Succubus Soccer Mom: A Reverse Harem Tale

by Jacquelyn Faye

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The infamous doorbell scene in Christmas Vacation. Everybody in the house is off preparing for the big holiday, and the doorbell goes off. It echoes loudly through the house, slowing with each reverberation as the impending sense of doom washes over each member of the family. Slowly, the door opens, and the parents are standing there just before rolling into the house like a tidal wave of annoyance. I loved that scene.

  Until it happened to me.

  I was lying in bed, still encased in my comforter cocoon, when the ding dong snapped me out of my slumber. Crawling, literally, out of bed, I headed down the stairs slowly. The bell chimed four more times as I fearfully reached for the door.

  Thankfully, it was just Karen, but the tidal wave of annoyance was no joke.

  Leaving the door open, she backed me all the way into the kitchen as I crested the wave of her litany of questions, tirades, and speculations.

  "Karen!"

  "What?"

  "Deep breaths. Coffee?"

  "Yes, please." She sighed, and sat down at the kitchen counter, resting her head on her hand as she drew little circles over the granite with the tip of her finger. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  It was my turn to sigh as I popped a pod into the maker and hit the flashing brew button. "How do you think you would have reacted, Karen?"

  She thought about it for a moment. "I would have understood and thought nothing of it."

  "Bullshit."

  "I'm serious, Kara! I've known you for over a month now. We've shopped at Target together! We're practically sisters."

  "Karen, you either would have thought I was crazy and tried to have me committed, or you would have believed me and told everybody and their mother I wasn't human."

  "Is that what you think?"

  I cocked an eyebrow at her over my shoulder.

  "Well, maybe. But I wouldn't have tried to have you committed. I would have just told everybody you were crazy."

  I sat her mug down in front of her. She got up and grabbed the milk and sugar on her own. Which was good, because I wasn't fucking getting it. I needed caffeine. She was lucky I surrendered the first cup to her. "What the fuck time is it anyway?"

  "Six."

  Sighing once again, I rubbed my forehead and debated between the butcher block of knives or the bamboo skewers in the drawer beside the fridge to kill her with. "Karen. It's fucking Sunday. Why are you in my house before noon?"

  "Because I couldn't stand it anymore. I had to have some answers."

  Growling, I waited for my coffee to sputter before gutting her. Taking a sip, I counted down backward from twenty before I turned around and swallowed.

  She was sitting there with doe-like eyes, and I could see the thirty-seven thousand questions in her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but I held up my finger to silence her. Then I guzzled my entire mug of coffee and turned around to make another. When it was brewing, then and only then, did I turn around and motion for her to continue.

  "I guess you not being human explains why you can guzzle hot coffee like it's iced tea."

  "Yep."

  "So?"

  "So what?"

  "So, what are you?"

  "How much did you see last night?"

  "The whole thing. My kids were on the Ferris wheel, too."

  "Really? I didn't see them."

  "They were toward the bottom. The firemen pulled them off with the ladder truck while you held the damn thing up."

  I nodded and took my second cup out of the machine, turned around, and let my wings come out. She stared in wide-eyed amazement. "What do you think I am?"

  "D-d-d-demon…"

  I didn't blame her for the reaction. Not too many mythological beings had wings like a bat, and I sure as shit wasn't no fucking gargoyle. Those guys were boring, but surprisingly good in bed. They just needed to loosen up. "You guessed it. Good. Now I don't have to tell you."

  "I don't get it. Kara, you're a good person. How can you be a demon?"

  "Not everything under heaven and earth is as you believe, Karen. There are decent, law-abiding demons. I wouldn't go so far as to say good, but not 'slaughter your whole family and munch on your bones' bad, either."

  She gulped. And then gulped her coffee, burned her tongue, sputtered, and made the most Karen face I'd ever seen. "Do some demons actually eat people?"

  "Some."

  "Do you…eat people?"

  I shook my head. "I'm a succubus. I just fuck 'em."

  A little tiny Christmas light went off in her head. She smiled, her eyes got wide, and she pointed a finger at me. "That explains everything!"

  "What does?" I narrowed my eyes in confusion.

  "Why you're so hot, why you have so many boyfriends and a girlfriend. Why all the guys absolutely fucking adore you when they see you. Why everybody drools over you. That explains everything!" She was actually ecstatic she had deduced that all on her own. I thought it was pretty self-explanatory when I said that I was a succubus.

  "Yep."

  "Oh, thank God." She blushed furiously. "Is it okay if I say that?"

  "What? God?"

  She nodded reverently. Which was hilarious because she was an official member of the congregation of the First Church of Target. "Yes."

  "Yes. I just said it, too. Though I tend to think of him or her more as the Creator instead of God. But what do I know? I'm just a demon."

  She visibly relaxed after that. "One last question?"

  I nodded.

  "Are we still friends?"

  I set my coffee down and hugged her. She didn't pull away, either. "Yes, Karen. We're still friends if you wanna be."

  "Oh, thank Go-goodness."

  Pulling away, I put my fingers under her chin and lifted her head. "But if you ever ring my doorbell on a Sunday before noon again, I'll kill you."

  Chapter 25

  I set another mug down on the counter in front of Grendel. At least he had the decency to wait until eight to show up at my door. I still wanted to dance in his entrails, but not as much. "So, what brings you to my neighborhood on your day off in uniform?"

  "We have a problem."

  "No. We have two problems. What's yours?"

  "Somebody called the newspaper claiming a demon caused the Ferris wheel to break last night."

  "They did."

  "Excuse me?"

  I grabbed my fifth cup of coffee and stood on the other side of the counter from him. "I noticed just as the whole fucking thing came crashing down on my head last night. Somebody melted the support. There's only one thing on God's green earth that could have done that."

  "A demon?"

  "Yep."

  "So, you're saying there's another one in town?"

  I nodded and sipped, while my heart sang that he hadn't jumped to conclusions and assumed that I had done it.

  He blew out the breath he'd been holding and stared at the mug in his hand. "Fuck."

  "Maybe not. They might not be a succubus. There are hundreds of different kinds of demons."

  It took him a moment to understand my joke. He didn't laugh. "Think the demon and the Bickering Bandit are one and the same?"

  "I know they are. I was attacked, and I thought it was a vampire at first."

  "But now you think it's a demon?"

  "I know it is. Consider it a fact."

  He sighed and sipped some more coffee, still looking at nothing and thinking. "So, how do we find them?"

  "We don't. They find us."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean a trap."

  "Will it work?"

  "It had better. I'm running out of time."

  He frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

  No more lies. "Josh, everybody who was at the Fall Festival knows I'm a demon. The newspaper printed an article that said a lot of peoples' kids almost died last night because of a demon. How long do you honestly think it will be before they come knocking on my door with pitchforks and torches?" I blew out at the absur
dity of it.

  He grinned at me.

  "What?"

  "One, you called me Josh."

  "That's what you're all excited about?"

  He shook his head. "Two, I never said they printed the article."

  "What?"

  His grin turned into shit-eating epic proportions. "I have a friend at the paper. Told them to give me a heads up if anything demon related came across their desk. No worries on that front."

  "You sneaky bastard." I grinned back at him.

  "I think that deserves a kiss, don't you?"

  "Sure. But I get to pick where that kiss goes."

  "Deal."

  Sunday morning dick kisses and a bellyful of lust were way better than Karens.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  "Are you sure this is going to work?" I whispered the words, trusting that the ear mic would pick it up. Now if Grendel could hear it over the chattering of my teeth, it would have been a fucking miracle.

  "Honestly? No. I'm not sure. But the bandit seems to have a hard-on for you. So, you get to be the bait."

  "Lucky fucking me."

  "Does he?" Daniel sounded a little unsure.

  "Does he what?" Josh's voice crackled in my ear.

  "Have a hard-on for Kara. She was only physically attacked once. Might have been random. Her house had attempted burglary. Are we sure it was the bandit? Could have been somebody completely different."

  "What about the Ferris wheel with her kids on it?"

  "There were a lot of kids on that Ferris wheel. Maybe that was just a coincidence, too?" I saw where Daniel was going with his thread of logic, and I hated to admit it, but it made sense. Maybe I was outside, walking through the frigid Bostonian cold for nothing.

  "But why would they call in to the newspaper that a demon attacked the carnival, if they weren't trying to pin it on Kara?" Grendel interjected his own logic. Which was just as sound.

  "Well, let's stick to the plan and find out," I answered the both of them.

  Daniel and I were using a date as bait. Brady had wanted to come, but he was stuck coaching a night game in Salem. Alana, too. So, the two of us were walking the mile to the closest restaurant with Grendel keeping an eye on us with binoculars.

  "You two make good bait. If I were a demon, I'd eat you."

  I chuckled. "You already did. This morning." A stifled groan escaped Daniel's lips. Reaching down, I rubbed the front of his trousers and smiled. "You're having happy thoughts now, aren't you," I whispered in his ear.

  "Yes," Grendel replied, thinking the question was for him.

  I was about to clarify when I felt something slip from the shadows behind us. "Fish on," I called softly into the mic.

  "I don't see anything," Grendel replied.

  "Switch to thermals."

  "What the fuck are you talking about? The department can't afford shit like that."

  "My tax dollars, not hard at work." I sighed and let Daniel get a half-step ahead of me.

  "Just saw a flash of red. Looks like eyes," Grendel chimed in. "Big sucker. You sure silver will work?"

  The department couldn't afford thermal imaging or silver bullets. Luckily, Grendel was all into guns n' ammo and had all the shit to make his own. He said it saved money going to the range, I think he just enjoyed it. So, I donated half my jewelry to a worthy cause and a warning that if he accidentally shot me, no more nookie.

  Silver wouldn't kill a demon like it would a werewolf, but it fucking hurt, and the wound healed slow. Shoot the demon enough, and they would be in enough pain to give you the chance to cut their head off. Which did work on demons. I gave the bullets to Grendel and took my silver dagger out of storage. It was in a sheath on my back. It was either that or my claws, and getting flesh out from under my nails was a bitch.

  "How close?"

  "Thirty yards or so," he replied.

  I relaxed a little. It still wasn't close enough to draw. If I went too early, the bandit would probably just run if it saw the gleam of silver. I would have. Saying it fucking hurt wasn't a joke. "Let me know when it gets less than ten."

  "You're assuming I have eyes on it. I just see flashes of red. Fuck! Five!"

  I pushed Daniel forward with my left hand, drew the blade with my right, and swung. On the biggest fucking hell hound I'd ever seen in my life. "Run!"

  "What?" They both shouted in my ear.

  "Run! Hell hound! Not the bandit!" Throwing the knife at the thing's head, I scooped Daniel up and ran.

  Hearing the clank as it batted the blade with its massive horned head, I yelped when I heard it pound the earth right behind us in pursuit. There was a squeal of tires and a crack of thunder as Grendel shot the thing from the car as he pulled alongside us. "Get in!"

  "What part of fucking run didn't you understand?"

  "You didn't say which way, and driving is faster."

  "Yes, but hell hounds can't fly." I jumped into the air and batted my wings. "Now get going!"

  I heard the engine roar to life as he gunned it. Giving up some altitude, I shook my ass at the demon doggy about thirty feet in the air. "Who’s an evil puppy?" I taunted it, trying to keep its focus on me instead of the lieutenant. Cars were fast. Hellhounds were faster. Maybe not on the highway, but through residential neighborhoods, definitely.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when he turned off on one of the side roads and Fido followed me.

  "What do we do?" Grendel's voice crackled a bit more with the distance between us.

  "Keep running and flying until we figure out what to do."

  "What do we do?" He reiterated.

  "I don't fucking know. Hell hounds are damn near impossible to kill."

  "Fire?"

  "That would be like trying to burn a kitty with a sunbeam. He might curl up and take a nap, and then eat us when he woke up."

  "Freeze it?"

  "In October?"

  "Ice rink?"

  Nodding appreciatively, I answered. "That might work. Won't hurt it, but that might slow him down a bit. How far?"

  "Two miles. Know where the mall is?"

  "Concord?"

  "Yep."

  "Yes."

  "Okay, I'll meet you there."

  "Great, but where's the ice rink?"

  "In the mall."

  "Fucking yuppies. Wait, the mall is still open!"

  "Not on Sunday. They close at six."

  The lieutenant skidded to a stop just as we flew over the entrance to the mall parking lot. The hell hound was literally right on my tail. "Grendel, I don't care how you do it, but get on the fucking roof of the mall. Let me know when you're there."

  "Okay, but why?"

  "We're gonna trade."

  "What?"

  "I give you Daniel, you give me your gun."

  "Do you know how to shoot?"

  "I'll figger it out. Do it. Let me know when you're there."

  One thing I had noticed about the Concord mall was how beautifully it was illuminated during the day with all of the skylights lining the place. I didn't notice the fucking ice rink, but I knew there were plenty of skylights.

  To give the lieutenant time to get on the roof, I started circling the lot, dipping low enough to keep the hell hound interested. Not that he would have lost interest, but I just wanted to make him think he had a chance. They weren't much different from dogs in the intelligence department, but once they had the scent of their intended target, they didn't stop until the remnants of that target were nestled safely in its belly.

  If I needed any further proof that the bandit was a demon, the hell hound was it. Like dogs, they bonded with their owners for life and would do anything—and I mean kill anything—they were told to by their masters. The other demon wanted me dead in a bad way and wasn't afraid to bring in a lot of help.

  On my third pass around the mall parking lot, I caught sight of Grendel climbing an access ladder on the south wall. "'Bout time."

  "What?"

  "Nothing. Let me know when you're ready.
"

  "You're sure it's going to follow you and not us?"

  "It got my scent somehow. When it followed us instead of you, I was certain. Until I'm dead, you could strap grenades to its ballsack, and it wouldn't give a shit."

  "If the ice rink doesn't work, we'll try that next. I'm here."

  I landed on the roof as soon as I saw where Grendel was hiding. Unceremoniously, I dumped Daniel next to him, grabbed the gun, and ran to the center of the roof to the closest sky light. The hell hound made it on the roof in one leap, scrabbling its paws over the ledge. Taking one look at me, it growled and stepped forward and stopped, sniffing the air around it.

  Its focus turned from me to Grendel, but that didn't make any sense…

  "Daniel!" I screamed his name and took after the already bolting hell hound, wings pushing me along the rooftop. Grendel, weaponless, stepped in front of the confused Daniel and held out his arms, bracing for the impact he probably wouldn't even have time to feel.

  I aimed the gun, sighted down the barrel, and shot it in the fucking butthole just as it was leaping to attack.

  The massive demon dog's hindquarters curled beneath it, the pain of silver ammo splitting its sphincter too much for it to ignore. It yelped and bleated as the wound sizzled. I twitched as my butthole puckered in sympathy. Landing next to it, I unloaded the entire clip in the thing's forehead. It stopped moving for a moment and then started shaking.

  "Is it dead?"

  "No. And it's going to be really fucking pissed when it wakes up."

  "How do we kill it?"

  "Cut off its head, or kill its master and send it back to Hell. Come on. We're fresh out of chainsaws, and I want miles between us before this fucker comes to."

  "Where do we go?" Daniel didn't sound half as worried as he should have. If he had ever seen a hell hound gnawing on the torso of a Bane demon, he would have. Not a pretty sight.

  "We go to an airport. You get on a plane. You go to the fucking Bahamas or some shit until this all goes away one way or another."

  "Are you serous right now, Kara? I'm not going anywhere."

  "Yes. You are. Come on." I picked him off the ground and threw him over my shoulder. Grendel, I just encircled around the waist. I pushed us up into the air and over the edge of the roof until we landed by the cop car. Pushing Daniel into the back, I shut the door as he pounded helplessly against the prisoner-proof glass.