Wrath of the Demon Girl

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Another smile and nod were all I could muster, as he threw my backpack into a coat room. Emily was still inside and probably didn’t brace herself for what happened. I really hoped she didn’t get knocked out. If so, I was going to be alone in this with no backup if things got bad. And let’s not kid ourselves. Bad things have been happening to me every day this week. There’s no fucking way I’m leaving this place without incident.

  The central area of the warehouse was converted into a ritzy showroom. Various men in business suits stood around talking, drinking, munching on snacks provided. I saw members of the Irish and Italian mobs in attendance, as well as a few folks from the Triads, Crips, and Bloods. No Yakuza were present, guess there was a war brewing between them and the Russians, and not including them to this gathering was a blow. Young blonde girls were very popular to Japanese business men that visited America. The Yakuza were always looking to add new young ones for that branch of their operations. I knew all too well about that.

  The men in the showroom were shopping for trafficked girls to add to their own sleazy sex rings. Meanwhile the non-gangers of the group were straight-up looking for a good time with the most forbidden girls the Russians had to offer. Armed guards were at every corner and stood ready to pop anyone that got out of line.

  I moved my way through the patrons socializing and winced at a display stage ahead. The trafficked women were being sold, traded amongst those in attendance. Rolls of green were exchanged when a buyer took interest in one of the women brought up on stage. You have no idea how much I wanted to kill the guards, kill the gangers, kill the organizers of this event, free the girls, and burn the whole Goddamn place down.

  Belyana took the stage next, a reminder of why I came in the first place. Interested buyers started making their offers. A bidding war began. I placed bids as well, a bid to buy Belyana her freedom and return her back to her mother. That, and I had been in attendance for a while and hadn’t sought out any women. I needed to keep up my fake image.

  The bidding was fierce, thousands of dollars were offered. Everyone wanted the blonde Russian girl. None of them knew she was secretly a succubus, which presented yet another problem for me once I got Belyana free. Her succubus nature was something I’m sure her mother knew nothing off.

  The bidding ended at a five-figure number, one nobody wanted to pay, one I was more than willing to pay, using Jae-geun’s credit card once the auctioneer declared me the winner.

  “An excellent choice, Jae-geun,” the auctioneer said to me as I went to ‘collect.’ “How would you like to pay?” I gave him Jae-geun’s credit card. He grimaced at it, looking all surprised. I probably fucked-up my disguise. “Aw . . . okay. The invoice will state our fake company name, to protect you of course, should someone see it. Would you like to indulge in your treat . . . now or later? You can see her anytime for the month.”

  I stood there in an awkward stance as Belyana was forcibly brought over to me. I had to give a verbal answer to his question, one that will reveal my female voice. Smile and nod, it was all I could fucking do without blowing my cover.

  “Well, no need to choose now,” the auctioneer said. “But if you want to play now, we have rooms set up in the back for your privacy.” He pointed to a door leading to what used to be the warehouse’s main office and administration areas.

  I took Belyana with me, following the directions the auctioneer gave me as he returned to continue their events, and sell off another girl. Fuck me, I had to end this shit. We walked past a number of shut doors once we entered the halls. Behind the doors were offices that had been converted into bedrooms. Disturbing sounds came from them, and I’m pretty sure I heard a few sobbing noises from others.

  A vacant room came up around the corner. The two of us entered, shutting the door behind us. I went to verify the room wasn’t bugged or had any prying eyes watching. Belyana, however, went to assume her role and began to undress, showing signs of uneasiness with her jittering hands.

  I stopped her right away. “You are a very hard person to get hold of.”

  Belyana cocked her head, puzzled at my hands buttoning her top back up. Or was it the fact I didn’t have a man’s voice? “Have we met?”

  My wig and shades came off. “Remember me?”

  “Sorry, I don’t,” she paused, giving me a closer look. Her eyes lit up, her mouth opened with happiness. “You’re from the club.”

  “And from last night.”

  “I don’t remember you from last night.”

  Something seemed off. Belyana was clearly possessed and had access to water elemental talents last night. The Belyana before me was acting like a regular woman and lacked the yellow glowing eyes and greenish hair. “You don’t remember Vladimir and his thugs breaking into the suite you were at? Or the client that didn’t want to shower with you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your mother is worried about you; I’m here to get you out,” I said, looking for an escape route. “Do you know how to get out of here?”

  “Yes, but . . .” Belyana paused, and her face grew slightly pale. “If they find me in hiding, they will beat me, and they’ll be harsh with it.”

  “Stick with me, and none of that will happen.”

  I slapped my wig and shades back on, and then gave the door that separated us from the halls a cold hard stare. I could easily walk out of here, slip through a back fire exit door, double back for my bag with Emily in it, then get the fuck out of here and return the lost girl to her weeping mother. Yeah, there was still the mystery of the succubus stuff, but one thing at a time. I needed to finish this case, done, finito, mission accomplished, and a paycheck received.

  It didn’t feel right, knowing the other girls were going to be stuck here, faking orgasms with these men one moment, then crying about the life they’ve been forced into the next. But what the hell was I to do? Call the cops? The Russians had lots of armed men here, a fight would break out and some of the girls might be killed in the crossfire. It was risky, at best.

  Waiting wouldn’t help, since this wasn’t something the Russians held every day. These girls would be taken elsewhere once the night was over, making it that much harder to track them. The window to put an end to this and get these girls out of here and someplace safe was opened. I just needed to figure out a way to get them all through it. Afterward, the cops could come in a do whatever the fuck they wanted with this place.

  “Change of plans, I want to get the others out of here,” I said to Belyana. “Is there anything special I should know about this place?”

  Belyana’s lips twisted. “There’s a medical room just around the corner.”

  “Medical? Like doctors ‘n’ stuff?”

  “Yes, I assumed it was for the girls that got major beatings and need medical attention.”

  A makeshift doctor’s office inside an old warehouse? It didn’t sound like something Russian mobsters would take the time, money, and effort to build. Given the brutal nature of their gangs, they would sooner leave beaten girls on the streets to suffer. Not hire doctors and set up a ward.

  “Where is it?” Belyana’s shaking finger pointed to the general direction of this medical ward. “Okay, Belyana, stay low and wait here.”

  I left the room and went on a walkabout of the halls, pretending I lost my way. I had to backtrack a few times when I heard the footsteps of patrol guards around the corners. Eventually, I made my way into an area none of the clients were allowed to be, if the gloomy dimly lit lights above me were of any indication. There was a door with a small window located above the knob. A peek through the glass revealed the medical ward Belyana talked about, littered with grimy surgical beds, trays full of needles and operating tools, and two men in white lab coats attending to a computer.

  Their backs were turned away from the door, advantage me.

  I trotted in like it wasn’t a big deal and ignited the Umbral energy flowing through my body. I became a walking queen of ice and water as my w
ater elemental coat took shape. The two men sitting on their chairs remained sitting when I froze their legs, backs, and asses to them. They panicked and screamed at their partially frozen bodies, while I gave the ward another look now I was on the inside.

  My suspicions were right, this wasn’t an infirmary. It was a science lab.

  “Oh, my fucking legs!” one of the lab workers roared.

  I cracked my gleaming ice water knuckles as I faced the two men still frozen to their chairs. “Gentlemen, I’m going to ask you some real simple questions. Give me an answer I don’t like, and I’ll kill you. Scream for help, and I’ll kill you. Do something really stupid, and I’ll do something worse.”

  “Worse than killing us?” said the other lab worker with fear in his voice.

  “Oh, I have my ways,” I reassured them. “Now, you two aren’t doctors and this isn’t a place to get patched up if you got hurt. So, what the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Oh my God, oh my God,” said the panicking lab worker.

  “Just shut up,” his partner retorted with a more aggressive tone. “Don’t let her scare you; she won’t get out of this place alive once Asmodeus finds out.”

  My eyebrow rose. “So, you know about the underground demon world?” The aggressive lab worker dangled a necklace around his neck, not just any necklace. “Ah, so I see a demon lord has made you his bitch.”

  “Asmodeus will do the same to you once he learns you’re here.”

  “Thank you for answering my next question, you know about the recent news of him. What else can you tell me?” The aggressive lab worker got all silent. He’d got balls, I’d give him that. Let’s see how big. “Did you forget the rules already?” I said, conjuring a razor-sharp ice missile to appear over my shoulder and take aim at his face.

  “Look, don’t hurt us,” the panicking lab worker said. “We can work something out—”

  “Shut up!” his aggressive partner cut him off. These two were going to be lots of fun.

  “But, but—”

  “Fuck her,” the aggressive one continued. “Let her keep flapping those lips thinking she’s in charge. Our Umbral lord is back. He will save us.”

  I faced the panicking lab worker. “So, you’re the talking one.” And then faced his aggressive friend. “And you’re the fucking asshole.” I returned to the talking, panicking one. “I’m just about done with your pal, so maybe you could answer these million-dollar questions?”

  “Oh, please don’t do anything, I just work here.”

  I yanked the hidden demonic necklace away from the panicking lab worker, giving him a disapproving look. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Well, um . . . he did offer to make my life so much better—”

  “Shut the fuck up, you idiot!” snarled the aggressive one.

  “Asmodeus took Vladimir’s body recently,” I said to the two. “As who did you know Asmodeus before that?”

  The panicking lab worker began to breathe hard, while sweat began to rain off his forehead. “Just, let me focus. Um, well, you see.”

  His partner spat. “Not another word!”

  I had enough of his outbursts and froze his head solid then played baseball with it using the ice missile I had created. His head and the ice missile exploded and shattered into decent-sized ice chucks, hitting the floor with a crescendo of clatters. My unimpressed gaze shifted to the remaining lab worker before me as he looked at his now headless partner in a petrified manner.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, did I break your concentration?” I’ve always wanted to say that.

  “You broke his head—”

  “Into pieces? Sure did. Want me to do the same to you?”

  “No, no, no.”

  “Then you know what to do.”

  “Vladimir was a believer, like us, and sought to have Asmodeus take a member of our group as a host months ago to show his dedication.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I can’t remember, must have been a year ago.”

  A year ago. It’s been almost a year since I was shot by the police and then experimented on by Schubert. Experiments . . . it got me thinking about the equipment in the room. It got me giving them a much closer look as I continued my nice little chat with the panicking lab worker. “What happened then?” I asked.

  “Vladimir and Asmodeus began to recruit select members into Asmodeus’ faction and forced us to help Lucifer and his.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Where do you think the guns Lucifer’s faction used came from? Weapons smuggling is one of the many things the Russians are adept in.”

  The computer the two were using had a folder open with a number of files. I helped myself to the data, quickly skimming through its contents. There were reports about genetic experiments, pictures of said tests, mathematical equations, and a lot of other shit I didn’t have an education high enough to understand.

  There was however one thing I did understand about the files. Doctor Schubert’s name was credited to them all.

  “Schubert . . .” I grumbled, taking a look at the lab equipment. “He used to work here, didn’t he?”

  “Schubert helped create this lab yes. Asmodeus wanted him to bring the Rusalka ‎into this world.”

  “For what reason? Hell, what the fuck is a Rusalka‎?” Double-barreled question I know, but enquiring minds wanted to know.

  “The Rusalka‎ are water nymphs that feed off sexual energy from their partner.”

  I winced. “In other words, a succubus.”

  “Rusalka‎ are different from other succubus, especially after the modifications Schubert did to our original test subjects. They only possess the host after midnight and freely allow the host to reclaim their body during the day.”

  His story fit Belyana’s condition exactly, and it would explain why she seemed like a different person now than she was when I found her bathing. It wasn’t midnight, not yet, at least. The Rusalka that possessed her was still asleep. Once the clock ticks to that special time, the lady of the night takes control, and feeds off the souls of all the men she gets railed by while being forced to work as a sex slave.

  “You’ve gotten all silent there, buddy,” I said to him. “Keep talking.”

  “I don’t know much else.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I don’t, I swear! Last fall, Asmodeus’ host and another were killed by a fixer. His car ended up outside Schubert’s house before it broke out into flames.”

  I knew exactly what he was talking about, the two Russians Jim killed. One of them was Asmodeus. Jim had become a demon slayer and didn’t know it, looks like I’ll have to explain the truth sooner rather than later.

  “And with Schubert and Lucifer dead, and Asmodeus without a host, you worshipers were lost.”

  “We had to continue their work without their guidance and without drawing attention to the Russians that were unaware of our dedication to our demon lords.”

  Even in death, Schubert’s experiments continued. That was all about to change.

  I stood next to the computer preparing to freeze and shatter it with my talents. The data, the files, everything had to go. Rescuing Belyana was just going to force them to do tests on another girl. The cycle had to end.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, panicking.

  “Putting an end to this madness,” I said drily.

  “The cure is on that!”

  “What cure?”

  “Schubert was on the verge of coming up with a serum to reverse the effects of soul contamination and allow the host to retake their body.”

  Yeah, bullshit, buddy. Been down that road with Lucifer and Schubert during their final moments when they tried to buy themselves some time. Lucky for that lab worker I did, however, recall seeing a file on the computer about some kind of serum. Then there was the tray of needles behind me, pumped full of an opaque red-green liquid that looked like it came straight out of the brew of some old witch. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an
eye of a newt puréed and mixed into it.

  “This shit right here?” I said, holding up the needle.

  “I think so; I wasn’t part of the team that worked on it.”

  I made a duplication of the files using a nearby USB drive after I pocketed an unopened vial of the serum. I might not be able to make any sense of it, but Charles would. He’s silly, a virgin, weird . . . and a hell of a lot smarter than I would ever hope to be. If anyone could make heads or tails of this shit, it was him.

  A phone on the desk began to ring. I didn’t answer it. Instead, I shoved the call display into the face of my captured prisoner. “Anyone you know?”

  He looked down at his dead partner. “He was supposed to file a progress report.”

  “And now they want to know what’s up, awesome.” The phone’s ringing came to an end. They didn’t call back, and neither did we. “I guess we’re going to have company soon.”

  “That would be my guess too.”

  I waved my hands around the frozen half of his body. The ice that bound him to the chair turned to water vapor, freeing him as I found a broom and dust pan in the corner, handing it to him. “Clean this shit up.”

  And by shit, I meant the frozen pieces of his friend’s head, still sprinkled all over the floor. He looked down, horrified at what I was asking of him. “Oh . . . my.”

  “Just do it, motherfucker, or you join him,” I said while dragging the headless body into a storage closet, hiding myself and it in the process.

  I kept the closet’s door ajar and watched with a smirk as the lab worker quickly swept up the remains of his friend’s head, dumping it into the garbage. A minute later, two armed men entered and confronted the lone lab worker.

  “Where’s Doctor Petrenko?” one of the armed men asked.

  The lab worker scratched his head. “I, uh, I’m not sure.”

  “His report is late; you know what happens when you guys are late?”

  “I know.”

  “Asmodeus is back too, you definitely don’t want to be late now.”

  “You know . . .” the lab worker said, gesturing to the closet I hid in. “He did leave a USB pen drive in the closet.”