Protecting Emma

by ML Michaels

  “Alive? How the hell are we supposed to do that?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Beck answered, flipping the radio on and driving through the dark night in silence, with Washington as their destination.

  ***

  As the sun slowly began to descend over the quaint little town of New Castle, lights in the large house at the end of the private subdivision were just beginning to click on.

  The second eldest Braylin sister, Whitney, was finally waking up. Fresh from the shower, her still damp hair was wrapped in a pink towel as she sat at the table. One hand was busy shoveling the leftover breakfast her little sister had saved for her into her mouth, the other typed furiously away on the brand new typewriter she’d pilfered from her latest victim.

  She could have grabbed his laptop or one of the several tables he had on hand last night, as he lay spent under the dimming lights of the parking lot. She easily could have taken him for everything he had, but she only walked away with two things.

  The first, of course, was the typewriter that she was using. The second thing that Whitney had stolen from Reginald, and what had been the whole reason she’d even started working at that god-awful coffee shop, was his talent.

  And boy, she thought with a smile as she finished her third book since last night, did he have a lot of it. He spent all of his time writing women’s self-help books, which Whitney thought was idiotic. He was a much better writer when it came to historical romance fiction.

  After bundling her latest masterpiece together, Whitney got up to stretch her legs and check on her little sister. She knocked on Danielle’s door and then entered without waiting to be invited.

  “Hey D.” She flopped on her sister’s bed, garnering the attention of Danielle, who’d been invested in her laptop. “Thanks for the breakfast. Whatcha up to nerd?”

  “Oh? I’m the nerd, but you’re the one that kept me up half the night click-clacking away at that ancient contraption that you probably stole.”

  “Hey, don’t knock the hustle. You know if I don’t use it, I lose it. Besides, these next books are gonna get us a few grand at least. Julia chose someone with some real talent this time.”

  Danielle shook her head. “You know what? You have a lot more talent than just sex and taking other people’s gifts.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Whitney said. Dani didn’t think she actually did, though. Her sister didn’t see herself like she saw her. Strong, beautiful, and able to do anything she put her mind to. Sometimes, looking in Whitney’s eyes, Danielle could see the same insecurities that she felt reflected in her own expression in the mirror.

  Maybe this life, which was nothing more than bouncing from one bed to the next like some sexual parasite, was the greatest thing any of them would ever be destined for?

  “You never answered the question,” Whitney said, catching her sister off-guard for a moment.

  “Oh, I’m just finishing up this Statistics class for my online degree.”

  “I’m glad to see your little problems have gone away.”

  “Yep.” Danielle smiled. “Nothing a night of sleep couldn’t fix. When Julia gets here, you should help me convince her that I don’t even need to go hunting anymore.”

  “Yeah, that’s not gonna work,” Julia said from the hallway. The sounds of her heels clicking as she approached Danielle’s room grew louder until finally she was standing in the doorway a smile on her face. “You’re not getting out of it sis—besides, it’ll be fun.

  “Just let me change out of my work clothes,” Julia said, gesturing to her two-piece suit, and then to her little sister. “You change out of your pajamas and be ready to go at 8.”

  ***

  “Does it ever amaze you how much time on the job is actually spent in bars? Like do supernatural types just do nothing but drink all day?”

  “First of all, this is a club, not a bar. Secondly,” Beck answered, looking back as she strutted down the vibrantly lit nightclub strip, “if you were a group of succubi looking for your next meal, where would you go?”

  “The supermarket?” Zack asked, only half-listening to his Agent. The rest of his attention was turned towards the tie around his neck, his hands absent-mindedly fiddling with it as he walked.

  “Shut up. They go to bars, clubs, places where mortals go to find love. It’s easy pickin's.”

  “Okay, I get that,” Zack said, yawning and almost tripping over a crack in the sidewalk. His reflexes kicked in and he recentered himself easily. “But why did we go so far out of the way?”

  Beck stopped on the sidewalk in front of a packed nightclub, opposite the waiting line of patrons behind the red velour rope. “New Castle is a tiny town with a population of three thousand. If they fed where they lived, they’d have been on our radar already. They must circulate their hunting grounds.”

  “And you figured all this out while I slept in the car?”

  Beck laughed. “I had that all figured out before we left out the Order Up. Now, wait here a second, I’m going to get the big guy over here to let us in.” Beck walked up to the six-foot-something bulking bouncer, skipping ahead of the entire line.

  “Can I help you two?” He looked down at them, wondering just what the hell the two of them were to each other. He was willing to bet that they were some type of interracial, cross-generational people—after working at The Blackout for a few months, none of the weird couples he saw surprised him anymore.

  The woman was caramel skinned and dressed in a black, form-fitting dress that showed off her ample curves. She looked to be about thirty-five or forty, and the bouncer had to admit, if only to himself, that she was attractive, especially for her age. But the problem still remained—she was just too old. Perhaps, he thought, he could have let her slide if she’d come with someone that looked a bit more impressive, but the lanky kid next to her looked more like he was going to a chess meet than a nightclub.

  So, when Beck batted her long eyelashes and tried to charm her way through the door, the bouncer already had his answer at the ready. “Sorry. End of the line.”

  Beck, a little offended that her charms didn’t work, flicked the bouncer off before moving back to her Junior Agent, slyly passing him a flask from her clutch. “You’re up, dreamy. That should help you focus enough to convince the big dope to let us through.”

  She looked at him, a serious expression on her face. “Drink all of it, Zack. This is an A-list mission, you’re going to need your strength.”

  Zack realized for the first time that Beck was actually worried about him. And it was oddly endearing and unbelievably weird at the same time. When he put the flask to his mouth, expecting the flavor of a magic infused drink, and tasting the warm metallic flavor of blood, he really understood just how worried he was.

  She hadn’t needed to tell him to drink it all, he wouldn’t have been able to stop imbibing the scarlet delicacy even if he wanted to. In seconds, the whole flask was empty, and he was, for the first time in weeks, left feeling not quite satisfied but less consumed with the thirst.

  He wiped the blood from his mouth and stepped to the bouncer, gazing directly in his dull brown eyes. Without a word, he pushed through the trivial thoughts of the bouncer, until everything dissolved except one simple command, repeating through his head over and over like a mantra. Obey.

  With an uncharacteristic ease, possibly from the blood, possibly because the bouncer wasn’t that smart to begin with, Zack controlled the man, bending him to his bidding without breaking a seat.

  “Right this way sir, sorry for the wait,” the bouncer apologized, unclipping the rope, letting them in and stamping both of their hands with V.I.P. symbols, much to the anger of all the still waiting co-eds.

  “Not too bad, not too bad at all, Junior. Now, we split up and try to find the succubi.”

  “And how am I supposed to do that?” Zack asked, yelling over the pounding bass of the music.

  “The easiest way is a kiss. When you kiss a succubus, you can act
ually feel your soul being sucked out. It’s painful and will probably earn us a slap or two, but it’s foolproof, which means not even you can mess it up.”

  Beck walked away, disappearing into the throng of gyrating bodies and leaving Zack to scan the club, his eyes falling upon all the blood-filled beauties. He could hear each of their unique heartbeats pounding together, beckoning for him. He shook the thoughts of hunger away and walked into the crowd more focused than he’d been in a long time.

  ***

  Danielle and Julia pulled up to the club, their Uber driver vehemently insisting that he couldn’t take the beautiful girl’s money. They stepped out of a black Range Rover, Julia’s heels landing on the sidewalk at the same time as her sister’s laced black Converse. They had just exited the car and were already catching the eyes of dozens of people who were waiting in line.

  Julia was wearing a strapless green dress, a long slip revealing her smooth tan legs and her hair, beautifully feathered, was laid to one side. Her sister Danielle looked even more beautiful, if it was possible. Her hair was down, falling about her perfect face. She needed no makeup, no lipstick or foundation.

  Her vibrant blue sundress was shorter than her sister’s but much less revealing. Thigh-high black stockings covered most of her bare legs, and her black converse accented the casualness of her outfit.

  The two of them, who could always get past club security easily, walked straight into the club, the dazed bouncer barely even registering their presence. From the second they walked in, Danielle could feel their desires oozing from their bodies.

  The room was filled with mortals, their thready heartbeats all weaving together, pumping life to the time of whatever booming instrumental they were gyrating to at the moment. In their minds, each of them were here for a different reason — some to get over exes, others ready to find themselves under a new conquest.

  Their bodies however all hungered for the same thing at a more simple, baser level. They wanted what every organism longed for. Interaction. Affection. To be loved and to feel wanted.

  “Do you feel that?” Julia asked, already moving her body along to the song in the club. “All their wants and desires filling them up so much that it just spills out of them. The fetishes, dirty secrets and fantasies. They lust after so much that they can’t even contain it all.”

  Julia accented her speech as she took her little sister to the bar, pointing out all of the lecherous acts going on as they passed. The two of them sat at the bar and Julia order vodka spritzers for the both of them.

  “I think that you’ve been running away from who you are because you don’t understand the need for our kind. Look around you. The mortal race is full of gluttony and privilege—enough will never be enough. Their desire is forever, and we, by giving them a night that not even they could have imagined, we quench that thirst, one soul at a time.”

  “Not to mention taking out large portions of their essence.” Danielle sipped the drink in front of her, coughing slightly, not used to the burn of the alcohol.

  “By now you should know that in this world everything comes with a cost.” Julia downed her drink and got up, placing her purse with her little sister as if she knew that she would be sitting at the bar all night.

  “And on that note,” she said to her sister before leaving. “I’m off to find us a meal for tonight.”

  Danielle thought about her sister’s philosophy as she scanned the dance floor of the spacious lab. A few feet from her, a group of guys huddled frantically around a buxom blond with a denim mini-skirt and a low-cut white shirt that left nothing to the imagination. She could almost hear their lecherous thoughts as they took turns grinding against her to the bouncing rhythm of the pop hit that the DJ was remixing.

  When she found herself actually agreeing with her sister’s way of thinking, she turned her eye away and took a healthy gulp of the drink. It didn’t burn as badly as last time, but she still felt the sting of the drink. She was also beginning to feel the effects, she realized with a smile, as she couldn’t help but sway to the catchy song.

  A tap on her shoulder, probably signaling the return of her sister shook her from enjoying the song as she turned around to see what she wanted. It only took her a second to see that the person behind her wasn’t Julia at all.

  The man, tall, bearded and dressed handsomely in a blazer smiled at her. “Excuse me, but is this seat taken?”

  ***

  Beck twirled her hips in time with the music and the attractive couple that she was dancing with. The girl was a California dime, long flowing blonde hair that seemed to hang around her pert breasts like Eve in the Garden of Eden.

  She looked at the guy in glasses that she was dancing with, deciding that she was so far out of his league. But succubi didn’t choose their partners based on appearances. They wanted men with money, talent, success and vitality—and this guy could very well have been the poster boy for nerd-turned-billionaire.

  She looked at the time, deciding she’d already spent too much time on this particular candidate and just went in for the kill. Dancing around the man in glasses until Beck found herself in front of the beautiful blond, she looked her in the eyes, grabbed her by her soft face and pulled her in for a kiss underneath the technicolor lights of the dance floor.

  The woman pushed her off after a few seconds, while the man behind her had taken off his glasses and began to clap the second that their lips touched. Beck, annoyed that she had already had to kiss four women and had still came up short, made her way to the bathroom, hoping to escape the lurid stares of the circle of guys that had formed around the blond.

  The line to the women’s restroom was more than ten girls long, so Beck chose to go with the alternative. She walked right past the ladies’ room and into the men’s room, eliciting a small yell from the drunken man relieving himself at the urinal.

  Beck, however, was paying him no attention. She was already silently formulating a plan in her head. There were two pair of feet in the middle stall, one of them a really expensive pair of designer heels. Something seemed off to her, but she knew she couldn’t do anything about it until the bozo at the urinal left the room. And judging from the fact that he was drinking a beer while he pissed one out, it was safe to say that she’d be here for a while if she didn’t take matters into her own hands.

  She crouched low, reaching under the hem of her dress to an ankle holster, where her Encino 205 was holstered. She brought it out, setting the ammo to stun and crept up behind him. He turned around just as she was putting the pistol to his temple.

  “What the—”

  He never got the last word out, just a series of unintelligible utterances and grunts. She caught his body with ease, even stopping the beer glass from crashing against the urine-stained floor. Beck, without much effort, dragged the drunkard to the handicap stall and locked him in—he’d be out for an hour or two at least.

  Then, she moved to the bathroom door and turned the lock, ensuring no one would interrupt her this time. Beck produced her other Encino from her holster and stepped up to the stall, the muted sounds of lovemaking and kisses seeping through the cracks. With a grunt and a kick, her heel connected with the door, almost knocking it from its hinges and exposing the couple that was locked in an embrace atop the toilet.

  “Get up, both of you. Pull your dress down and you pull your pants up. And don’t either one of you think about making a move.”

  The woman, who looked to be around the same age as Beck—but wore it a hell of a lot better—pulled her lace green panties up and straightened up her dress. “Is all of this really necessary? Can’t you just kick us out?”

  “Listen, I’m just here looking for someone. I hate to break it to you, but you fit the profile. Sexy, slutty and with a guy like this? My money is actually on you being the person I’m looking for, but I have to be sure. So, I’m going to step close to you, my gun will be pointed at your head the whole time, and give you a little kiss. If everything checks out, you can
go. If not, well...we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “Whoa, no offense or anything lady but, I’m not gay.” She clung to the man she was with, although he had a clearly disappointed look on his face. “Get my phone, and call 911,” she said to him.

  The man took her phone from the back of the toilet, and Beck cocked her pistols, making sure that they knew she was serious. “Kid, if you press one button on that phone I’m going to blow both of your heads off.” Thinking better of it, he pocketed the phone and raised his hands in fear.

  “Now, come on over here.” The man pointed at his chest, questioning whether or not she meant him. “Yes, you. I’m going to let you go with two conditions. Don’t say anything to the world out there about what went down in here. Secondly, if you see a kid with a shaggy blonde beard in a blazer out there, tell him to get his scrawny ass in here.”

  The man, who couldn’t leave the bathroom fast enough, was thankful that Beck had spared him. As he hurriedly unlocked the door and crept out, he shot back a look to the seductress in the green dress, a small message passing between them that Beck was too focused to interpret.

  “Now, about that kiss.” She crept forward slowly until there was barely air between them. The soft fabrics of both of their elegant dresses rubbing against each other as their curves met. With one hand on the back of her neck, and the other pressing the pistol into her taut stomach, Beck pressed her lips against the woman’s soft lips. From the second they touched, she knew that this was different from all of the others.

  The world literally seemed to dissolve around her; the only thing she could focus on was how easily and expertly her lips moved, sending knee-quivering sensations through her. She could feel herself growing weaker in the embrace but the pleasure of it was addicting, she could barely pull herself away.