest flesh. My fingers in your mouth, forcing your head back. My sharp nails tracing the outline of your nipples. My scent filling your nostrils. My tongue, caressing your inner folds. That white-hot energy in you, spilling out, lighting me aflame in your glow.”
Susan shuddered, and Una traced her jawline with a finger. “Shall I continue, beloved?”
“It would be cruel of you, mistress, to describe to a captive listener the manner in which she is trapped, without hope of release.”
“In that case, your mistress grants you mercy.” Una chuckled—a low, throaty sound—and turned on her heel, strolling off along the grass border of the quad. Susan caught her breath, watching the subtle sway of her lover’s hips.
***
Something felt odd, and oddly familiar, about the girl in front of the cafe. That she’d been standing in one place, blocking the entryway for half a minute, was certainly part of it. But Una had noticed her from across the street: a shapeless black hoodie shrouding her figure, her youthful features poised somewhere between indecision and becoming. She looked as if she might either run away or break into a jubilant dance at any moment.
Una peered at the girl’s slender fingers, capped with long, dark nails… but frozen in a hesitant grip on the handle of the cafe’s front door. She cleared her throat, feeling awkward. “Uh… are you all right? Do you need some help with the door?”
The girl spun, blinking like a startled kitten and almost bumping into Una. Locks of unruly, auburn hair that escaping from beneath her hood partly obscured her wide, blue eyes. She made a small sound, looked Una up and down with an astonished gaze that lingered on the succubus’ exposed cleavage, and released the door handle.
Abruptly, Una realized what her sense of familiarity was: this girl had changed. She knew it with the same certainty that she’d felt when meeting Jamie, or Alexandra. And if her awkward posture, her shapeless clothes are anything to go by, it happened recently.
“Please, allow me,” Una said, and reached past the girl to open the door. Inwardly, her thoughts raced. Another victim we didn’t know about? Or is something else going on?
The girl got in line to place an order. Possibly recently or unwillingly in the form of a girl, Una corrected herself. She blinked, flickering her vision into a higher spectrum to inspect the person in front of her.
Whatever was affecting her might have little to do with Autumn’s spells of transformation, she realized. Rather than the strands of curse-magic coiling around and twining into the distance, the magenta and black tracery of the aura in front of her seemed to spring forth from inside the girl’s soul, creating a shape like a cradle… or a cage.
Is this possession? There’s something about it that reminds me of Father Boudreau… or my own aura, back then. The resemblance wasn’t purely spiritual; the way this young person moved, carrying herself like a yearling with unfamiliar proportions and trying to hide the shape of her body… She reminds me of when I was changing, and not ready to deal with it yet.
Una snapped out of her reverie as the burly man in front of the girl turned on her, looming tall with an ugly expression on his face. “For you not liking people touching you,” he growled, “You do an awful lot of it. Are you trying to steal from me?”
Some instinct or feeling of kinship propelled the demoness. With a tensing of her fingers, her nails extended a half- inch, curling and sharpening. She stepped forward to intervene.
***
Twenty minutes later, Susan spied the cafe and moved with relief and anticipation toward the door. As she drew close to the entrance, a young, slender form in a black hoodie burst out of the door, pursued by startled yells, a crash of spilled tableware and an elderly man with a powerful build. Susan nearly recoiled at the stench—No, this isn’t a physical smell, she realized. Something dark, hateful…!
Off-balance and caught by surprise, Susan stumbled backwards, clutching her duffel bag and tablet. The youth raced with nearly inhuman speed away down the street, with the old man following at a determined and surprisingly rapid stride.
“Una!” Susan yanked herself inside the cafe. Una lay in the aisle alongside a row of booths, surrounded by a wreck of smashed plates and scattered napkins, food and silverware. The succubus moaned and clutched her head, trying to sit up.
“Accursed… spawn,” Una said. “Hit me with—what the fuck was that?”
Her bag forgotten by the entrance, the scholar rushed over, dropped to her knees, and helped the succubus to a sitting position. Angry, red blotches peppered the pale expanse of her lover’s face and chest, exposed by the low cut of her leather bodysuit, and the whites of her eyes were shot through with the red of ruptured capillaries.
“I saw it all,” said a young woman in a brown apron. “That old dude tried to grab the kid she was sitting with, so she tackled him to get him off, but he… grabbed her head. Then she screamed.” She brandished a glass of water towards the pair as a coughing fit wracked Una’s frame.
“Oh my God!” The server pointed. “What did he do to her?”
As Susan stared, surrounded by the cafe’s startled patrons and workers, the blotches on Una’s skin spread and joined, darkening into the familiar shade of the succubus’ demonic complexion. Her reddened eyes cleared, the burst vessels withdrawing into a subtle tracery; two darkening nubs of bone began sprouting from either side of her forehead. Her mouth opened, revealing sharp, white teeth.
“Did something… to my head.” Una’s voice rasped. The demoness stood, struggling for stable footing and putting a hand to her forehead.
Susan plucked the glass of water from the terrified server’s hand and put her other arm around Una before putting the drink in the succubus’ hand. Grateful, Una took a sip, her features settling into an expression of dazed pain even as they reddened into her full demonic aspect.
“I’m getting you out of here, babe.” Susan flipped her badge open, then raised her voice. “Office of Supernatural Affairs. Our backup is on the way. Please stay here if you saw what happened.” She guided her partner out of the cafe, ignoring the shocked expressions of the patrons.
On the sidewalk, Susan looked up and down the street. No sign of those two who ran out of the cafe, or of our ride… shouldn’t they be here by now? She flipped her phone open: five minutes to wait.
***
“You can stop looking back here, Suze. Keep your eyes on the road, I’m fine! It’s… not any worse than a migraine.” Susan sighed and returned her focus to driving. Una lay half-undressed in the back seat of the car, with her hand clenched around a bottle of water and her eyes shrouded by a wet strip of cloth—one of her skimpy tank tops, Susan thought.
“Just relax, mistress. I’m going to get you back to headquarters for a medical check and aetheric scan.” Susan pushed the accelerator pedal of the little OSA sedan, which she’d commandeered from the two agents who’d driven to collect them. Lucky circumstances in some ways, she mused. Agents Ritter and Archaya can deal with asking and answering questions. They’re junior, but whoever attacked Una was long gone.
“Where’s my phone?” Susan tried not to glance back again, but could hear the rustling sounds as Una groped around in the back seat.
“Should be in your jacket, but if you really have a migraine, I wouldn’t recommend screen time! From what you described, it sounds like a psychic attack of some sort.”
Una thumped back against the seat. “Is my brain just a soft target or something? It’s no use being able to fly, fight, cast spells or change shape if I’m susceptible to hypnosis, magical drugs… or a psychic punch in the face.”
“You’ve had a grueling twenty-four hours.” Susan drummed her fingers on the wheel. “With very little time to recover from that curse. But maybe we should find ways of shoring up your mental defenses. First, though… are you sure those two in the cafe weren’t connected to the whole business with Autumn?”
“My gut says no,” Una replied, her voice softening. “The aura around that huge old bastard, and the girl—Danny, that’s her name—felt entirely different. Demons are involved, I’m sure of that. Danny called the man a Cambion, just before he lunged at her, and she was telling me about something called a Parturient? She was a nice kid… just confused and out of her depth. She reminded me a lot of… well, myself.”
Susan’s lips curved faintly, though Una couldn’t see it from the rear seat. “Parturient, you said? I haven’t run across that word in a while. But they’re not exactly demons, from what I recall. A kind of tutelary spirit—but much more complicated than, say, that domovoi we met.”
“Whatever her deal is, she’s changing. Her life, what she’s dealing with—it’s quite similar to Michael Belmont’s situation, all those months ago. And she has a Cambion chasing her—isn’t that a half-demon?”
“Supposedly, but there aren’t too many recorded cases.” Susan glanced in the rear-view mirror, but could only see the crimson expanse of Una’s midsection. “The offspring of a succubus, or an incubus, according to legend! So you tell me—did Yael have any kids?”
“My immediate reaction is, ugh, no way,” came the answer. “I’ve never thought of myself as cut out for parenting, though the idea has a certain appeal. And from what I’ve been able to tell, a demon never has to get pregnant if she doesn’t want to. Or… the other way around.”
“Whatever that man was, he stank of something… dark,” Susan said, as she changed lanes in preparation to take a faster highway home. “But with no sign of them, there’s not much we could do to help. Let’s take care of you first, at any rate.”
“Hell’s bells,” Una muttered. “I was right that I got a text, but it’s just another annoying message from Kyber. But I have to answer him, according to the terms of our agreement.”
The scholar frowned, adjusting the rearview mirror to see the device in Una’s hand. “Another string of arbitrary letters? You should forward that one to me, too.”
Una sat up, lifting the fabric away from her forehead and staring at the screen. With her jacket removed, she only wore a bra—a simple, utilitarian band of synthetic black that did nothing to impede her curves. Distracted, Susan nearly missed the offramp. “No, it’s some kind of riddle this time. Shall I read it to you?”
“Uh, are you kidding? Of course!”
“I dwell in the shadow of each thicket,” Una read, “Where time is both enemy and friend. Born from the ashes of lost lying lore, I dance on the edge of your world’s end. I am the echo of a question unasked, the solution to a puzzle without keys.”
They drove in silence for a moment, thinking.
“This is one of those riddles with an abstract concept for an answer,” Susan declared. “It’s got to be something like ‘eternity’ or ‘fear.’”
“How about fate? Or… mystery?” Una scowled, holding her phone in both hands and staring at the text.
Susan snorted. “If a riddle is that vague and all-encompassing, it may not have any answer other than what you bend to fit.” She saw Una typing and raised an eyebrow. “Are you sending him an answer?”
“I have to acknowledge it somehow,” Una said. “So I’m just replying this way: what is a fabricated enigma made up just to fuck with someone?”
Una’s phone buzzed in her hands, and she nearly dropped the device.
“He’s replying already? Send these texts to me, please.”
Una shook her head. “No, I haven’t even sent it yet.” She deftly lifted one long nail to tap the screen with the finger underneath. “Oh!”
“Hmm?” Susan tried to catch Una’s eye in the mirror, but the succubus remained fixated on the glowing screen.
“John finally texted me back. He… wants to get together.”
Susan looked out over the Harlem River, relieved to be back within the confines of New York City. “Isn’t that what you were waiting for? Why do you sound like someone walked over to your grave, love?”
“Well… it’s the way he said it. ‘Yes. We need to talk through things. Dinner?’ Why does he have to be so… laconic? Stoic?” Una tossed her phone on the seat beside her and crossed her arms.
“Admit it, dark mistress… you’re nervous about seeing him.” The succubus didn’t answer, only staring out the window. “And you like his reserved, tough-guy side.”
“Yes and yes,” said Una Belmont. “I just have a strange feeling about it.” She looked at Susan in the mirror, and the scholar met her eyes with a smile.
“Do you need me to list everything you’ve done over the last day again, Una? That’s been done to you? If you didn’t have a strange feeling by now, I’d be far more concerned!”
TFTC
TFTC