by Lucy Auburn
“This place was built for you.” Vincent folded his hands behind his back, playing off my rejection of his helping hand. “Simply walk across the entryway and the world of darkness will be yours to discover.”
Not knowing what I walked towards, I did as he said.
Chapter Thirty-One
There was something about Vincent that felt familiar, and it wasn’t just the fact that I’d met him once before. As he led me into his courtyard and gestured for me to take a seat on a flowing marble bench facing the fountain, I was struck by the fact that he’d said he made this place for me.
“Do we know each other from somewhere?” I asked, refusing his offer to take a seat. “How did you know I’d be back here?”
Vincent looked up at me with those dark eyes of his, something coy in his expression. “Sit and I’ll tell you.”
Reluctantly, I sat. The bench gave an excellent view of the fountain, which reared and flowed with life. From here I could see Leon hovering just outside the archway, a suspicious look on his face. I gave him a tight smile and tried to ignore the fluttering nervousness in my chest that said doing this had been a mistake.
“We do know each other,” Vincent said, turning to me and cocking his head slightly. “Though not in the way you’re thinking. I know you, Selena, because there is a darkness in you that only someone like me can teach you about.”
“You’re supposed to tell me about the demon summoner in Baton Rouge,” I said, uncomfortable with his words, sidestepping what he said. “We only have another minute or so to talk. Petyr is going to come back soon.”
“How excruciatingly dull of the ambassador.” Vincent pulled something from his jacket: an amulet, sister to the one Elah gave me, though this was made of the lightest stone material I’d ever seen. “We’ll have to talk some other time about that which grows inside you. For now, take this so that you can contact me, which you will need to one day.”
I warily uncurled my fingers, then hesitated. “If I take this, will you tell me about the demon summoner?”
“Of course.”
Searching for a trick or lie in Vincent’s eyes, I saw none. Maybe that was just my own naivety speaking—a dark fae like him had to be capable of lying to his own mother. But I didn’t see the harm in taking the amulet, so I quickly palmed it, ignoring the slight buzz it made against my skin as I slipped it into one of my pockets.
“The demon summoner,” I prompted him.
“A promise made is a promise kept.” Vincent stood and turned to me with a flourish, looking for all the world like an actor taking over a stage with his storytelling skills. “Have your little friends taught you about the fae rebellion yet?”
“They mentioned that you were trapped here because of it.”
“A fae like me is only as trapped as he wants to be,” Vincent said inexplicably. “There were those of us among the fae, long ago, who felt that absconding from the earthly realm permanently was a bad deal. We rebelled against the fae leaders who wanted to keep us separate from the humans, and claimed staying in their so-called Realm of Light was the only way forward for our people. Of course, we all know they changed their opinion on that.”
“What does this have to do with the summoner?”
“I was getting to that. The fae you’re looking for was among those of us who rebelled.” Vincent motioned to the fountain behind him, and I gasped as the statues began to move, acting out his words in slow motion. “Passage to the earthly realm was blocked by enslaved warriors who served the ancient fae you know of as the Elders. There was no way through except to fight.”
One of the warriors raised her sword and was met by equal strength and valor, forced from her horse to plunge into the fountain below. Vincent didn’t even blink as the spray from the water wet his collar. They fought amongst themselves in slow motion, a bloodless retelling of a terrible war.
“Our rebellion lost the battle, even though we later won the war. The Elders reversed their position and decided to allow fae to go into the earthly realm—given that they followed certain rules.” Vincent made a dismissive motion with his hand, even though I knew the rules he spoke of mostly pertained to killing humans. “They had to make an example of those of us who led the rebellion, though. So instead of merely letting go of a little grudge, they had their beloved Lightblood architects build us this place.”
I looked around us at the darkness, the stars, the mysterious beyond. “As a punishment?”
“It was supposed to be one, yes. Though if you ask me, a little darkness never did any harm. Not to mention...” Vincent put his hands together, palm to palm, and when he brought them apart there was light flooding his fingertips. It spread across the courtyard and glowed gently. “The Lightbloods didn’t stick exactly to the blueprint the Elders drew for them. This place may be dark, but it’s also infinite, and infinitely malleable. I never saw it as a prison. Others did.”
“Like this demon summoner?” As soothing and fascinating as Vincent’s story was, I found it necessary to at least try to keep him on track.
“As I said, I’m getting to that,” he said reproachfully. “But yes, like the fae you’re looking for. There were those who expected the banishment to be a formality, and were merely biding their time here until they were inevitably freed. When decades turned into centuries and over a millennia passed, they became... antsy.” He raised his dark brows at the expression on my face, the long life he’d lived echoed in his clever features. “So there was another rebellion, of sorts. A group of dark fae prayed to even darker gods, searching for passage to the earthly realms. They got what they desired... and so much more. The gods they prayed to enslaved them, and now they’re forced to do their bidding on Earth.”
“Sounds like a raw deal.”
He spread his hands as if to say, “What can you do?” I wanted to ask him for more details, but got the sense that I was supposed to wait for him to decide to tell me in his own time. Glancing at Leon, I saw him hold up his hands with fingers spread twice, and knew he was letting me know I had twenty seconds left.
Vincent continued his story. “I don’t know what gods they prayed to, and I never cared to ask. But I do know that the one you’re looking for, who has been summoning demons in Baton Rouge, goes by the name Percy Inn these days. He’s a death eater—a scavenger with a human face. You’ll find him near graveyards or mortuary homes, picking human flesh from his teeth.”
I grimaced. At the archway, Petyr had just arrived, and was motioning for me to join him, so I stood up. “Thanks for the info. I better get going now though.”
“Wait.” At Vincent’s spoken word the exit from the archway flashed, the force field coming into view. My nerves screamed as I turned back towards the dark fae, who no longer looked so amusing or charming now. “There’s one more thing, Selena.”
I swallowed roughly, resisting the urge to back up. “What is it?”
Vincent reached out and skimmed his fingers across my cheek, his touch surprisingly gentle and warm despite the things I’d been told to fear about dark fae like him. “One day, you will discover the darkness inside you, and need someone to teach you how to harness it. When that day comes, promise me that you’ll use the amulet that I gave you to reach out to me.”
“There’s no darkness in me,” I objected, even as my body leaned towards him, even as something in my heart stirred at the words he spoke. “I won’t ever need any guidance from someone like you.”
“Then the promise costs you nothing,” he murmured, dropping his fingers from my face. This close I could see the stars that weren’t really stars reflected in his eyes. “Seal it with a kiss and passage out of here is yours.”
“Why?”
A look flashed across Vincent’s face, troubled and strange, but disappeared just as quickly as it came. “Where you’ll be going, you’ll need a little darkness to fight with, succubus.”
I didn’t know why, but I wanted to kiss him. And I knew that I had to leave now—there was no time
to try something brave or heroic like fighting him for passage out. So I leaned forward, tilted my chin up, and stared into his eyes with a dare on my face.
He chuckled. “Such familiar defiance. Hold onto it.”
Tilting his head, he kissed me, and for a moment I felt it all: every century, every vow broken, every world built and battle won. Vincent’s energy was like the big bang itself coming back together and exploding apart again. It was the constellations turning in the heavens, and as improbable as death rising from a grave.
If there was any part of him I was capable of seducing I couldn’t feel it. All I felt was an endless fall off a cliff whose edge I couldn’t see, and either my salvation or my doom was at the bottom.
For the first time since I began using my succubus powers, I was the one being seduced by a kiss.
He pulled back before I could sink myself into him, and I realized that I was leaning forward, my hands gripping his elbows, desperation no doubt written across my body. Snapping back to myself, I took a step away and stared at him, but there was nothing triumphant on his face. He didn’t look like he’d tricked me into anything. He just looked... sad.
“Go,” he said, and the force field dropped all at once, Petyr and Leon surging in all rage and anger. “Don’t forget what I told you, Selena.”
They were on me at once. Leon grabbed my shoulder, and Petyr got between me and Vincent. A goodbye rose on my tongue and died; I didn’t know what to even say to the man whose mouth I still tasted on mine.
Petyr grabbed my hand with his ringed one and vanished it all away: the darkness, the light, the living fountain, and the dark fae who tasted like every word ever written, every promise ever broken. Just like that we were standing in his office again, and he was looking at me with concern in his eyes, Leon’s hard grip digging into my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
I smiled to cover up the longing I felt to return to Vincent and join my very soul into his darkness. “I’m fine. And I know where the demon summoner is now.”
Leon gruffly said, “Let’s go get him, then.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
We gathered in Leon’s office: me, Leon, Naomi, and Naomi’s sister Iva, who seemed to share not just physical characteristics with Naomi but also a tendency to carry too many knives and casually talk about stabbing people.
“Okay, so.” Naomi gestured towards the map stretched across Leon’s desk, held down on its corners by a stapler, a paper weight, and a cup full of pens. “The red pins are the locations where we’ve had demon possessions in the past month. The blue pin is where we met the demon summoner and his shitty lackey. And the green pens are funeral homes and graveyards in the area.”
My eyes darted across the landscape of the map, and I pointed to a graveyard not far from where we’d found the van. “This could be where our guy lives.”
Leon spoke up. “I’ve been thinking, actually. Why did he have a van, and a body bag? Maybe we’re looking for a mortician.”
“It’s possible his hunting ground is different from his home base.” That was Iva’s voice, which was lighter than her sister’s. “Maybe we should look for funeral parlors that opened in the past year.”
“Good idea.” Leon pulled his laptop out from under the corner of the map and opened it up to do a search.
While he was doing that I scanned the map, looking for answers in its surface. “Do we even know why the demon summoner has been doing all this? What’s the point of these possessions?”
Naomi stared down at the map with me while her sister hung back. “I’ve been thinking of that,” she said, leaning in so close that I could feel the warmth of her cheek near mine, and had to resist turning things awkward. “What if there’s an end game to it?”
“What do you mean?”
Iva spoke up from behind us, “I’ve been thinking about that too, Sis.” She cleared her throat. “The cities with the possessions happening the most... do they all have hell gates?”
Naomi froze, tension coursing through her body, and Leon looked up from her laptop. “It’s not possible,” she said, voice cold. “Don’t even think it, Iva.”
“Sorry,” her sister muttered. “It’s just—”
“Our dark hunter ancestors closed those gates for good, giving their lives to make sure they could never be opened again,” Naomi said firmly. “Nothing is coming to Earth from the Underworld. It’s been hundreds of years, Iva. Don’t even speculate.”
I didn’t understand the tension between the two of them, but it didn’t feel like my place to step in and try to smooth things over. Thankfully Leon spoke up before their strange conversation could get any more heated. “I think I found a funeral parlor that works. And it’s not far from where we found the van.”
“Let’s go there, then,” I said, not wanting to waste any more time on speculation. “I want to get this over with already.”
Naomi gave me a strange look, but nodded. “Iva, stay here, and take care of any possessions you find still wandering around.”
Her sister cut her eyes at Naomi at this, but seemingly couldn’t say no. “If you die, do I get your knives?”
“I won’t die, you insolent brat.”
“I said if,” Iva grumbled. “One of these days you’re going to have to let me hunt with you.”
“Not on your life.”
Naomi pushed past Iva and out the door. I followed, Leon hanging back to strap on his gun, jacket, and badge; he’d barely been to the precinct while we were working on this case, but he kept up his daytime cover as a cop regardless.
“What was that about?” I asked Naomi, once her sister stalked past us towards the front door of the building. “The whole Underworld thing. I’ve never heard anything like that before.”
“And you never will.” Looking unhappy, Naomi ran a hand through her dark hair and leaned against the wall behind her. “Years and years ago, dark hunters like me and Iva fought a surge of evil that came when the gods of the Underworld threw open their gates and let unspeakable things walk the Earth. It wasn’t until a blood sacrifice was made that the gates closed again. Thousands of people died before that happened, swallowed by famine and war caused by creatures from hell itself walking among them. Thirteen dark hunters had to slit their wrists to stop the world from being consumed, and even then there were... things that were freed that are still being hunted to this day.”
I shuddered at the haunted look in her eyes and the dark story she told. “But why fight your sister over that?”
Naomi’s mouth turned down in a bitter frown. “Iva wants to be a hero. She sees a future for herself where she does more than just fight wildlings and lesser demons—she always has. If there’s a chance one of the gates to the Underworld could open up, I’m afraid she might welcome it just so she could get her name written in the history books for being the hero who stops it all.”
Now I understood. “You’re afraid she’ll get hurt.”
“Or wind up dead,” Naomi added. “If I have to hold her back for a few years until she’s got a bit more maturity on her belt, I will. It’s the only way to keep this hero complex of hers from getting her in serious trouble.”
I didn’t have a sibling to worry over, so I couldn’t completely understand what Naomi was going through. But I saw the way she looked at her little sister; it reminded me of how I felt about Talia. “If what you said is true, there’s no way anything like that is happening. We’ll take down this demon summoner and it’ll all be over.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Just then Leon left his office, his black leather jacket shrugged over the shoulder holster he kept his gun in, the detective badge slung around his neck on a lanyard. “Let’s go take this motherfucker down.”
His foul-mouthed excitement was infectious; I felt it mirrored in my own body, the eagerness to stop the evil rampaging through Baton Rouge once and for all. If we were right about the summoner here being the lead of the other nodes in cities where this was happening, taking him in
and questioning him could lead to the entire organization coming down.
All because of my powers.
If this was going to be the life of a succubus, I could get used to it.
The funeral parlor we were looking for was off a rural road, in a beaten down part of Baton Rouge that shrugged shoulders with the more affluent parts of the city. There were potholes along our journey that Leon deftly drove around, the branches of old oak trees leaning towards us, their roots pushing up through the ground to destroy what little sidewalks there were in this area. It felt like driving straight towards the underbelly of the city, where the old and the new met and clashed.
We were just heading around a curve, the funeral parlor visible in the distance, when Leon abruptly slowed. I glanced up to see a man stumbling in the road, something off about his body language. “Is that guy drunk?”
“No.” To my surprise, Leon pulled his gun and set it on his dashboard. “Something’s up. Naomi?”
“On it.”
She pulled her door open and jumped from the moving car, a knife appearing in each of her hands like quicksilver. Alarmed, I watched her head towards the stranger with her weapons in front of her, our car rolling forward at a slower speed. “Leon. She won’t kill him, will she?”
“That’s not a person. Look closer, Selena.”
He was moving strange, I gave Leon that, but I didn’t understand what Leon meant at first. Then he stumbled out of the shadows of the oak trees and into the light, and I gasped at what I saw.
There was nothing human about his slack-jawed face or the way his knees faced each other. As he shuffled towards Naomi he seemed to gain momentum, his ashen skin stretching as his jaw hinged open. An entire piece of flesh was missing from one of his hands, the hand he closed into a fist and swung wildly towards her. I shuddered when I saw a clump of dirt fall from his clothing and realized where he’d come from.
“Please don’t tell me zombies are real.”
