Page 18 of The Wickedness of Man

The succubus leaned casually against the wall, though I sensed a shift in her mannerisms. She seemed… less relaxed at the mention of the nuns.

“You can’t take her to the organization,” she told me. The statement was soft; almost pleading in its tone.

“Are you kidding me?” I said, forcing a stiff laugh. “Where the hell else would I go?”

“Listen to me, Knight,” Dr. Lowe said, a wavering entering her voice. “Have you noticed that I haven’t used my power on you, even though you’re in the heart of my aura, holding the woman I was feeding with? That’s because I’m not trying to trick you or seduce you. If I was, you’d be down on your knees begging forgiveness for your insolence. Consider it an act of good faith.”

“Faith!” I spat. “So because you haven’t tried to use your power, I should take your word over that of the archdiocese? No thanks; I’d like to spend the night in my own bed, not down in the cells.” I paused, leveling a warning stare in her direction. “You’ll understand why soon enough.”

“You’ve already disobeyed them, haven’t you?” she said, her hands at her side, red eyes strangely imploring, her voice even and measured. “You’re being far more stubborn than I’d anticipated, considering how well behaved you were before, but… Look. I don’t mean her—or you—any harm, but the Churchwillharm her,” she said as she locked her gaze on mine. She wasn’t exerting any power except the heavy impact of her words. “They’ll hurt me, too. Perhaps others.”

I narrowed my eyes at that. “How would you know whether or not I’ve disobeyed orders?”

“You’ll learn soon enough,” said the demon, resigned. “If you want that girl to survive, listen to me: A night in the cells isnothingcompared to the tortures awaiting the willing partner of a demon.”

I hefted the unconscious woman in my arms. I had to admit that the succubus’s words alarmed me. I glared at her, trying to figure out what game she was playing at.

“You’re wrong,” I insisted, staring at the young woman. “Once she receives a clean bill of health, she’ll be free to go. I’ll drive her home myself—you have my word.”

“And if the diocese decides she has a malady of the soul or some other bullshit? Choosing to lay with a demon its own evil, so what then? How does the Church deal with lost souls, Knight?”

My gut twisted, and I looked down to the unconscious stranger in my arms. She was hot to the touch, yet it was clear it wasn’t sickness… perhaps… pleasure? A lingering effect of engaging with a succubus? I frowned. If she was undergoing any side effects of the demon’s psychic feeding, then it wasn’t inconceivable that…

Though the demoness was hard to read, it seemed even now that she was honestly concerned for this woman’s safety. Yes, there was the real possibility that the Church might hurt this woman if they suspected her of being afflicted by the demon—and yes, she was telling the truth about not using her powers on me. I’d seen what that kind of influence could do to a man. In the organization, the archdiocese had warned every male acolyte about the “dangers of the flesh”—in particular, the horrors of succumbing to succubi—so frequently, it had become a joke amongst my seminary class.

Until my graduating year, that was.

My class got called to a mandatory midnight assembly in the campus sanctuary. We filed into the pews, and Bishop Jax waited at the front while two lectors brought in a woman wearing an almost see-through white dress and thick, ropelike manacles strapped around her forearms. A blindfold had been placed over eyes, and she was led by the wrists to the frontof the church to stand nearby Jax. The lectors looked to him; he nodded. They removed the blindfold and stepped back as the succubus’s form swelled to life before our eyes, and she transformed.

She’d looked much the same as the doctor did in this moment as her piercing blue eyes scoured the room, wings outstretched, ample bosom heaving, nipples hardening to tiny, diamond-hard points beneath the thin fabric as she took in the sight of around two dozen horny twenty-year-old men, all burning for her. I felt her gaze sweep over me, and she made a soft noise in her throat, but then another boy—someone I didn’t recognize—gasped and stood. She turned to him, smiling.

The manacles had been meant to strip her of power, but my classmate approached her, his gaze transfixed, as if the world had fallen away and they were the only ones who existed. Jax held up the hand bearing his large, jewel-encrusted ring when the two lectors stepped forward to stop the student from reaching her.

“If he is so weak as to fall prey to a demon, even here in front of God and the Church, he isn’t fit to serve as anything but a lesson,” the bishop stated stoically.

We all watched as the succubus reached for the boy with manacled hands, and he leaned into her touch, moaning and crying out with pleasure as she hungrily smothered him with kisses until he collapsed, quivering in her arms with a shout as a conspicuous stain leaked down the front of his gray trousers. Gingerly, the demon knelt on the floor with him and stroked his hair back, kissed his temple, and stood. If I’d thought she’d been beautiful before, it was nothing compared to the lusciousness of her body, her red mouth, after just a few kisses. She squeezed her breasts between her hands, letting out a gasping, erotic sigh. On the floor at her feet, the boy stood, woozily, at first, and then reached for her again.

She leaned forward, pulling him into a hug, wrapping her wings around him, taking him against her breasts, leaning down and whispering into his ear, her tongue darting out along the lobe. The scene made me feel… voyeuristic, and not in a good way. The looks on my classmates’ faces said they felt roughly the same.

Nodding, the boy turned to face the lectors, and as he started toward them, Jax moved quickly. He slipped the sword within his cane out and took the head from the boy’s shoulders in one fell swoop. His body took several steps on its own before it dropped.

“No!” The succubus had screamed, turning to Jax, agony on her face.

He strode forward, keeping the demon at bay with the cane sword pointed in her direction.

“Never forget,” said Jax, kneeling beside the headless body. “These demons see us as food and useful tools. Once you succumb to a demon, you will commit any number of depraved acts, on friends, family, and even your brothers in faith.” He reached down and lifted a small pistol from the boy’s hand: one of our training weapons. Lethal at short distances; it would have been a convincing enough threat to get the manacle keys from the lectors.

Jax stood, and the lectors sent us out. I’d gazed back before they’d shut the doors in our faces and witnessed as the succubus knelt and picked the boy’s head up in her hands, a strangely empty look on her face as his blood splashed out over the tiles, turning everything at her feet into a puddle of red water.

I shook myself back to the present and took a step closer to the door, alarmed at how easily the memory had consumed my thoughts. It had to be a demon’s trick: Suggesting danger to make me feel such uncertainty. It had to be. I had never been afan of the organization, but I’d already broken enough rules in the past day to qualify me for some serious time in the cells.

To do as she was suggesting and hide this woman from the Church… I might get beaten as badly as thefirst timethey’d ever caught me sneaking girls around campus. Even though my reasons for hiding a woman now might be considerably more noble, I knew from experience that no one in the organization would bother to see it that way.

As I took another step back, I tried to reach for the door, but the woman’s arm slipped as her weight shifted, and the demon reached out as if to catch her.

“Be careful!” she demanded, before composing herself, carefully crossing her arms underneath her ample chest again and taking on a more casual stance.

I gaped at the monster. She was genuinely concerned for this woman’s safety—the terror I’d seen on her face when she thought I’d been about to drop her had been real. I wouldn’t know for certain what the true nature of their relationship was until the woman woke up, but in the meantime, I just couldn’t leave her here.

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