Page 32 of Succubus Sins
The camera swerved to the reception desk and a light blinked on from behind the fogged glass of the employee entrance.
I glared. “Why the hell would I go in there?”
Sarah’s frantic voice burst through the intercom. “Sonya? Don’t listen to him! Get the fuck out of here! He has—” Her words were cut short by a soft thump and muffled cry.
“Trade yourself for your girlfriend,” said Detective Anderson, “or there’ll be more blood on your hands.”
My eyes went wide. “What’s to tell me you won’t kill her anyway? I’m not going to walk into some trap. Just let her go!”
He laughed and Sarah’s whimpers lingered in the background, both from the intercom and some faint echo from behind the door. “What choice do you have?” said Detective Anderson. “Either enter into my care, and your girlfriend goes free, or cause trouble and I’ll release my evidence to the government.” His voice tinged with a sneer. “Every black-tied oaf will be after you then. The Black Widow in the flesh. Imagine what kind of reward there would be—”
The intercom released a rush of static before blipping off into silence. I crouched, waiting for the Detective to pounce from the shadows. But no movement came.
There was a crash from somewhere behind the door, sounding almost like it came from below ground. I straightened and stared at the fogged window, waiting for signs of life. What came next was a scream of rage. A man’s scream, but it wasn’t Detective Anderson’s. The sound rolled through the hall and found its way into my chest and settled there like living thunder. I gripped my heart and cried out, not at any sort of pain but the shock of this feeling of invasion. What the heck was this? No… Who was this?
The scream was followed by the frantic slap of bare feet hitting the ground, and whoever it was, was heading straight for me.
Curling my fingers into fists, I prepared myself for whatever monster Detective Anderson had set loose. Perhaps this was his secret weapon, how he’d subdued my powers and Sarah’s. Whatever it was, it sounded big.
The gorgeous naked man who burst from the employee’s entrance was not at all what I’d expected and the undeniable connection of his magic hit me straight to the gut.
I balked. This…man, was one of the four? He held a piece of my heart and was a piece of my soul that would determine my destiny?
He stared at me, likewise taken aback as our connection sizzled through the air like fire. He was covered in dirt and blood, but that didn’t diminish his exotic beauty. His wild eyes caught onto mine before lowering to the hidden rune astride my navel that sang for him.
I relaxed my shoulders. “Are you okay?”
I’m not sure why I asked such a silly question. There he was with his willy swinging away and his six-pack abs covered with nasty looking scabs and caked layers of dried blood. Whatever he’d been through, he was far from okay.
He just stood there and stared. His eyes were such a wild blue that I wanted to coax his gaze back to me.
Spreading my fingers and holding out my palms in what I hoped was a non-threatening motion, I slowly approached him. “You’re safe now, okay?”
He cocked his head and peered into my face, but then he flinched when his eyes fell onto my amulet. Without warning he released a sound unlike any I’d ever heard from any human. His scream pummeled me from all directions and unseen splinters shoved into my brain. I cried out and felt that invasion ofhimonce again, but this time the rage was directed at me. I crumpled to the ground, unprepared for the onslaught from someone who was supposed to be one of my four.
My amulet lit up like a firecracker and a shockwave bellowed through the hall. By the time I regained my composure and could stand, he was gone.
My hands drifted to my side and I stared at the wide open door. The only thing that moved me from my shock was one more scream… Sarah’s.
I burst into the darkened hall of the employee basement. A wall of shit-scented air hit me in the face on my way down, but I didn’t stop to gag. Sarah was still screaming.
“I’m coming!” I shouted. Her heart-wrenching wails wound my stomach into knots.
Stampeding down the dark staircase I bypassed a freakishly bloodied lab and continued my descent until I finally entered into a room with one bright bulb gleaming over my girlfriend bound to a chair, not by chains, but by fucking plastic zip ties. There were all kinds of odd paraphernalia filling the room, including grey jars with floating body parts and a small prison cell that reeked of feces, yet there was no Detective Anderson in sight. The only evidence he’d ever been here at all was a trail of blood leading to a cracked door at the end of the hall. The coward had escaped.
Sarah continued to scream as if she’d been stabbed. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she shook her head, tossing her sagging blonde curls into her face and strained against the binds. It didn’t make sense. A muse was strong enough to get out of that and even if the telling bloodstain at her chest suggested she’d actually been stabbed, she should have convinced her body to heal by now.
I rushed to her side and shook her by the shoulders. “Sarah! I’m here. Why are you screaming?”
Finally, she stopped thrashing and blinked. I expected her familiar striking blue eyes to greet me, the same color eyes that had attracted me to David. But just like David, dead, grey eyes stared back at me. It was as if Sarah’s soul had been ripped out, leaving nothing but an empty husk that still breathed. “My God. What did that bastard do to you?”
Her lower lip trembled and tears streamed down her cheeks. “He took my powers!”
I froze, unable to register what she’d just said. Was such a thing even possible?
She sniffled and her gaze drifted to my necklace, still burning red-hot. “But it seems you’ve enough power for the both of us.”
I clutched the Blood Stone, and even from its exuding, never-ending warmth I didn’t think power was the fix for this. Sarah was human now.
