Tales from High Towers' Study

by Niall Teasdale

  I hear him gasp as his spell fails, and then I hear him moan. My defensive aura is running out on full power and, of course, he was looking at me. I manage to roll my head around so I can see him lying on the floor with that dumb stick forgotten beside him. He’s doing nothing but groaning and trembling. It’d be funny if I wasn’t paralysed. Now I just need to keep him like that until the drug wears off…

  ~~~

  There’s a point when I’m riding him when I know that if I keep it going for another few seconds he won’t wake up afterward. It’s really hard to stop feeding and let him come. I’ve replaced the energy I used to keep him off me ages ago, but I didn’t want to stop then. I told myself I wanted to give him a good scare, but really it just felt so good. Yeah, what I do to them feels fantastic to them, but it’s like my whole body is singing while I do it. Sex with a succubus is addictive, but believe me it takes a whole world of willpower not to end up the same way myself.

  I claw my demon back in its box and climb off him, leaving him jerking about on the carpet in the throes of orgasm. I normally like to be there for the finale, but I don’t feel like giving this guy the pleasure. I start pulling my clothes on.

  ‘You see,’ I tell him, ‘you should have done more research. Half-demons are harder to control than full ones. You should have summoned a real one. She’d have been happier to do it too, though if you can’t control me I think you’d have ended up as hers rather than the other way around.’

  Dressed, I walk over and look him in the face. He isn’t listening. He’s passed out, but he’s still breathing. My demon side thinks I should have killed him and maybe it’s right, but… My life’s pretty black, but I haven’t fallen that far yet.

  Redemption

  Chelsea, London, June 3rd, 2005

  The light from the window was bright and, despite the fact that Carter Fleming had had barely four hours sleep, he found it difficult to rest. Birthdays were the worst. Supposedly celebrations, he found them to be reminders of things which had passed. Another year gone, another tick on the biological clock, another day without her.

  Pulling the sheets aside, he slipped from the bed. He generally took the week of his birthday off and this year was no exception, though he was beginning to think it had been a bad idea. He had hardly left his flat, spending his time moping around the place on his own. The Jade Dragon was not a place you could feel sorry for yourself. There he had to be the ebullient host. There he smiled, no matter what he felt like. No, on second thoughts, everyone was entitled to some time in which to be themselves. Time to mourn the passing of friends, and years of wasted existence. Being entirely self-centred, and self-destructive, for a week was allowed, wasn’t it? Wasn’t this what he deserved? All he was good for?

  He poured himself a whiskey and raised the glass to his reflection. ‘Happy birthday, Carter, dear chap,’ he said. ‘Looking damn good for forty-nine.’ It was true, despite the bags under his eyes and the slightly sallow quality to his skin after several days of heavy drinking, he looked little more than thirty. On a good day he looked twenty-five.

  ‘It’s your birthday, old man,’ he said to himself, ‘what are you going to do with yourself?’ Thankfully, his reflection refrained from answering, so he raised his glass to his mouth and drank with it instead. ‘Well, you could stay in and get monumentally slammed again. That would be fun.’ He took another drink and grimaced. ‘Perhaps not. When a man is tired of fourteen year-old single malt, is he tired of life?’

  Once again, his reflection refused to comment.

  ~~~

  Carter woke with a start, the memory of the dream fresh in his mind. It faded rapidly as he shook himself awake, but he knew what it had been. The car on the beach at the bottom of a cliff, the explosion of the petrol tank. He always woke up as the ball of flame rose toward him. He had lost her twice. The accident had happened more than a year ago and he was still having the nightmares. Somewhere south of the river was a young woman who, he suspected, was having the same nightmares. He had wondered about calling her, going to see her, but she had not known him. If she remembered him at all it was as a client of her parents or a face at the funeral.

  He pulled himself to his feet. This was stupid. It was almost four in the afternoon on his birthday and so far he had managed to get mildly drunk and get a couple of hours of fitful sleep. He needed to celebrate somehow. He needed to celebrate surviving another year, another year clean of corruption. He had wine, he could order in food, that left company. He needed company, but who? His mind ran over a bevy of potential partners for the evening. But they all had one problem in common; he knew all of them.

  Making up his mind, he strode purposefully over to where his phone sat on a small table and dialled a number from memory. ‘Gillian? Excellent. It’s Carter Fleming. I need some company for tonight. Someone new and make it special, if possible, it’s my birthday.’

  The voice on the other end sounded faintly amused. ‘Happy birthday, Mr Fleming. I think I’ve got just the girl for you. Around eight?’

  ‘Perfect. I’ll be waiting.’

  ~~~

  For a brief few seconds, Carter Fleming experienced something he could not recall ever having happened before; he was speechless. The girl standing outside his door was possibly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life. Her skin was porcelain smooth, her brows perfectly arched and set above a pair of eyes which were deep and black. Her face was angular, exotic; high cheekbones and the hollow cheeks of a model. A cloud of soft, lush, chestnut hair surrounded her face and fell over her shoulders. Her body was only hinted at under a large, leather coat, but there was the suggestion of an ample bosom and swelling hips.

  He realised he was staring and stepped back to allow her entry. ‘I’m sorry, my dear, that was rude of me. I’m…’

  ‘Carter Fleming,’ she said, ‘I know. I’ve seen you in the newspapers. I’m Lily.’ Despite the five-inch heels she was wearing, she moved past him with near incredible grace, unbuttoning her coat as she went. He closed the door behind her and took her coat from her shoulders, turning back to hang it on the stand beside the door.

  When he turned she was facing him, her hands clasped behind her back, one foot slightly forward of the other. Her dress was of a dark purple, sheer fabric with flecks of foil woven into it and it clung to every curve of her body from her throat down to the upper part of her thighs. Her breasts were, indeed, ample and looked as though they had no trouble supporting themselves despite their size. Her waist was narrow and her hips wide. She was slim, but there was enough flesh on her bones to fill out her shape to perfection; soft, but not flabby. In fact…

  ‘Gorgeous,’ Carter said softly. ‘You are quite possibly the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, my dear.’ She smiled at him. ‘You probably get that a lot,’ he added.

  ‘Not as often as I’d like,’ she replied. ‘A lot of men just stand there with their mouths open.’

  He laughed. ‘Please, go through. It’s the second door. There’s food if you want some. Can I get you a glass of wine?’

  ‘That would be great,’ she said, walking through into the lounge. Her hips swung as she walked and he found himself unable to keep his eyes off her behind as it made a complex procession before him. He felt like a teenager on his first date. This was insane; a grown man of almost fifty dumbfounded by a girl who had to be less than half his age. He had not felt like this since university, when he had first seen…

  Shaking his head, Carter followed Lily into the room, located the wine bottle and poured two glasses. She was standing in the middle of the room, posed and showing off that incredible body, her head turning slowly as she took in the rich surroundings. She took the offered glass with a smile, and he stood there, watching her, not quite sure what to say.

  ‘This is a beautiful flat,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you,’ he replied, shaking himself again to drag himself out of his reverie. ‘Pardon me, but… I have the feeling that you’re not entirely hu
man.’

  Her smile widened and he saw the fangs. She was not a vampire though; that he would have known immediately. ‘I’m a half-succubus.’ Well, Gillian had certainly come up with a surprise, and a very pleasant one at that. ‘I’m told it’s your birthday and that I’m to treat you very well indeed. Have you ever been with a succubus before?’ Her hand reached up, stroking his cheek and sliding down the line of his jaw.

  ‘Once,’ he said, ‘several years ago. It was a bachelor party for a friend.’

  ‘Then you know what we can do,’ she said softly. She moved closer, her face and those pouting lips filling his vision. Her breasts felt hot through the thin fabric separating them as she closed in to kiss him. The wine was forgotten…

  ~~~

  Giggling joyfully, Lily climbed off Carter’s lap and fell onto the bed beside him. His breath was coming in long, ragged, heaving lungfuls and he could do little but lie there and try to remember who and where he was for several seconds.

  ‘If… if we keep… this up,’ he gasped, ‘I won’t… see fifty.’

  She giggled again. Her fingers played down his chest sending shivers through him. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘You’ve got incredible stamina and I know what I’m doing.’ Her hand strayed lower and he moaned loudly. ‘Besides, I haven’t had this much fun in ages.’

  ‘I’m sure you say that… to all your clients,’ he replied, and more or less immediately regretted it. She might be a whore, but he did not have to treat her like one. She replied, however, before he could apologise.

  ‘Not really.’ The teasing fingers had stopped moving and while her lips still held a smile, there was darkness in her black eyes. ‘Most of them want to fuck and then it’s done, and I leave. I haven’t had a guy pay any attention to me in three months.’

  He managed a weary shrug. At least his breathing had steadied. ‘If I’m making love to a woman, I feel it’s my obligation… that’s the wrong word. Part of the pleasure of lovemaking stems from mutual satisfaction. That’s my opinion anyway.’

  She chuckled softly. ‘I don’t usually get to “make love.”’

  Carter’s brow furrowed slightly and he turned his head to look at her properly. ‘While I can see the advantages of this line of work to one such as you, why continue with it if you’re not happy?’

  She looked at him, clearly considering what to say. ‘It’s your birthday, I’m supposed to be entertaining you not burdening you with my life choices.’ Her hand started its teasing motion again. He covered it with one of his own.

  ‘It’s my money,’ he said. ‘Please, burden me.’

  ‘It’s what I’m good at,’ she replied, her tone unemotional. ‘I make a lot of money, get a lot of sex.’

  ‘But not particularly good sex.’

  ‘No, but…’ A tiny wrinkle appeared in her perfect brow. ‘This is what I’m good for.’

  ‘What you deserve?’ he asked softly.

  There was a flicker of red in her eyes; anger? But she said, ‘Yes.’

  Then she was turning, moving to rise from her bed. He caught her arm and pulled her back and she looked at him with pain and fear in her eyes. ‘Have you wondered what a man like myself is doing hiring a prostitute on his birthday?’ he asked.

  The pain became confusion. ‘I… A little, yes.’

  ‘I could have any number of women who would cost me nothing aside from a glass or two of wine,’ he said, ‘but here I am with a girl I’ve never met before. I don’t even know your last name and before you arrived I was not interested in finding out what it was. I wanted a total stranger who I could bed and cast out in the morning without a thought.’ He paused and loosened his grip on her arm. ‘Because it’s what I deserved. All I was good for.’

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t believe it of you either.’

  She was silent for several seconds, sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘It’s Carpenter, Lily Carpenter.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Lily Carpenter. Now come and lie down and we’ll talk for a while before my animal nature reasserts itself. Tell me about yourself.’

  With a giggle, she settled herself down in the crook of his arm. ‘There’s not much to tell, really. I ran away from home when I was fifteen and…’

  June 4th

  Carter helped Lily on with her coat. With it resting open on her shoulders, she turned and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘I should be thanking you. I don’t believe I’ve had quite such a pleasant evening with a woman your age in… a long time.’ He opened the door for her and she stepped through.

  ‘Well, perhaps we’ll see each other again sometime,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll make a point of it.’ Turning, she started for the stairs and he started to push the door closed. A thought struck him. An idea for a mutually beneficial exchange. He would help her and, though she might never realise it, in so doing she would help him. He needed something good in his life, some act of redemption to drag himself out of the pit he was in. Something he could look at and know it had made a difference to someone besides himself. He stopped before the latch could click into place and pulled the door open again. ‘Lily?’

  Her hand was on the balustrade, but she looked back at him, smiling. ‘Yes, Carter?’

  ‘I was wondering,’ he began and stopped, unsure of himself. It was not a sensation he was used to.

  ‘Yes, Carter?’

  ‘I was wondering whether you might consider a change of profession,’ he said.

  Nightshade

  Westminster, London, June 5th, 2011

  At first John Radcliffe could see no one through the silver-iron mesh of the observation window. Then he spotted something, movement, in a corner of the room and, sure enough, there was a man curled up there, his head buried in his hands and his body trembling violently. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘what’s up with him?’

  ‘No one knows,’ Kate Middleshaw, his partner, replied. ‘That’s why he’s in a secure interview room here rather than a local lock-up. Uniforms found him wandering around Clapham Common in the early hours. There seems to be no medical problem, though they’re still running toxicology. You know how it works, if they can’t figure it out inside of ten minutes, they ship him here.’

  ‘But there’s no magic involved?’ John asked. He was what the majority of his colleagues called a “norm,” and what he referred to as a “regular copper.” That meant he did not know when a spell was being used on someone, but then again he did not rely on magic to do police work.

  ‘None that I can detect,’ Kate replied. She was a witch. While she was a detective sergeant in the Metropolitan Police, she really considered herself to be a witch before she thought of herself as a cop. Both her parents had been witches; she might not be the best cop on the force, but she knew magic, especially witchcraft.

  John sucked on a tooth and then sighed. ‘I guess we’d better go talk to him then.’

  The man did not seem to notice as the two police officers entered the room through the iron door with the silver anodised layer which stopped, or hopefully stopped, magic users from casting spells through the it. The clang of the door hitting its frame, the thud of the heavy bolts, neither gained a reaction from the muttering figure in the corner. As they got closer, John began to make out words. No, a single word. The man was muttering the same thing over and over again. ‘Belladonna… Belladonna…’

  John looked at Kate. She shrugged. ‘What’s your name?’ John asked. There was no reply aside from the continued muttering.

  ‘Why not sit in one of the chairs?’ Kate suggested. That got a reaction, but not quite the one they were expecting.

  The man’s head rose enough that he could look at Kate. His eyes widened and he jerked back against the wall. ‘Belladonna!’

  ‘What the hell?!’ Kate snapped, stepping back herself.

  ‘Belladonna! Get away! Belladonna!’

  John stepped f
orward, placing himself between Kate and the man. ‘Calm down. No one’s going to hurt you.’

  Having lost sight of Kate, the man calmed down, mumbling, ‘Belladonna,’ and hiding his face again. John turned, looking back at Kate with a raised eyebrow. She shrugged and backed to the interview room door.

  ‘I admit you’re good looking,’ John said when they were in the corridor, ‘but I don’t think that’s what he meant.’

  Kate glanced down at herself. She was not tall, but she had long legs and a good figure with what her male colleagues had told her was a “nice rack.” She had a pretty face with high cheekbones and a bit of a button nose, but in her opinion a “belladonna” should have black hair and dark eyes, rather than short, red hair and green eyes. ‘Thanks, I think. But yeah, I don’t think I fit the image.’

  John heaved a sigh. The Greycoats were there to handle supernatural cases, but so far this seemed to be a case for a good psychiatrist. ‘How about we get forensics in to go over him and then we can turn him over to Social Services?’

  ‘Works for me.’

  Hammersmith, June 7th

  The building was old, condemned, run down by years of neglect. No light penetrated the interior corridors aside from the torch beam John held focussed on the area ahead of him as though the light alone could ward off anything which might be waiting for him. He had an expanding baton and the torch with him and the feeling that if he found what he was looking for it would not be enough, but he had to keep looking. He had to find Lorna, his wife, missing now for three days.

  He had got this address by beating a man half to death. If anyone found out what he had done, his job would be so much past history, but if he could possibly give less of a damn about that he was unaware of how. He had been awake for three days and his eyes were trying to claw their way out of his head, and some small part of him knew he was going to die tonight, but he kept going.

  Ahead of him, at the end of the corridor, was a door. Half open, it beckoned him toward it and he moved forward like a man waiting for a tiger to leap out at any moment. No tiger sprang, nothing else emerged as his light played over the broken, frosted glass which formed the upper half of the door. It creaked loudly as he pushed it open all the way and he winced, but still nothing came at him.