Page 42 of The Wickedness of Man

“I don’t need your protection!” I argued. “I don’t need this fucking place! You know as well as I do I’ve been trying to buy my way out of the contract since I was seventeen?—”

“They werenevergoing to let you,” snapped Jax. “You’re a fool to think it. Now they’re certain to never let you leave.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, crossing my arms. “How long will I be in the cells this time?”

“Not just the cells. Do you not remember what happened to those poor souls that night in the chapel before your graduation?”

I paused before answering, “Never forgot. First time I’d seen a man get beheaded. Thanks for that, by the way.”

Jax adjusted his thick glasses, shoulders sagging like they held the weight of the world on them. “Caleb, there’s things about this place you don’t know. Secrets… things you can’t possibly…” He drifted off, shook his head. “I have failed you. I should have protected you, and I…”

“Jax,” I said sternly. “What are you saying?”

“The veiled sisters are all succubi—or some twisted, blighted version of the creatures. The one you encountered was Harry’s own personal servant, but each of the special investigators receive their own. She had once been a devotee of our Lord but is now reduced to a lust-filled beast. In trying to exorcise these women before the incubus’s demonic seed finds purchase, they sometimes become…” He sighed. “You saw for yourself.”

“You’re telling me that all the sisters here… are demons?”

“The veiled sisters, yes. Her confirmation that you’ve lain with a succubus is enough to condemn you to a punishment worse than—” Tears choked the old man’s voice. “I never dreamed you were going to be in such danger. Harry didn’t tell me what was going on until you were out on assignment, but I swear to you, Caleb, I didn’t know. That boy is such a foul deviant… he thinks because he’s an investigator for the archdiocese that he can come here and throw his weight around, treating my agents like… like lambs for the slaughter.”

That motherfucker.

I could feel the blood draining from my face as I really, truly, took in the old man’s words. “Jax, if I’m hearing you right, you’re saying the Church signed off on Harry using me as bait to lure out a succubus… and it worked… so now they’re going to punish me because the thing they thought would happen… did.”

He nodded miserably. “The ends always justify the means here, Caleb. You of all people should know that. The orders on this were so vague, and when Harry came with a handpicked list, signed off on by the archbishop himself, I should have at least suspected?—”

“Hang on a second… how could he possibly have known the succubus would choose me unless…” I froze. “Oh my god.” My legs went numb and I staggered backward, almost lost my footing. “Oh my god?—”

“Caleb?” Jax took a step forward, but I gestured to him to stay back.

“Jax… new incubi are made by…”

He looked away, then turned back to me. “Caleb, did you sleep with her?”

I couldn’t answer. My mind was racing. It was right there in front of me. Right there the whole time, and I’d missed it. I’d missed it! But how was such a thing possible? How did…

“I didn’t though—not with her—” I caught myself before I gave anything else away, but it was too late. I’d been outted by Harry’s fucked-up succubus, and now I’d just admitted it myself.

Had she… put something in Magda that made me ademon…? Or was I somehow what had caused the change in Magda?

“There are two ways incubi come into being,” Jax said. “One—the method Harry mentioned. This is for normal men.”

The wordsnormal mensent a chill through me. “And the second?”

“Creatures called cambions,” Jax whispered, even knowing that in this room, the org’s spying eyes and ears were forbidden, “are the children born of unions between incubi and succubi, sometimes with humans, and sometimes with each other. They appear, by all outward means, to be human. That is, until they are awakened… at which point, they begin their transition to demons.”

“So which method applies to me, you think?” I asked, terrified to know the answer, but desperate to hear it all the same.

Jax looked downward. “Not the first method.”

My entire body was shaking as I sat hard on the bed behind me.

Dr. Lowe isn’t “making” new demons at all. She’s just finding the ones that already exist. Magda became a demon after meeting me, which means…

“How are they…” I tried to force the words out past my suddenly dry throat, “these cambions, I mean. How are they awakened?”

“Completing the sexual cycle—naturally. Just once can be all it takes.”

“No,” I rasped, terrified at what I was about to admit. Terrified of what it could mean, “you said it yourself, I’ve slept with dozens of women. If I were a demon, wouldn’t I know I by now?”

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