Ever Strange

by Alisa Woods

  Ever forced her legs to unlock and march forward. Stay sharp. Head in the game. Play it smart. The usual mantra she played in her head before board meetings, merger negotiations, and jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. But whatever the incubus had done to her had scrambled her brain. She physically shook her head, attempting to clear it.

  The incubus waited until she was near then clamped a hand on her arm. They quickly crossed the street and turned into another alley. His grip was tight but not painful—like the contact was just a reminder. Her legs were on automatic, keeping pace with him as they hustled down one alley, then another. Past the run-down pawn shops and boarded-up windows of businesses long past. This was a simple district, the lack of magick showing in the tattered curtains and spilled trashcans. She’d followed the drug lord from his fancy mansion, convinced for some insane reason she could just spy on him and gather evidence. She should have told someone. Her sisters. Her assistant. Her bodyguard. Someone. But no, she was a Level One mage! What were a few simples, even gang leaders, against her magick?

  There’s managed risk, and then there’s being a fucking fool—

  “Here.” He released her arm and stepped up to a bright red door in a storefront. It was set back from the sidewalk and on either side were glass boxes… with nearly naked people. Dancing.

  Ever blinked. The female on the left was barely dressed—seriously, her thong was so transparently silver against her pale flesh, Ever thought she was fully naked at first. Except for the bells adhered to her nipples. On the right was a male with bronzed skin and almost nothing else—just the barest “sock” covering his apparently generous member. They both gyrated to some unheard music, oblivious. The incubus tugged on her arm, drawing her through the now open door.

  Inside, he exchanged brief words with a man standing behind an ornate gold-colored bar then hurried her up a broad center staircase with worn carpet.

  This is a brothel. The incubus had brought her to a brothel. Was he going to “keep” her here? Was he… her mouth ran dry. Would he rape her? Or have others do it? Or just induce that sickening nightmare? How long would it take him to kill her? Would anyone notice?

  One thing was certain: there was no good way to be trapped in a brothel with an incubus.

  As they strode down the hall, Ever wracked her brain. Sex work was completely legal—for adepts and simples alike—but she’d only visited a brothel once. Downtown. A respectable one—a magickal one—where you made an appointment with a registered sex worker and engaged in some magickal recharge for a fee. The sex was of course professional-grade, but it was the recharge that everyone from CEOs to students with extra cash indulged in—in case you needed a magick boost before that big exam or presentation and were between partners. For her, she’d even had a special room with all-natural lighting—skylights and candles, no electricity for her magick to short out. She’d been nervous but not because of the sex. It was her field magick which could kill. But this place wasn’t for adepts—there were no signs listing Talents, and any decent sex worker “harmonized” their magick with their clients. Non-magickal brothels were places where clients did things less above-board. More dangerous. Where people fell through the cracks of society and disappeared.

  The perfect place to “keep” her while he raped her to death. Fuck. She should have asked the guy at the entrance for help.

  The incubus dropped his hold on her to knock twice on one of the gold-trimmed doors that lined the tacky hallway. Could she make a run for it? Maybe she could quickly fire off a blast of energy that would catch him off guard—only she might short out all the electrical wiring and set the brothel on fire. She grimaced. The place was probably not up to code… and the people here didn’t deserve to die in a hotel fire…

  Wait—why was he knocking?

  The door jerked open.

  A woman stood—breathless, young, and beautiful—beaming at him. “Riley! Baby!” Then she caught sight of Ever, and an exaggerated frown drew down her smile. “Aw, you know I don’t like to share.” Her brightly colored silk robe hung open—she was naked underneath.

  Did this woman actually do sex work with an incubus? Ever blinked and shrank back. The incubus—Riley—had stepped in to drop a light kiss on the woman’s cheek. Then he gestured for Ever to come into the room with them. She hesitated, but what was the point? He could incapacitate her in an instant. Ever shuffled past the two.

  “Just passing through today,” Riley said to the girl, his voice rough.

  She glared at Ever and shut the door behind her. “Oh, come on!” she complained to Riley. Her pout was real now. “No fair I have to waste my turn.”

  Her turn? What the hell did he do with these women? Rotate them through the feeding process? He must not fully drain them… Ever edged away from them both. Maybe this was like a vampire den, where groupies hung out, waiting their turn to feed the monster. Only that was a mutually beneficial thing—weird and totally not her thing, but still mutual—and this was just… not.

  The room was small—just an oversized bed and a closet and another door on the opposite side. Bathroom? Another bedroom? Maybe Ever could run once he started in with the girl if it distracted him enough.

  Riley had taken the sex worker’s hand into both of his. His hands were no longer twitchy, and he was peering deep into her eyes. “Today won’t count.” His back was to Ever, but she could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Better not.” The woman yanked back her hand and folded her arms across her chest. Then she peered around him to scowl at Ever. “What’s with the girl?” She frowned at Riley. “Wait… is she wicken?”

  Wicken. A slur on the ancient craeft—and what simples called adepts, mostly behind their backs.

  “She doesn’t matter.” He tried to kiss her on the cheek again, but she batted him away.

  “Don’t jerk me, Riley.” The dismay was strong on her face.

  “I’ll explain later,” he tried.

  But she looked skeptical about that, too.

  Ever didn’t understand their argument, but there was some affection between them. Which was blowing her mind. Could she hold the girl hostage? Use the sex worker to fight her way out? But that plan dissolved like mist. The incubus would just take hold of her mind again—and, besides, Ever had spent her life helping girls like this one, charmers or simples locked out of the magick economy, living on the edges, scraping by on whatever they could just to exist. Adepts with a Talent for sex work were celebrities—at the top of the food chain in many ways. But a simple who had to resort to sex work? They were at the bottom.

  And Ever’s father raised her to never punch down.

  She wouldn’t endanger the girl just to get herself free.

  “Just hold the room for an hour,” the incubus was saying. “Please, Mary.”

  The girl gave an elaborate sigh. “Like I can say no to you.” But she kept up the glare as she shooed him away. “You owe me.”

  “I do.” The incubus didn’t try to kiss her again, just waved Ever toward the second door. Instead of a bathroom, it opened to a narrow stairwell heading down. The steps were bare wood—thin, by the loud echoing sounds of their steps. Riley made her go first, and once the girl closed the door behind them, it was almost completely dark. Then tiny dancing lights came on, just points floating in the air. A spell. Ever flicked a look back to the incubus—he must have cast it. So he had some field magick as well.

  They reached the bottom of the murky stairwell. He gestured her forward into the narrow, almost tunnel-like hallway. It appeared to have been built between the walls. A secret passage.

  Ever deliberately kept the pace slow, buying herself time to sort this out. Thank magick her head was finally clearing from the incubus’s mental assault. And clearly, he had field magick as well as mental magick. Who knew how extensive his Talents were. But didn’t incubi only feed on adepts? They drained magick, and simples didn’t have any. So why was he friends with a simple sex worker? More than friends—maybe a
client? But that made zero sense. Why pay for non-magickal sex when you were an incubus who literally lived off magickal sex?

  Focus, Ever! She didn’t need to solve the mystery of Riley to escape. She just needed a distraction. Something to occupy him long enough that she could conjure while he wasn’t looking. Hit him with something—literally anything that wasn’t endangering others—and then run like hell until she was out of his range. What was the range of an incubus?

  Dammit. She really needed her phone and a few crucial minutes to consult Witchipedia. But that was the first thing the thugs had taken from her, once they caught her lurking outside the Polish bakery. Which was such a brilliant plan. She wasn’t some kind of international spy-witch—what was she thinking with that?

  As she marched on ahead, Riley said, “Hey. I need a ride.”

  Ever startled and looked back, but he was on his phone.

  His eyes locked with hers. “And I’m bringing a friend.”

  Ever snapped her gaze forward again. He was coordinating a pickup. Another incubus? The adrenaline surged, feeling like ice in her stomach. She might be able to distract one incubus, but not two. Her options were narrowing quickly. She needed to make a move soon. But what?

  Through the murky dark and twinkling light magick, she could see the end of the narrow passageway ahead—and another door. But when they got close, he moved ahead, opening it for her and carefully holding it while she walked into the blinding sunlight. Not that bashing him with a door would have done much. But now that she was outside…

  The door led them into another back alley. It stank of old garbage and feral animals. The incubus clamped his hand on her arm again and guided her next to a particularly pungent dumpster.

  “We stay here,” he said curtly, releasing her. But he stood close, hovering and scanning down the alley to the open street like it might have snipers waiting for them.

  He was way too close for her to get away with conjuring… but she could be ready the moment his “ride” arrived. “How long until we meet your friend?” she asked, mostly to break his intense concentration.

  “Not long.” He only briefly looked at her then kept up his vigilance.

  “And where are we going after that?” The more she talked, the more her confidence came back. It must have shown in her voice because he snapped his gaze to her.

  “You’ll see.” He looked away. He wanted her to shut up.

  So, naturally, she felt compelled to speak. “Why?”

  The intensity of his glare was practically a physical magick, heating up her face when he swung it back to her. “Why what?”

  “Why won’t you tell me?” It was riling him, and that instinctively felt like the right move. Set him off balance, get his emotions in play, amp up whatever tension was holding his shoulders back and tight. Then he’d be frazzled when his friend arrived. Agitated. And then he’d make a mistake. Something she could capitalize on.

  But instead of barking something at her, he stepped back, out of that intense space where he was practically hovering over her. His fists curled at his side, and he looked pointedly away from her.

  No more talking, then.

  She scanned the alley. It hadn’t been that long since she’d done combat, but that had been stylized and competitive—it wasn’t like she’d served in the armed forces. She’d been Captain of the Light Magick team four years ago in college… not exactly life-or-death. But her Level One certifications were all current—and in all her Talents, even the rare ones. Her “hobbies” were closer to preparing her for the adrenaline rush she felt gushing through her system right now. She breathed through it and assessed the alley for raw materials. There wasn’t much water to draw on, but she could pull some from the air, if needed. The buried electrical lines could be tapped—it was safer now that they were outside and the alley was lined with brick. The dumpster was metallic, so magnetics was an option. Vibrational energy was everywhere, and there was always the air itself. Of course, she could pull pure energy straight from the wild background magick, but that could cause a lot of damage, something she was normally careful about, but in this case—

  A car turned down the alley. It was black and boxy—could be any cab out of O’Hare except it was missing the sign. And it was a hybrid, which meant both a substantial battery and a tank full of gasoline to work with.

  Ever’s fingers twitched—she could feel the surge of magick following the adrenaline—but she kept it under control. The worst would be panicking, losing that grip on her Talent, and inviting a surge of chaos magick. Then it really would be life-or-death… and probably the worse of those two. For someone.

  The car rolled to a stop just ten feet away.

  The passenger side swung open, and a man stepped halfway out. “Got here as fast as I could,” he said to the incubus, but he was furiously checking her out.

  “I’ll explain on the way.” The incubus strode toward the car, putting his back to her. The other man shook his head at the ground as he draped his arm over the half-open car door.

  Ever dropped into a fighting stance and let her fingers loose. They twitched and inscribed the air between her and the car with power. Then she shoved both hands forward, and that wild magick multiplied the air pressure a hundred-fold instantly—the car door slammed into the man. He grunted, and the impact threw him to the ground. Before he hit, Ever was already surging the car’s gas through the lines, lurching the vehicle forward, straight into the incubus—he leaped away, but the car’s hood clipped him anyway. He went sailing over it, falling behind the car, where Ever couldn’t see. The car smashed into the wall, grinding along it, and she had to cut the power to keep it from plowing into her. She couldn’t see the incubus, but she still had her mind intact, so she must have at least stunned him.

  The other man was suddenly flinging balls of pure magick at her. She dodged the first two, which splashed against the dumpster behind her, leaving scorch marks where they dissipated. Then she hastily conjured a field-stick—her signature move in lacrosse—and spun-captured the third ball, lobbing it back. He rolled away just before it cracked against the pavement. Before he could conjure another volley, she sprinted close enough for hand-to-hand combat. He tried to scramble away, but with a fast twitch of her fingers, she sucked heat from the alley floor—the sudden ice sent him sprawling. He cursed then rolled on his back to fire more energy. That seemed his only Talent—pure magick—and she could best him with that, but she needed to get out, not hang around to thoroughly defeat her opponent. This was no college scrimmage where one of them would tap out—she might have to kill him. And she didn’t want that. She leaped and used the extra kinetics to slam down a powerful blast of air that sent him skidding over the ice and tumbling along the alley floor. Then she spun to run in the opposite direction—

  And literally smashed into the incubus.

  He caught her on the rebound, both hands locked onto her upper arms, but it was just to keep her from falling on her ass. A split second later, he released her and stood stock still, staring at her with eyes made of dark fire. And hunger.

  She froze, her legs no longer obeying her commands.

  “Stop,” he whispered. It was soft—a plea, not a command. Not even a threat.

  But it chilled her to the core.

  “What the fuck!” the man behind her spat. The crunch of his boots stalked up behind her. “I could have used some fucking help, you know.”

  The incubus’s gaze never wavered from hers. He wasn’t holding her by magick—just by sheer terror, as if she were to move a millimeter, he would be forced to consume her whole. His lips parted and Ever was mesmerized by the tremble in them—by the bizarre juxtaposition of that quivering flesh and the wild power in his eyes.

  “Cuffs,” he breathed. His chest was visibly heaving.

  “Fucking right, we’re using the cuffs.”

  Behind her, the other man reached for her wrists, one at a time, and pulled them back. She didn’t resist. If she did, she knew the
incubus would lose whatever tenuous control he had, and he would end her. Part of her was terrified—the sensible part, the part that knew she was prey—but part kept being drawn to his lips, now being wetted by his tongue and pressed together into a line. He was locking something away—something deep and dark and monstrous. And the man was doing that, who was capable of doing that, suddenly lit something deep inside her. Something fiery hot. Control. She knew how hard it was to command, how vital it was to do so, and how terrible a price could be paid when you lost it.

  And he didn’t.

  She was alive due solely to that.

  Even as the cuffs cinched tight around her wrists, extinguishing all connection she had to the fields of wild magick all around them and eliminating any possibility of escape, she had to respect that she was still breathing at all.

  Wait… cuffs? She frowned and twisted to look over her shoulder. “Who are you?” The man who cuffed her wasn’t as tall as the incubus nor as intense. Just a normal guy, muscular under the simple clothes that belied that he was an adept. His light brown hair was tousled and his jeans scuffed with dirt from their fight.

  “Are you kidding me?” he said. That was for Riley. To her, he said, “The question is: who are you?” His indigo blue eyes had more concern than anger.

  She blinked. He didn’t seem like he was about to kill her. Just highly annoyed—and not even at her.

  “Ever Strange,” the incubus said, still a whisper, but now wholly in control. She could hear it in his voice.

  “What? Why are we—” But the man cut off when Riley waved them both toward the car. “Fine. This way, Ms. Strange.” He nudged her toward the car, hurrying ahead to open the door to the back seat. “And I’d like to go on record right now that you did attack me first.”

  Ever just stared. He gently guided her into the back seat, protecting her head with her hands cuffed behind her back. Magick-canceling cuffs. The kind the police used. Did gangsters use them too? She guessed they could. Holy magick, she was out of her depth so utterly and completely here.