We stood in the tub as our drenched bodies intertwined with each other. I felt her body spasm around minutes after my fingers disappeared deep inside her. The soaking white lace lingerie she had on pressed against my legs and thighs, in sync with the pleasure I fed her, pleasure she needed to live for the night.
I reached up and pulled the shower curtain to the side, just in case whatever spells she placed on Jim wore off. Should he awake now, he’d be treated to the sexy water show the two of us were putting on. Bad enough he was still naked.
The morning sunlight rose, sending a message to the people of New York it was time to wake and go to work. And in the case of Anastasia, it was time for her to allow Belyana to repossess her body. I sat at the foot of the spare bed the two of us shared for the night. I had to ensure she wasn’t going to sneak off and try again for Jim, this wasn’t a succubus buffet. I looked at her sleeping body and hair that was back to its original blonde color, musing at the fact my body felt completely recharged, just like the time Lexi and I got it on.
Maybe I really was some kind of succubus hybrid, one that both Lexi and Anastasia were more than willing to help me understand and come to terms with as they were just like me.
I went for my phone on the nightstand. News feeds on it revealed the police had detained the Russians that survived the blaze. There was no mention of trafficked girls, Vladimir, AKA Asmodeus, or the tabby cat he held hostage at gunpoint. It worried me, just as much as the fact Belyana would change back into Anastasia when midnight arrived again. Charles needed to get back to me about the email I sent him. The split personality deal had to go before I delivered the good news to her mother, and figuring out the proper way to use that serum was the only way.
I heard Belyana wake while my back was still turned to her. I looked back at her as she stared at her unclothed body, probably wondering what she did to end up here. “Belyana, I take it?” I asked, just to be sure.
“Yeah,” Belyana said. “Where am I?”
“The other girl asked that. I guess you two don’t share recent memories.”
Belyana went to say something more as she faced me, and then noticed I too had nothing on, and that we shared the same bed. The look on her face when she put two and two together and panicked was glorious.
“Let me get you something to wear,” I said, leaving the bed to search for clothes in the drawer.
“The others, what happened to them?”
“The girls the Russians had?” I tossed her something to wear while slipping into a white robe. “Escaped I hope, I honestly couldn’t find them.”
“What?”
“I torched the place and killed most of the thugs there. The fire exit was opened, so I’m assuming those girls did the right thing and ran away.”
“Shit.”
“Like I said, I killed most of the people there and those that survived were arrested by the cops, so it’s unlikely the girls were recaptured. Everything is okay; we just need to find Asmodeus and my friend.”
“No, everything is not okay!” she yelled while slipping into the top and pants I gave her. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
My arms crossed. “Please bring me up to speed.”
She sat at the foot of the bed now fully dressed, looking down at her hands as if they were covered in the blood of innocents. “I’m not the only Rusalka. Those girls, they are all like me. If they fled they’ll be free to feed on the whole city when the night comes.”
Lady luck needs to finish up that smoke break.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Run that by me again,” I said before taking a sip of coffee. “I think the coffee is starting to work.”
Belyana and I sat in the kitchen of the safe house. The smell of freshly brewed coffee was the only normal thing around me at that point, apart from the furniture.
“I was experimented on by Schubert,” Belyana said, pushing a plate of toast and eggs away.
She had been hesitant to eat since we awoke, claiming she wasn’t hungry. After last night, I could see why. Anastasia’s feeding must have had the effect of keeping Belyana’s body energized and alive despite not eating. Yet, there I was ready to eat her food. What kind of succubus was I?
“Right, I found that out in the lab in the warehouse.”
“Schubert had another lab, where he was conducting tests to see if it was possible for a demon to possess a host without the need for soul contamination. It was one of his final projects he never got the chance to finish.”
“I may or may not have played a role in preventing Schubert from finishing his work.”
Though the thought that Schubert had side projects he never got to finish was worrying. Getting possessed because your soul was contaminated by a demon was scary enough, but preventable. Just don’t receive blood from a demon or have sex with them.
But possession without soul contamination? How do you prevent that?
I shamelessly ate Belyana’s food. “And you were that result I take it?”
“They called me a summoner,” Belyana said. “The tests allowed me to summon demonic souls from the Umbral and force them into a host.”
“Only it didn’t work, right? Because last time I checked Schubert and Lucifer went ahead with their plans that involved contaminating souls of humans to possess them.”
Belyana shook her head. “When I summon demonic souls, I place them inside a host, forcibly possessing them. The problem is the host would fight back naturally and reclaim their body. The process of a host retaking their body fascinated Schubert and allowed him to research a serum that could be used to do just that. Force the host who’s soul had been contaminated to retake their body.”
“Okay, that’s where I got lost,” I said, having finished the toast and eggs. Damn, that shit was good. “Why would he care about that? His job was to make people get possessed.”
“Both Lucifer and Asmodeus had human worshipers. The serum was to undo accidental possession should they become contaminated or be used as leverage for their planned invasion.”
It made sense. Demons could wave the cure above the heads of those that cared about the individuals who got possessed and offer it in exchange for something else. Though, as I recalled, none of that was part of their original invasion plans last fall. Meaning that work on the serum and everything related to it was still in its early testing phase.
“With Schubert, Lucifer and his faction gone, and Asmodeus without a host, the Russians sought to use his research left behind to their advantage,” Belyana said as her face became numb with troubling thoughts. “I couldn’t summon a demon to stay in a host’s body forever . . . but a Rusalka, that was different, since they only exist during the night. They wanted me to force the soul of a Rusalka into all the working girls. I couldn’t bring myself to do it at the time . . . so I summoned a Rusalka to take my body instead.”
In other words, suicide by demonic possession. “Enter Anastasia.”
“I thought perhaps getting myself possessed would free me from the burden that was forced upon me. I was wrong, they punished me by forcing me into the sex trade until I turned the other girls into Rusalki.”
“Human trafficking is the Russian mob’s top source of income. Why would they want to turn their girls into Rusalki?”
“The plan was to increase their profits. Think about it. Our souls aren’t contaminated, and so we can’t do the same to the men that visit us. Water magic allows us to heal, meaning STDs are cured overnight, as well as injuries suffered by rough clients or the pimps. Meanwhile, Rusalka feed off the men and would love nothing more than to continue to be fed every night, and our power to charm men made them ignore what we really were.”
“And made them addicted to your bodies,” I added. “So, when your mother adopted you, you were already possessed?”
“I managed to escape one night after Anastasia fed off a number of clients. My mother had no idea what I really was when she took me in, and Anastasia had been satisfied fo
r the time being. But the need to feed returned unexpectedly one night. Anastasia took control of my body and forced me back into the hands of the Russians.”
In essence, Rusalki were the perfect sex workers for the Russian pimps. No protection required, you can do whatever you want, and they wouldn’t complain as they survive off the sex. Last time I checked, the Russians were known for forcing their girls to do drugs and used the addiction as a means to keep them coming back. Drugs cost money, drugs that could be sold rather than given to the girls, meaning increased profits.
Charmed clients would come back night after night, spending all their money regardless of other financial obligations, like paying protection fees. If they ran away like she did, the Rusalka half would force them back.
This begged the question. “How did the Russians stay in business if you ended up killing your clients?”
“We didn’t, not at first,” Belyana said. “I . . . Anastasia, fed off the men, but left enough of their soul behind for them to continue to live.”
“What changed?”
“The first week of June, Rusalka week, the power of the Rusalki grows stronger during this time of the year. The men couldn’t survive. I tried to explain that before they forced me to possess the girls, but they wouldn’t listen. They want their money and opted to ditch the bodies of the clients that ended up dead during the week.”
“Is that why Vladimir showed up that night when we first came to rescue you?”
“Most likely, the clients that didn’t survive the night had their bodies frozen by the Rusalka then disposed of by the Russians.”
Wayne, Sokolov, and probably others. She fed off them, they died, and Vladimir and his thugs moved in to clean up the mess.
That’s when all the facts hit me right in the face and mocked me for not picking it up sooner. Everything about this case got crazy right at the stroke of the new month. And if all those girls were possessed, they would seek to seduce and feed off every man they encountered throughout the city. The week was far from over, there was going to be a lot of dead bodies unless they get rounded up quickly. I let out a nice long and depressed exhale.
My phone beeped as it rested on the coffee table in the living room, a new text message arrived. I left the kitchen to check on it, and to check up on Jim, he never did make it back to his room. The mind blowing orgasms last night kind of made me forget about him.
“Will he be fine?” I called out to Belyana as I grabbed my phone.
She ran over to the sound of my voice. Her eyes followed the direction my finger had pointed to in the washroom. She staggered and gasped. “Did we . . . last night?”
“Almost,” I snorted.
“He should be fine then, just extremely tired,” she said, checking Jim’s vitals. “As I said, Rusalki powers are enhanced during this time of the year. Even a kiss could bring a man close to death.”
I read the newly received text message, it was from Charles. He made a breakthrough and wanted to meet in person.
Belyana and I took the long drive up to the paranormal labs. During the ride up, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that I may have doomed the lives of countless men when nightfall arrived. Those girls were ticking time bombs, and the window to defuse them was passing with each hour.
“Charles, I’m in need of some good news, please tell me you have it,” I said, striding into his workspace as we arrived.
He spun in his chair and looked at us with his tired-eyed face. “I stayed up all night, but I managed to figure out the progress they made and how it was developed—” He stopped as he noticed Belyana standing with me. “This the missing girl?” I nodded yes. “Well, it all makes sense now, with the shower she wanted to take and—”
“Do you have a breakthrough?” I interjected.
“I got the foundation for it based on the files you sent me. But I’m going to need a sample of her DNA to finish the rest, plus that vial you talked about.”
Charles held an empty needle and approached Belyana. She didn’t look pleased, but if he was right, this was the only way. She lifted up her sleeve in a reluctant manner, allowing for Charles to take a blood sample.
“How long will this take?” I asked him, placing the vial I stole from the secret lab on his desk.
“Not long since she’s in her human form.”
“And just like that, you’ll have the power to remove demons from a host?”
“Only those possessed by Rusalka,” he said, having finished extracting her blood. “As for everything else, I’ll need more time to study that email you sent.” Charles went to mix Belyana’s blood sample with the vial before he searched for his Wiccan tomes and other weird ritual stuff. “Once I’m done here, we will have the world’s first exorcism in a needle.”
“Make lots.”
“Eh? There are other Rusalki?”
“A lot more, and they’ll all turn tonight unless we can cure them now.” Of course, we still need to find them, though with it being the day, it shouldn’t be hard unless they wandered into the hands of another mob group.
Whatever, I’ll take the good news.
“My tome,” Belyana said, eyeing the demonic book we pulled from her room.
“Oh, yeah, that,” Charles said, returning to his work as Belyana took it back along with the dagger bookmark. “That wallet you found did indeed have the same Umbral signatures as that.”
“Yeah, we kinda figured that out,” I drily said, watching Belyana flip through the pages of her tome. “Belyana, what’s the deal with that tome?”
“It allows me to focus my summoning powers,” she said, her eyes mesmerized on a particular page toward the end of the tome.
“Focusing summoning powers?” Charles face lit up. “Oh, please, do tell.”
I pointed at the workspace he turned his back on. “Focus on the serum first, man.”
“She’s a summoner and Rusalka? Reika, you have any idea how hard it’s going to be to focus now?”
My arms crossed. “Serum.”
“This is an extraordinary find!”
I pointed at his workspace once again to hammer in the point. He needed to get back to work, lives were at stake.
With that came the need for a quick vape. “I’ll be back in a few,” I said, taking my leave. “Let Gabe and his team know about this so those girls can get cured when found.”
At this point it shouldn’t be an issue if Gabe was involved. Belyana was found and would be sent back to her mother after she gets cured. I’ll make up some story that I stumbled across the Russian sex ring, discovered the Rusalka, and keep Belyana’s name out of this mess.
I reached for my vape as I exited outside. It wasn’t there, must have left it in the car. I walked to the parking lot, ignoring the morning sun overhead, and made it back to my car. Sure enough my vape was left on the dashboard, next to Jae-geun’s phone which I still had. There were a dozen messages waiting to be read, I was curious as to see what type of flack he got for the video I uploaded of him.
The most recent message made me drop my vape to the ground before I got to take a puff. I’m pretty sure I heard it break, not that I cared. My attention was drawn to the photo the sender of the text sent.
It was Emily, tied up worse than that time Jim and I held her captive. Asmodeus was ahead of her, grinning, as if the two were taking a selfie together. I couldn’t figure out why Asmodeus chose to send the message to Jae-geun’s phone. Then I remembered I had basically taken his identity, including his clothes and phone. Texting this number was the only way for him to reach me.
I scrolled to read what he wrote; the message was short and sweet. He wanted Belyana in exchange for Emily . . . and the rest.
Whoever the rest was.
The last message was disturbing as fuck. It was a room full of young women wearing sexy dresses, the same ones the girls at the warehouse had been wearing. That’s because it was them. Asmodeus didn’t just flee with Emily. He rounded up the girls that fled from the fire
exit, who all probably turned into Rusalka when the clock struck midnight and became loyal to his command.
It didn’t matter how fast or hard Charles worked, those girls were set to change tonight no matter what. There was no way we could get the cure to them in time while Asmodeus had them captured.
I went to a lot of trouble to get Belyana, and she did everything to escape being a sex slave. No fucking way was I handing her over to that creep.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I was back at the safe house where I left Jim, yet again, having not said much to Belyana after we left the paranormal labs. I stormed in grabbing my katana, shurikens, and hidden wrist blades. All while moaning at the fact that evening had rolled around. Charles’ idea of ‘not long’ was way off. Learning of Belyana’s extraordinary powers probably distracted his thinking worse than I thought.
“You going to fight a war?” Belyana said with her arms crossed, leaning up against the wall watching me gear up.
“You saw that message.”
“I did.”
“I wasted too much of this week searching for you.” I double-checked to ensure my wrist blades still worked, they did. “I’m not handing you over like that.”
“Let me help you, this is my fight too.”
“The fuck it is.”
“Those girls were my only friends, almost like family until I fled the first time. Something I hate myself for doing.”
“Survivor’s guilt sucks.”
“Then let’s make everyone a survivor, let me help.”
“How exactly do you plan on doing that?”
“The serum was made to cleanse the body of Rusalka possession. My summoning powers should still remain, however. Let’s wait until midnight to see if it works. I don’t change then we go together.”
Wrath of the Demon Girl Page 16