Then there was the direct approach. Just knock on her door and say, “Hey, some people are wondering whether you are human are not. What's up with that?” Maybe she'd come clean … or maybe she would call for some people in white coats to come take me away.
Glancing up the side of the building I saw my third and best, but still terrible option: the second story windows. There was an old fire escape that ran up to it, one that looked less stable than a snowman in summertime. Well, I had come this far, and I wasn't about to be defeated by a potential two-story fall onto a pile of twisted metal.
I scaled the fire escape with the most care I could manage, trying not to wince every time my weight shifted the whole thing or a creaking noise like a bolt was coming loose was heard. Eventually I made it to the second floor.
Most of the windows were shattered, but they still provided a bird's eye view of the assembly floor below and the catwalk that overlooked it. A final window on the end was filthy but intact, and this gave me a view of the back offices, where Darcy had apparently set up shop.
The offices weren't in much better shape than the assembly floor, though it looked like someone had at least taken the trouble to clean up the floors and clear the debris. There was power here, too, enough at least to run a few lights, probably from a small generator somewhere, or perhaps the city had never disconnected the factory's power and didn't notice the small usage.
Darcy sat at a desk with her back to me. A laptop was open in front of her and she was typing away, her fingers making an impressive display across the keyboard. I shifted to look through the least grimy part of the window and squinted to get a better look. When I still couldn't quite make out what was on her screen, I took out my phone and used the camera's zoom function to get a closer look.
She was setting up delivery routes and schedules. The things she was delivering all had code names, strings of numbers or nonsense words that masked what she was carrying. The schedule itself showed a character of great efficiency. Her routes through the city were plotted down to the minute, allowing for potential traffic, and even how long the handoff would take. I took a couple of pictures; this information could be handy if I ever needed to track her down again.
After a few minutes of this, Darcy scrolled up near the top of her schedule and started to type in a new entry. I steadied the phone to focus on it. 8:31 p.m. That was the time right now. Kurt realizes I know he is watching and comes inside.
I froze and my phone practically slipped from my grip when I realized I had been caught. She turned and smiled at me, and with a wave invited me in. Seeing no other choice (and also glad for the excuse to get off the fire escape before it finally collapsed), I cracked open the window enough to squeeze myself inside.
“Hello again, Kurt,” she said with a sly smile. “Fancy seeing you here.”
I coughed nervously. “Yeah. I was just in the neighborhood and thought I'd pop by.”
“For a friendly visit?”
“I'm hoping a friendly one, yeah.”
“I guess we will see.” She turned her attention back to her screen. “I have just a few more things to finish up. Take a seat and I'll be with you in a minute.”
I leaned against the frame of the window and whistled to show her how impressed I was. “So how long have you known …”
“Since the train,” she responded without looking up. “You’d have made a halfway decent spy, if you could have avoided looking at my ass when you thought I wasn’t looking.
Most of the furniture looked either moldy or on the verge of collapse, but there was one leather-upholstered chair that looked to be in reasonably good condition, so I took a seat. The moment I sank into it I realized that what the leather was fake, a cheap pleather that squeaked as I shifted.
After a few more minutes of typing Darcy closed the laptop and stood, then she stepped around the desk to stand in front of me. “I think I know why you're here.”
I decided to let her lead the conversation, rather than give myself away. “Do you?”
“You want to see whether or not I'm a monster.”
So she was, at the very least, aware of the supernatural. “Are you?”
She smiled, and her body began to change. Not drastically, but scars began to appear all over her, as if she was being cut a hundred times and those cuts were healing instantly. As it happened, the tickle in my head told me my instincts were finally picking up on her. Whatever she was, she wasn't a Succubus. But she definitely wasn't human either. When her transformation had finished, she had scars all up and down her arms, legs, and neck. “Depends on your definition of monster. I'm a shapechanger, and this is my true form. What's become of it, anyway.”
I examined the scars without getting closer to her. Both as a soldier and as a Hunter I had come across, and even received, all manner of scars, but I had never seen anything quite like this. She must have been practically torn apart, taking injuries no mortal would survive. “What happened to you?”
She sighed and looked uncomfortably at the floor. “Are you familiar with the Succubus who used to be more or less in charge of this city, Tandi Goren?”
I couldn't help the slight, close lipped smile that formed. “Know her? I'm the one who killed her.”
Darcy looked at me with a mixed expression that I had a tough time decoding. Her gaze was fixed on me and her lips were curled in a curious smile, but her arms were folded in front of herself defensively. It was as if part of her was impressed, but another part was upset by the news. “Well, then you probably knew she had spent years consolidating power among all the immortal creatures of New York. And that doesn't come without struggle. She had to fight off an incursion from overseas, and I was caught up in it—nearly killed by it, in fact. I swear that if I ever see the bastard who did this again, I’ll kill him.”
As she spoke her body began to shift back to its unscarred state, as if she was ashamed to show them for too long. My instincts slowly lost track of her as her form shifted. That is a dangerous power, if I can't detect it. I wonder how many other shapechangers I've met without realizing it.
“And who was it that did this to you?”
“Pembroke Harcourt.” She practically spat his name. “Real bastard of a mummy, despite the mannerly act he puts on. He's wanted control of New York for a long time, but Tandi stood in his way. I wouldn't doubt that he will make another play for it now that she’s gone.”
“Mummy?” I repeated, as I tended to do whenever I learned another B-Horror Movie creature was actually real. Something quickly came to me then. “Wait, do you think this Harcourt mummy could be responsible for the string of murders I've been looking into? They only began recently.”
“The ones where the victims were butchered?”
“Yeah. Well, more than that. They had entire chunks ripped out of them, and lines carved into their backs in a deliberate manner.”
She shook her head. “Not really Harcourt's style. He's too much a stiff for that kind of fighting.” Darcy paused for a moment and seemed to be contemplating something. “But if he's here, his rival may be as well, and that is certainly up her alley.”
“His rival?” I asked.
“That would be Benazir. But trust me, you don't want any part of her. She's powerful enough to give Tandi a run for her money on her worst days, and if she's behind what you have found … that means she's gaining power for something big, and you don't want to be around when it goes off.”
I had managed to get rid of Tandi, who was capturing and torturing women to turn them into Succubus to expand her own power, but in doing so I had created a power vacuum that other psychopathic immortals are trying to fill. And they didn’t care how many innocents died in the process.
Well, there is always one solution to the problem: kill them all until they stop coming.
I was so distracted by my thoughts that I didn't even notice that Darcy was now leaning over me, smiling. “You look so serious.”
Leaning back in my seat, I made n
o attempt to hide that fact that I was looking down her shirt. “A lot on my mind. But at least I had one worry resolved tonight: you. I'm glad you're not a monster. That would have made you considerably less attractive, although with your, ah, presence, not really a deal breaker.”
She leaned in closer, close enough that I could feel her breath. “So you do find me attractive, then.” She sat down on my lap and pressed against me, her skin smooth and soft and perfect. “Would you want me knowing what I am underneath?”
“I think what’s underneath makes me want you even more.” I let my eyes range over her, taking my time.
That gave her pause, then she melted onto me, her body warm and lithe under my questing hands. We stayed like that for a long moment, our mouths close but not touching, bodies touching but not connected. It was filled with possibility, and the anticipation grew with each passing heartbeat.
The first kiss was hesitant, the tip or her tongue reaching out to touch mine as she hovered in the moment. Then our lips met, we filled our hands with each other, and the warmth of her body suffused me with a need that grew fiercer as the kiss lingered.
We broke apart, but still so close her lips were brushing my cheek. “Do you want me?”
“Yes.”
“Show me,” she said.
So I did.
I lifted her shirt, exposing nipples the color of a peach, then began to kiss one, then the other, then easing down to flick my tongue along the line of her ribs. Her skin stippled in response, and I swept my thumb along the inside of her thigh, my touch firm through her clothes.
First kisses are good. The second was better.
By some unseen signal, our clothes came off in a frantic tangle, and she was back in my lap, naked, warm, and very, very close to me. With a stealthy hand, she took me in a grip of silk, stroking me to iron readiness and then easing onto me with a sigh.
Our movements were small, but the sensation was not. Every second inside her was a wonder, my hands on her soft hips, guiding, encouraging, squeezing. Her back arched like a cat and she began to move in a way that pulled at my root, a sensation of such irresistible pleasure that I drove her down, locked firmly in place by my grip.
She was having none of it.
She leaned down, kissing me hard. “Let go,” she whispered. “I will too.” She began rising and falling again, a pace slow enough that my mind could not decide if it was pleasure or punishment, but when I came--- hard, jolting, a gasp of laughter—I knew. It was pleasure. She clamped around me then, taking her own joy, a sheen of sweat bursting on her skin in seconds, head tilted back and silvery laughter filling the air before she collapsed, me still inside her, pulsing with the beat of my hammering heart.
“So you do want me,” she murmured.
I pushed into her, deep enough that she curled her lip, eyes closed and breathing hard.
“I do. Again.”
We had nothing but time. We used it, and used it well.
6
“A shapechanger, eh?” Lyanne tapped her chin, thoughtful. “I didn't think they were real. Imagine the possibilities …” By her tone, it was clear where her mind had gone.
Sara was quickly flipping through the pages of one of the Jack Johnson novels, old pulp-fiction paperbacks we had discovered were actually written by a previous Succubus Hunter as a way to pass down his knowledge. “The Succubus in this book had the ability to morph parts of her body, such as grow wings or bulk up her muscles. No complete shapeshifting, though.”
“Not a Succubus,” I agreed. “I already thoroughly explored that avenue. Shapechangers are something else, but she didn't give me too many details.” The three ladies of the estate and I were sitting around the dining room table, drinking one of Lyanne's expensive import wines and discussing the finer points of what Darcy being a shapechanger meant.
Eve was the only one who didn't seem interested in this conversation. “The important thing is what she said. If Tandi's old enemies are about to fight over control of the city, things are going to quickly get more dangerous for everyone, both mortal and immortal.”
With me caught in the middle. “It's still just a theory right now. We need more solid information. I should speak with Maura's source.”
Lyanne looked me in the eyes, which always demanded my immediate attention. “Are you sure about that, Kurt? Darcy might have a reason for wanting to keep what she is secret. Will you give up that secret to Maura?”
I was certainly feeling guilty about it, but I knew this was what had to be done. “There isn't much choice. We have to figure out why people are dying before the number of victims starts to escalate, and we have no other leads. Hopefully Darcy will understand.”
She didn’t look convinced, but she was not going to argue it any further. “Should I come with you?”
I thought about it for a moment, but in the end I shook my head. “It's best I do this myself. Maura is probably more likely to be comfortable introducing me to her source if it’s just me. Stay here and see if you can't help Sara with her research. Never know when it’s gonna to turn up something useful.”
Sara perked up at the mention of her name. She had been somewhat absorbed by her reading, and she hadn't even touched her wine glass. “Oh! I know exactly what we could look into! There are these online journals—medical journals. Actually, they were physical journals that have just recently been transcribed for online databases. Anyway, they have a cool sorting function we could use to find other cases of male lethargy that might point to Succubus activity. If we cross-reference times and places, link them up with specific symptoms, add in what we already know …” She trailed off, mumbling to herself.
Lyanne gave me a look that said, Rescue me.
I finished my glass, patted her on the shoulder, and said, “Good luck.”
The Dispensary was once again packed with its usual mixed crowd of hipsters and immortals, but this time it didn’t take me long to get Maura's attention. No sooner had I sat down at the bar, than Maura appeared in front of me.
She looked around at the other patrons, aware that it was too crowded here with mortals to talk openly. “Did you figure it out?”
I nodded and pointed a finger back to her kitchen, indicating we should speak privately there. Without responding, she turned and began making her way through the crowd toward it. I got up to follow, although while Maura moved through the crowd with the smooth grace of running water, flowing around the packed room without ever slowing, my own path was much more awkward and involved ducking a few elbows from inebriated patrons.
The kitchen was empty save for one balding man working the fryers. Maura led me into a walk-in fridge where we could speak privately. Fortunately, I was so used to stalking the cold nights of the city by this point that I barely felt the fridge's cool.
Maura put her hands on her hips expectantly. “So what did you find out?”
“Before that, I want to make sure I have your guarantee that you are going to introduce me to your source, this ghoul.”
She sighed, her breath forming a white mist cloud in front of her. “Yes. We already shook on it, didn't we? I'm not one to back out of a deal.”
That remained to be seen, but all I could do for now was trust she was a woman of her word. I recounted my pursuit of Darcy from the bar, though I was vague to the warehouse's location, just in case, and the things Darcy had told me about who she was. I ended the story before things got intimate between the two of us, because sharing that seemed a bit unwarranted. Darcy had gifted me something worth keeping, and I wasn’t ready to share my experience with anyone else. Yet.
Maura's face went from a sort of triumphant smirk when she realized she was right about Darcy, to downcast and guilt ridden in a matter of moments. “So that's what it was. That fool. She could have told me. I would have looked out for her.” She sighed and shook her head. “She was always so secretive, and the way she always pretended like she was unaware of the immortals around her or who she even worked for … I tho
ught she was hiding something big. Instead we invaded the privacy of an innocent shapechanger.”
The we in that sentence got my hackles up. “I was just doing a job. You’re the one who was feeling nosy.”
The look on her face told me she already knew that. “I am the guilty party here. Hopefully Darcy will forgive me.” After another deep breath that filled the air in front of her with mist, she turned to exit the fridge. “Well, no point in delaying it. I'll take you to Voortmann now. Come on, I'm driving.”
I chased her quick strides out of the kitchen and back into the main area of the bar, where she instructed the bartender to look after the place while we were gone. Then we were out in the street and heading around the back of the bar where a small, white car was parked. I'd grown a bit spoiled with cars since Lyanne had joined me, since she always insisted on driving the newest and most fashionable vehicles. While Maura’s car was not a clunker, it showed its age around the edges. The doors stuck a little, the passenger side window only opened halfway the seats had a few small burns and had that smell of cigarette smoke that would never come out.
“So where are we going exactly?” I asked as she pulled the car into traffic.
Maura lit up a cigarette with an urgency that suggested she had been waiting for one for a while. She drove with one hand and held the cigarette out the window with the other. “A morgue.” She took a drag off her cigarette then said, “Well, that's the best way to describe it, anyway. It's not one you’ll find in the Yellow Pages. There's actually no record of it anywhere, so you'd never find it if you weren't already aware of its existence.”
Succubus Hunter 2 (The Succubus Series) Page 4