If his insight into the way that British government interacted with its businesses wasn’t so valuable, I might not have spent the effort to keep him on task. One of the government forms he explained to us as being an outdated familial relation disclosure form, unsuccessfully used as a method to curb nepotism.
Sara’s eyes lit up when she saw the name on the form, and she began rapidly digging through her notes, mumbling to herself and checking pages until she found what she was looking for. With an “Ah-ha! It’s in that book!” she reached to the bottom of one of the piles and pulled an ancient leather-bound book, knocking the rest of the pile over and sending papers scattering in all directions. Sara didn’t seem to take notice of it because she was already rapidly flipping through pages, an expression somewhere between frenzy and glee on her face.
The book was clearly ancient, as evidenced by the yellowing of the pages and the wear of the cover. Each page crinkled under Sara’s ungentle touch and seemed ready to crumble into flakes at any moment, but through either quality of the paper or luck, the book held together as got to the page she was looking for.
“Here!” she declared triumphantly. “I knew the name on that form was familiar. It’s a name Tandi Goren used to go by a long time ago. And that would make the other name on the form …”
“Her relative?” The idea struck me as odd. “That means Tandi has a family?” I didn’t know why that was so weird to me; even monsters had to come from somewhere. But Tandi had struck me as a solitary evil, a lone source of darkness which I had snuffed out. The idea that she might have pissed off relatives somewhere that could seek revenge did not sit well.
“Had, anyway.” Sara slid to book over to me. “Or, at least, people she claimed to be her relatives, though whether the relationship was blood or just a cover for her servants I can’t be sure. But look here, on all these pages, the people listed have the same family name.”
On the dry yellow pages, I could just make out the faded writing. Names of people in the margins, followed by a date from the mid-1800s, a few notes about physical appearances, and the word “Dragoman,” which I didn’t recognize. As Sarah had pointed out, all the names on the open pages did share a family name.
“What am I looking at?”
“It’s an old record of visiting dignitaries, from before Photo IDs were a thing. These ones were all from Britain in the 1800s, and they were all part of the same family.”
“So they were all visiting dignitaries, these … Dragoman?”
Culverton caught that one. “Dragomen were like a mix of guide and ambassador who worked around the Ottoman Empire, back when that was a thing. Not sure what so many of them were doing visiting America, but they were technically diplomats and could go where they were needed.”
I muddled over the implications of all this, trying to see what Sara had connected. “So Tandi had her family placed into positions of power where they would have authority and access. Sounds like her style. But does this tell us anything important about our current situation?”
“Yes—I mean, probably. I think so. Flip ahead a few pages. The Dragomen made another trip to the US just a few years later, but their names were all different. Not a single member of Tandi’s family that time.”
Culverton peered over my shoulder as I did so, completely disregarding my personal space to get close enough to read the dates. “That’s around the time that Benazir first started making her appearance in Britain. I remember because, well, things always get quite bloody whenever she’s around.” He licked his lips as if he had just read from a gourmet menu.
That hardly seemed like a coincidence to me. “Do you think Benazir had something to do with her diplomats being replaced?”
Culverton shrugged. “If it had to do with Benazir, they wouldn’t just be replaced, they would be killed.”
Sara looked thoughtful as she tried to remember where something else was in her disaster of a paper pile. “Right after, all Tandi’s businesses in Britain either closed or moved overseas, and new ones would form over here under another of her aliases. Maybe she had lost control to Benazir and fled to New York to start over?”
The thought of an enemy brutal enough to send someone like Tandi running was not a comforting one. “If our assumptions are correct, it tells us a lot about how Benazir operates. She isn’t going to try and take control of Tandi’s network directly, she’ll try and remove any traces of it and replace it with her own.”
“And somehow, Pembroke Harcourt is tied into all this,” Culverton reminded me. “Whatever he is doing behind the scenes must be at odds with what Benazir is trying to achieve, hence the bodies.”
Darcy sighed and set down her stack of papers. She tried to rub the tiredness out of her eyes. “It’s all very interesting, but it still doesn’t tell us where she is or how we can get to her.” She rose and pushed away from the table. “I think I need to go stretch my legs.”
A break sounded great to me. “I’ll join you.” I looked to Sara, who was already back to her reading. “You could take a break, too, Sara. Don’t overwork yourself.”
“Work?” Sara asked, before shrugging and getting back to it.
Darcy and I walked toward the front door, past the lounge Lyanne and Eve had taken their share of the reading to in order to get distance from Culverton. It seemed they already had the idea to take a break as they were drinking wine and laughing together. The empty bottle beside them suggested that this was not their first glass.
I took her for a walk through the estate’s grounds, through the garden, which still showed signs of the damage done to it when I confronted three of Tandi’s Sisters of Pain there, past the pool, which was closed up for the season, and around the back where the sugar shack stood. Handsome Teddy was nowhere to be seen, which was a shame since Darcy hadn’t been introduced to the notorious bull moose yet.
We walked close together to help fight against the cold, wandering idly until we came across the old barn at the far end of the property, a relic from the days it had been a working farm. Nowadays it didn’t see much use except as storage for the supplies for the gardeners. Nevertheless, we found ourselves compelled to go inside, if only to get out of the cold for a moment.
Darcy climbed up the hayloft, the old wood proving to be surprisingly sturdy for its age, and sat at its edge. I pulled myself up after her. For a while we just sat there in silence, our feet swinging over the edge of the hayloft, our bodies close together for warmth. It was … comfortable. I let the silence grow between us, but it was welcome, and after a moment, she leaned toward me, her shoulder soft on mine.
“I like it here,” she said at last. “The countryside, I mean. It’s so quiet, peaceful. When it’s not being attacked by golems, anyway.”
“Or an ancient and powerful Succubi.”
“The city, I enjoy the busyness of it, I suppose, but it can be so … sometimes it feels like it is closing in around me, you know? Like it’s so thick with people and smoke and cars and noise, you can hardly even breath you’re so cramped. I don’t have that problem here. I can breathe and think and feel … a kind of freedom.”
I put my hand on hers. “You’re welcome here whenever you want, for as long as you want. You can consider my home a kind of safe harbor from the rigors of the city. There’s a reason I have this place. Quiet is a force all its own, and we have it here. We have—I don’t want to say an absence of things, more like a presence. That’s it. The quiet is a presence, and in the stillness, you can refill anything in your soul that the city takes. Being here is more than rest. It’s a tiny bit of rebirth, and we need it because of what we do. We’re not some employee being burned out by the city. We’re hunters. Our work can kill us, and for that, we need a place like this. A place that’s a little bit slow, and out of time. That’s why you’re welcome here.”
She cast me a kind of suspicious look. “I suppose, in exchange, you get to have me.”
I just laughed. “I only want women who want me. You’re safe here
, and you can stay when and for as long as you want.”
There was a long moment in which Darcy just looked at me and I looked back at her, time seeming to come to a crawl. Then she slowly shifted and slid into my lap, twining her arms around me like soft ivy.
“I want you,” she said, and when I went to say something, she put a finger on my lips. “Let me say something first, because you’re terrible at taking compliments, and you need to hear this.”
“Ok.” I’m no fool. I shut up.
“I would not be scooting into your lap with bad intentions,” she said, pulling her shirt off, “if I didn’t want to be here.” In a stunning demonstration of flexibility, she removed the rest of her clothes, unbuckled my belt, and had my pants down in a matter of seconds. Then she took my shirt off, ran her hands over my chest, and nipped playfully at my collarbone, all before finishing her sentence. “So,” she said, reaching down and stroking me to diamond hardness, all while smiling, “I. Want. You. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got something important to do.”
She slid back, winked, and took every inch of my in her mouth, head moving slowly, then faster, then staying utterly still except for the wonder of her tongue, which moved around my head in delicate circles.
“Did I mention you can have your own bathroom, and, um, hell, whatever else you want?” I managed to say. Even that seemed like quite an achievement, given her skill.
“Mmm-hmm,” was her only answer, and it made my body ring like a bell.
“As long as we’re clear on that,” I said, easing back as my leg muscles began to twitch from her relentless tongue.
There was no answer this time, only a pop as she pulled her mouth away, smiled, and climbed into my lap, spreading her legs and taking me in yet again, but in a different place.
“My turn,” I said after a moment. I lifted her with ease, laying her down and placing kisses at the tender nexus of each hip. She giggled, so I moved away toward the middle, then down, my nose tickled by the fine hairs that greeted me. With the tip of my tongue, I parted her lips and began my own circles in a lazy pattern that grew more firm with each lap around her hooded center.
A hiss escaped her, then her hands gripped my hair as I begin to close in on the goal. I altered directions and speed, then settled into a final pattern once her breath changed from gasps to whimpers, the sound coming hard and fast with each lap of my tongue.
She came apart, shattered by the orgasms first wave, and its second, and then the final hurrah, leaving her dewy with sweat, flushed, and smiling into one hand draped over her eyes.
“This is the greatest farm in the history of the world,” Darcy said, her voice thick with lingering passion.
“Thought you might like it,” I said, pulling her to me. “Take a seat.”
She kissed me as I slipped inside her again, and this time, I wouldn’t stop. “Thought you’d never ask.”
11
We still didn’t have a solid lead on Benazir. Culverton had returned to his work, claiming his contribution was more than enough, and I was getting antsy just sitting around and waiting for another golem to show up at my front door, so I decided to pay Maura another visit. Perhaps what we had discovered would ring a bell with her and she would be able to point us in the right direction.
Before I had fully descended the stairs leading to The Dispensary’s simple door, I knew something was wrong. My instincts always acted up when I got close to Maura’s, a consequence of her diverse clientele. What I felt at that moment wasn’t so much the usual tingling sensations as it was someone taking a hammer to the back of my brain.
I turned just in time to see something rushing down the stairs toward me at inhuman speed. By instinct The Night Fail was there and shooting out toward my assailant’s center. A cloud of dust filled the air, expanding rapidly from the point of impact like I had struck an old rug. It did nothing to slow the momentum of the rapidly closing figure.
The staircase was too narrow for me to try and get out of its way, so I took a step down and tried to pull the flail back to me in time to make another swing. There wasn’t enough time. I was tackled at the legs and went tumbling the last few steps to the door. Thankfully I was able to get my arms up in time to shield my head and neck from the worst of the fall’s impact.
At the moment I didn’t know if the creature was here for me or Maura. It was possible I had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time as one of Maura’s enemies made a play for her. She had a strict neutrality policy in The Dispensary, so anyone who wished to commit violence there had to recognize they would also be up against Maura’s not inconsiderable resources.
I decided it was worth finding out. If the creature, which I could now make out was a small, thin man with wrinkled skin and violence in his eyes, was sent by Benazir or Pembroke, it might be able to tell me something. The easiest way to tell was to run and see if it followed me or proceeded into the bar. Plus, the bottom of the stairs wasn’t a great place to fight.
Whatever he was now towered over me on the ground, doing a good job of being imposing despite his small stature. He reached down for me, and I rolled, flipping over to my front and pushing myself onto all fours. I then kicked off the door and pushed past the creature as he turned. I scrambled up the first few steps that way before pulling myself back upright and running up the last of them.
I turned and saw that my speedy new friend was indeed following after me, not so much running up the stairs as seeming to leap between them. Fighting it in the middle of the street in broad daylight would only attract attention, so I turned to find a secluded spot in which we might be able to have a violent exchange of ideas. There was a small alley that led to the dumpsters of the local shops. It was an enclosed space perfect for keeping away from prying eyes.
It also left me with no means of escape should something go wrong. Got to take the good with the bad.
My assailant stood at the mouth of the alley, as if his glare alone could cause me to drop dead. I idly wondered if there were creatures in this world that could actually do that. Maybe I should pick up a pair of sunglasses.
I gave the creature a smile and a wave. “Hey, buddy. We doing this or what? I’ve got places to be.”
“Another fool rushes to his death.” His voice was deep and gravelly, like he had just swallowed a pile of sand. There was also a hint at an accent, one I couldn’t place but that sounded oddly … ancient.
“I’m rushing somewhere, anyway. I was about to grab a drink, you know, at the bar, the door of which you tried to smash my head against. If you’d like to do this later, I’ll buy you a beer.”
The creature apparently had no sense of humor. “Is that what you have to offer for defense? Jokes and pettiness? I’m disappointed.”
“Well, that’s not all I have.” I held out The Night Flail and wound it up, ready to strike the moment he moved.
“Your toys can not harm me.” To prove the point, he started to approach me, not in the rapid rush he had been in while ambushing me, but a slow, methodical walk, one step after another.
I decided to call his bluff and struck out at him, this time in a horizonal swipe aimed at his head. It hit, but there was no crack or thwack or any of the other noises I’d come to associate with the flail striking flesh. Instead there was more of a poof as another cloud of dust rose in the air. The creature’s head wasn’t moved so much as an inch.
He continued to stalk toward me, a smug grin plastered on his face. I pulled the flail back and held it at the ready, trying to decide on my next move. It seemed that my target was completely immune to it. This wasn’t like when I fought the golem and the flail just felt like it wasn’t striking hard enough, this felt like it wasn’t having any impact at all.
Shrugging, I allowed the flail to disappear and put myself into position to engage in hand-to-hand combat. I’d been practicing in styles that allowed me to use the superior strength of immortals against them and was getting pretty good at it, though I would still prefer to fight
with The Night Flail if I had a choice. I didn’t think this was going to be a way to kill the creature in front of me, but perhaps when I got my hands on him I would be able to determine the secret that was rendering the flail impotent.
“Hands it is, then, asshole,” I said. “Among other things.”
To win this fight, I would need a secret weapon of my own. I closed my eyes for just a moment, and when I opened them again, I awakened my sight.
Just in time, too, it turned out. The creature stepped within a few feet of me, and without giving up anything on its face, suddenly sprang forward at inhuman speed. My sight showed me my assailant’s path and allowed me to shift myself out of the way, allowing him to spring past me for a step before I grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him toward me. His momentum compelled him forward and he went colliding with the dumpster.
I was treated to a series of curses arranged in a new and repulsive order as the creature pulled himself from the pile of garbage that had collapsed atop him. It gave me the opportunity to examine the layer of powder that had come off on my hand when I touched him. The powder had the consistency of ash, but was lighter and more fine. This must have been the stuff I had taken to be dust when I hit him with the flail.
As my enemy rose and began stepping lightly toward me again, I focused on his skin, trying to find the source of the powder, but his flesh seemed normal, if slightly pale, to me.
My sight alerted me to his lunge and I ducked low while kicking out with my right foot. His fist soared over my head as my kick connected with his knee. The powder rose through the air as I felt my foot being deflected as if by a spring. It through me off balance and I stumbled, just barely righting myself in time to twist out of the way of a straight jab that split the air with a vicious whoosh. The fucker was fast and tough.
Succubus Hunter 2 (The Succubus Series) Page 10