Page 37 of The Wickedness of Man

It was the truth—and I knew that for certain, because the interrogation rooms wouldn’t allow for lies; the priests refreshed the room’s holy spells before each session. So, while I would have to tell the truth when I answered, I’d still have the option to not answer or find a way to be evasive. Wording things carefully would be easier here than once they pushed drugs through me in the cells, though.

Jaxhmmedat that and rested his hands on the table. “The other agent stationed at home gave us his report, so we know everything up until you got in the building.”

I blinked at that. Either a hint or a trap; I couldn’t be sure.

“Okay, well, I took my firearm with me—” I belated realized it was still on my person, just under my coat jacket; why hadn’t they taken it? “—and I went in. I didn’t catch sight of the civilian I’d spotted from my perch, but I watched for what floor the elevator stopped at, noted it was the same floor the demon under our surveillance was at, and followed.”

Jax nodded, staring at the table as he contemplated. “You told the other agent you’d been burned.”

“Yes.”

Jax glared at me, clearly waiting for me to go on.

“I was monitoring the situation through my telephoto lens,” I paused, frowning, realizing I had no idea where the camera had gone. “The doctor seemed to… I don’t know how to explain?—”

“Do try,” Jax demanded dryly.

I looked over to Harry and the nun. The woman, with her thick veil, still seemed to be unaware of my presence, but Harry was watching me intensely. I cleared my throat. “She just… knew I was there, Jax. I swear to you. She’d been at her desk doing paperwork just fine, then I took my eyes off her, spotted the civie, and when I looked back…”

I recalled the smirk she’d given me as she closed the blinds. “She was looking right at me. Like she was…”

“Taunting you,” Jax said with a deflated sigh, his bushy white eyebrows furrowing closely together. “Yes, I suspected that could be the case. I believe that the succubus may have been aware—and targeting you—for some time. Possibly almost as long as you’ve been surveilling her.”

“Wait, why?” I demanded. “How did she even know I was there?” I leaned forward and placed both manacled hands on the table.

Did the doctor do something to me…? Is that why my memory of Friday is hazy? Is that why… why I feel this way about Magda?

Something within me had been altered; I could feel it, but I wasn’t sure what precisely had changed. The holes in my memory… the experience with Magda? Her insistence that I protect Magda from the organization—what had that been about? Maybe I could find out if Jax had any other info and explain to Magda when I?—

Stop thinking you can go back to her!You really need to worry about your own hide right now.

Jax looked up to Harry with a deep frown and nodded. Harry moved to the glass behind me and tapped on it. Within moments, the light clicked on and off, signaling the room had been emptied. I was no stranger to the procedure; I was just normally the one doing the knocking.

“The reason this entire operation was to be ‘no contact’ was because the archbishop himself has ordered that we take the demon—alias Dr. Lowe, real name, Carmilla de Mornay—back to himalive.He’s had a contract out on her for years, and to be frank, finds her very existence an embarrassment, since she’s a testament to the organization’s failure to capture her.”

Caleb

“Carmilla de Mornay?” I asked, frowning. “Why wasn’t she listed in the general register?—”

“Why do you think?” said Harry, clasping his arms behind himself, rocking on his heels, somewhat like a young boy. The look in his eye spoke of something far less… innocent. “She’s been kept out for a reason. The archdiocese wanted her brought backalive,so of course we’re not going to trust this kind of project to morons like you, and this was precisely why! Tell him, Jax.”

“We’ve been studying her movements, which at first, seemed chaotic,” said the bishop with a sigh. “For many decades, she wasn’t doing much of anything, and then suddenly, close to thirty years ago, she started popping up in cities with some of the Church’s satellite offices. Wherever she goes, there’s a sudden crop of new succubi, and in some cases… even incubi.”

“New succubi,” I repeated, as if I didn’t know it myself. “She can… make demons?”

Jax moved to answer, but Harry cleared his throat. The old man glared over his shoulder before turning back to me. “Not… in any traditional manner. At no point in history has a succubus ‘created’ another succubus, so we’ve been trying to discover howshe’s doing it precisely, but she appears exceptionally perceptive and has thus far dodged us every time.”

“Do you know how new succubi are made, Caleb?” asked Harry, leaning down to be at eye level to me. When I didn’t answer, he gave a strangely odd smile. “Incubi. The very spawn of the Devil himself! They lay with a woman, and at the big finale… they leave behind the seed that will turn her into a lusty fiend. We don’t quite know the parameters for who it works on, or how, but some women turn, some don’t.”

Magda… I thought.How did the doctor manage such a thing? There had been no incubi around—no one but the two of them.

“New incubi,” Harry continued, lowering his voice, “are made in much the same way: They sleep with others and turn both men and women into demons… with some exceptions, naturally.”

There was an edge to his tone that grated on me. Like he knew something I didn’t. Some kind of inside joke only he was privy to. “So, she’s what? Convincing incubi to sleep with women and tossing the dice to see who turns and who doesn’t?”

“That’s the million-dollar question,” said Harry, giving me a harder-than-necessary clap on the shoulder. “I don’t mean that ironically, either. This operation has been expensive; goes back decades before you or I were even alive. You’re not the first to fuck everything up unfortunately, but youareprobably the first one whose gonna wind up getting killed for it.”

“Harry!” snapped Jax, slamming a hand onto the wooden table. “Stop that, now!”

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