Page 47 of The Prospect's Succubus
She pressed her hand to my chest, right over the brand, and I felt the heat punch through my ribcage. Every old scar burned to life, every failure, every mistake, every loss. The room blurred, the crowd vanished, and I was back in Hell, drowning in the same blue-white light that had chewed up and spit out so many before me.
I let it in. I let it burn. And when the fire got close enough, I grabbed it and turned it back.
The bond went nuclear. For one perfect second, I saw Jasmine—not just her body, but her mind, her heart, her fucking soul. I saw every memory, every regret, every secret wish she’d never said out loud. I sent her my own, every ounce of love and hate and pride and pain.
The force of it broke Lilith’s grip. She staggered back, eyes wide, as I rolled off the steps and lunged for Jasmine. The bonds melted under my hands, burning away with a hiss. She fell into me, shaking.
We stood together, facing the throne.
Lilith recovered, but the fear was there now, flickering in her eyes. “You think you’ve won?” she spat. “You’re nothing but meat and ashes.”
I smiled, all teeth. “Yeah, but we’re the last ones you’ll ever taste.”
The world narrowed to a tunnel, just me, Jasmine, and Lilith at the far end. I braced for the charge, muscles singing with adrenaline and something older, deeper.
Torch
There’s a particular kind of silence that settles on the edge of a massacre. Not the absence of sound, but a pressurized stillness, like the world is waiting for the first brick to shatter the window. That’s how it felt in the abandoned carnival pavilion, the air so dense with magic and fear that I couldn’t draw a full breath, even if the iron chains digging into my wrists would’ve let me.
I sat on a dais hacked out of stone and old showtime bones, iron links threaded through the eyelets of my jacket and wrapped in a figure-eight around my ribs. They’d stripped my holster and left my shirt open just enough to expose the brand stitched into my skin, blue-gold and pulsing, a heartbeat that wasn’t always my own. Sweat stung the cuts on my chest, every movement grinding fresh agony into my arms. But I wasn’t about to give Lilith the satisfaction of a whimper.
She paced the perimeter, her heels scoring the dais with every pass. Her hair was a living whip, flicking sparks that burned holes in the dusk. Her face, always more mask than flesh, was pulled tight with anticipation. She didn’t look at me; she didn’t have to. Every syllable of the ancient tongue rolled through the air and into the meat of my brain, the sound crawling along the bone behind my ears.
Jasmine stood at the edge of the dais, or maybe she hovered; I couldn’t tell where her feet ended and the smoke began. Her form was half there, the rest gone to flicker and static, like an old TV refusing to tune in. But her eyes, when they caught mine, were all the way real. She was holding herself together through raw spite, the kind of stubbornness I recognized in every biker who’d ever tried to stare down a bullet.
The rest of the space was full of witnesses. Carnies, demons, things that were once people and now just walked around in the shell. They watched from the shadows, whispering in voices that left a taste of iron and rot. Every now and then a face would twist, remembering the old way to smile, and then go slack again.
Outside, the real show had already started. Muffled gunfire, the crash of a bike through drywall, the shout of a man who knew he was dying and planned to take a piece of Hell with him. My brothers—RBMC, the last chapter that mattered—were making their stand. I could feel every hit like a jolt down the chains, the shared pulse of men who’d bled for the patch and weren’t about to let a demon queen turn their home into a slaughterhouse.
I took stock. The chains were old, maybe pre-War, maybe older. Lilith had locked them with no fewer than six hellforged padlocks, every one etched in script designed to make me doubt my own name. But I’d learned from better than her. Sera’s incantation rattled in my head, a counter-rhythm to theone being woven around me. I waited, jaw clenched, counting syllables and heartbeats until the moment was right.
Jasmine didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. She just shot me a look, the kind you only get from someone who’s seen you at your lowest and stuck around anyway. There was a question there, but also a dare: You ready, soldier?
I flexed my hands around the cold bite of iron. Blood slicked my palm. I nodded, once, and mouthed the first line of Sera’s incantation. It tasted like blood and salt.
Lilith froze mid-stride, as if I’d farted during a royal wedding. Her eyes snapped to me, wide and amused. “Oh?” she purred. “You’ve brought a toy.”
I spat. “Brought enough to bury you.”
She laughed, and it was the sound of glass scraping over bone. “Do you think this is your story, Daniel Clark?” She used my name like it was a slur. “You’re here to be a battery. Nothing more. Jasmine knows her role, and so should you.”
Jasmine drifted closer. The chains on my wrists glowed faint, matching the shimmer of her outline. I felt the pull—not painful, but like the first time you put your hand to a live wire and realize that current isn’t something you can ever own, just ride until it fries you or sets you free.
Lilith resumed her circuit, but this time she kept one eye on me, like a cat watching a bug that might bite back. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” she said, but the certainty was gone. She drew a symbol in the air, and every demon in the room shivered. “You never should have come back.”
I focused on the brand. It pulsed, not in time with my heart, but with Jasmine’s. The bond was a live feed—her pain, my anger, her fear, my need. I clung to it, let it drown out the babble of ancient curses rolling through the rafters.
Jasmine hovered at my side. She reached out, fingers skimming the air a centimeter above my bicep. Even through thechainmail of pain, I felt her touch, as if she was inside the same skin.
“Ready?” I whispered.
She nodded, just once, and let her hand drop. The air crackled.
Outside, a shotgun blast tore through the wall, peppering the pavilion floor with splinters and teeth. Kane’s voice, hoarse and wild, called out a challenge. For a second, every head in the room turned. I used the distraction.
I closed my eyes and let Sera’s words roll through me, not aloud, but in the marrow. The chains tightened, then loosened. The runes flickered. I felt the counter-spell coil up the length of my arm and pool at my chest, right under the brand. Jasmine’s power met it halfway, a cold blue burn that hissed where it touched my own.
Lilith whipped around. “Enough!” she shrieked. The word hit with physical force. My ears rang, blood streaming from my nose. She raised both arms, and the pavilion trembled. The stones underfoot cracked; the ceiling groaned.
