Sudden Death

by Donald Hanley

  Amy blew a raspberry and flounced back to her chair. “My way’s better,” she grumbled. We all ignored her.

  “I need to change quick,” Melissa said, plucking at her blouse as she got to her feet. “I can’t battle the forces of evil in a skirt and heels.” She headed for our bedroom and then paused and glanced back at me. “Come help me pick out something, Peter.”

  “Just wear something comfortable,” I told her. I was too worried about the incubus to care about the color of her t-shirt.

  “Peter,” she said firmly, her dark eyes flashing, “I said come help me.”

  I gulped nervously. “I’ll, uh, be right back,” I told the others.

  “I, too, needs must ready myself,” Daraxandriel declared. “I have journeyed far this day and fought many foes and I would refresh myself ere we depart.”

  “Just hurry,” Dad said, with the resigned air of a man long accustomed to waiting for the womenfolk to get ready.

  “We will,” Melissa promised. She grabbed my wrist and pulled me down the hallway and shoved me into the bedroom. She closed the door and locked it before kicking off her heels. “Hurry up!” She unzipped her skirt and let it fall to the floor.

  “Um, what are you doing?” I asked uneasily.

  “You heard your father. We only have time for a quickie.” She wriggled her pantyhose down past her hips and then peeled them down her legs.

  “That’s not what he said!”

  “That’s what I heard.” She unbuttoned her blouse just enough to be able to pull it over her head. She flung it aside and reached behind her back to unclasp her bra.

  “We really don’t have time for this,” I protested. “Everyone’s waiting – oh my God.” Her bra came loose and slipped down her arms, revealing those perfect pale mounds, and my brain locked up. I had intimate knowledge of every square inch of her body now but that didn’t prevent a sense of awe and wonder from flooding through me every time I saw her like that.

  “Get your pants off,” she ordered. She shimmied out of her panties, grimacing in distaste. “Ugh, I’m all sticky. Next time we do it at work, wear a condom, okay? I’ll start the shower so we can jump straight in after we’re done.”

  She hurried towards the bathroom and then stopped, looking down at her feet. She picked up Susie’s bikini top and stretched it out between her fingers. “This isn’t mine.” The two Lycra triangles had absolutely no hope of covering her up, although the caveman portion of my brain wouldn’t have minded watching them try. “Peter,” she asked, her eyes narrowing accusingly, “whose swimsuit is this?”

  “That’s Susie’s,” I explained hastily. “She was in here, um, changing.” And stealing your makeup, I thought, but she didn’t need to know that. “Why don’t you just go ahead and take your shower?” I suggested hopefully. “I’m going to change into my own clothes.” The shirt and shorts I borrowed from Dad made me look like a kid wearing hand-me-downs.

  Melissa stared at me like I just kicked her puppy. “Don’t you want me?”

  “I do,” I assured her, “I really do, but my dad’s out there!”

  “I’ll try to be quiet this time, I promise.”

  “That’s not the point! Well, it is, but we don’t have time for sex. Everyone’s waiting for us, remember?”

  “But it’s the first time we’ve been alone since you came back for me,” she complained. She was standing right in front of me now. “I’m tired of pretending I’m on their side. Make love to me, Peter, like you did before.”

  “What do you mean, pretend – mmph!” Melissa grabbed my head and jammed our lips together, pressing herself against me. I tried to protest but her tongue got in the way of mine. I put my hands on her shoulders to pry us apart but she resisted with surprising strength. I finally arched back enough to free my mouth from hers. “Melissa, stop!” She wrapped her arms around my chest, squeezing tight, and something warm and slippery rubbed against my thigh. “Simon says, stop!”

  She released me instantly and stepped back, standing motionless like a store manikin awaiting a new outfit. Her face was blank and her eyes were wide and almost all pupil.

  “Oh, no,” I breathed. I waved my hand in front of her face and she didn’t react at all. “Melissa,” I asked carefully, “are you still under my control?”

  “Yes,” she said calmly.

  “What did you mean by pretending? Have you been following his – I mean, my orders all this time?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Oh my God.” I hadn’t released her from Not-Peter’s control, I just prevented him from giving her any new orders. Susie was probably the same way. “What did I tell you to do?”

  “Pretend that I’m still free if the other witches contact me. Join up with them and let you know what they’re planning to do. Kill Dara if I see her and get the journal back.” She blinked and frowned. “Except I love Dara.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” I told her urgently. “Simon says, you love Dara more than anything. She’s your very best friend.” I raked my hands through my hair, trying to make sense of this gut-wrenching revelation. “Did you contact him – me – at all after I gave you those orders?”

  “No, I haven’t had the chance. My phone’s back at Mrs. Kendricks’ house, remember?”

  “Okay, don’t do that. I mean, Simon says, ignore any orders I gave you before we left your office today. Understand?”

  “I understand.” Her frown deepened. “So what should I do, then?”

  “Simon says, go take your shower and get dressed, then help us and the other free witches as much as you can. Do whatever you can to keep the incubus from taking control of them. But don’t hurt anyone!” I added hastily. Melissa might decide that wiping out Mrs. Kendricks’ entire neighborhood with a Dark Void spell would be the best way to keep everyone else safe.

  “Okay.” She turned away and walked into the bathroom. A few moments later, I heard the shower come on.

  “Oh my God,” I sighed, shaking my head. “What do I do now?”

  Nothing, Little Peter argued. It doesn’t matter if she’s still bewitched or whatever as long as she’s following your orders, right? In fact, he added slyly, this is much better. She’ll do anything you want now, and I mean anything.

  Shut up! I unlocked the door and hurried across the hall to the second bedroom, which was a bedroom in name only since it didn’t actually contain a bed. It served mostly as a storeroom for my clothes and boxes of stuff we hadn’t found places for yet.

  My police uniform lay scattered across the floor where Not-Peter had discarded it and I nudged the articles into a pile to be dealt with later. I changed into jeans and a t-shirt and jammed my feet into my second-best sneakers – the incubus was apparently wearing my good ones – before returning to the living room.

  Dad was pacing back and forth, perusing something on his phone, while Amy sprawled sideways across the lounger. Olivia sat in my chair looking glum but she perked up when she caught sight of me.

  “Peter!” she smiled and then she caught sight of my face. “What’s wrong?”

  “We have a problem,” I told her uneasily.

  “What is it?” Dad asked.

  Melissa’s a double agent, I thought bleakly. Susie and Allison are too, probably. We can’t trust anything they say or do. They could turn on us at any moment. We have to get rid of them somehow. The problem with that was that we desperately needed them. We’d never be able to get close enough to Not-Peter on our own, not with Mrs. Kendricks and Agent Morgan protecting him. We had to take him by surprise and pound him with every spell we could bring to bear, which meant we had to have Susie and Melissa on our side. Unless we do what Amy suggested and just surrender all the witches. I rejected that option immediately.

  “Peter?” Dad prompted me with a concerned frown.

  What if I’m wrong, though? I wondered. If I tell him Melissa and the others are traitors, they’ll never trust them again. I can’t do that to them. I let my breath out in a long gloom
y sigh. “There’s no way we can reach the incubus as long as he’s at Mrs. Kendricks’ house,” I told him. “She has wards all over it and we’ll never get past their defenses.”

  “So what do you suggest, then?”

  “We’re going to have to set a trap for him, something that will lure him out into the open.”

  “He’ll expect us to do something like that,” Dad pointed out.

  “Right, which means it has to be something he can’t resist, something he has to do himself.”

  “Such as?”

  “I have no idea,” I sighed. “That’s the problem.”

  “You could always give up,” Amy suggested from the lounger. “Sooner or later he’ll reach his limit.” She waggled the journal at me as a reminder.

  “Tempting as that may seem,” Dad noted dryly, “I don’t think we’re ready to wave the white flag just yet. Let’s get over to the station. Maybe one of the others will have some ideas.”

  “I don’t think any of them has seen a demon before,” I said glumly, “other than Dara.” And Amy, I supposed, although I still wasn’t clear on exactly what she was.

  “At least they know what demons are,” Dad argued, “which is more than I could say a month ago. We don’t have a lot of options here, Peter.” He glanced at his watch and grimaced. “How long does it take to change clothes?”

  “Melissa’s taking a shower. Dara, too, probably.”

  Dad muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “Women” and went back to his pacing. I sat at Melissa’s computer and perused the coven’s roster, trying to put faces to the names and wondering why I wasn’t friends with all of them. I was one of them now, after all, more or less.

  I didn’t really care about them until Lilixandriel showed up and started throwing demon lords at me, I reminded myself. And afterwards I was busy with the move and Melissa and the internship. I promised myself I’d get to know them better after all this was over. The survivors, anyway, I thought despondently.

  The hands on the mantelpiece clock seemed to be stuck as we waited for Melissa and Daraxandriel to reappear. I didn’t have my phone to fiddle with like Dad did and it didn’t seem like the time to fire up Legends of Lorecraft. Finally, though, the sound of the bedroom door opening and closing heralded Melissa’s approach.

  She was makeup-free and still a bit damp, clad in a white polo shirt, a navy tennis skirt, and sneakers. She was doing her hair up in a ponytail and the fabric of her shirt stretched tight across her chest, making it obvious that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  “Almost ready,” she announced around the elastic dangling from her lips. “I’m just going to check on Dara.” She disappeared down the stairs before I could do more than blink.

  “That’s what you picked out for her?” Dad asked doubtfully.

  “I had nothing to do with that,” I assured him. “That’s all on her.” Melissa wasn’t known for her exhibitionistic tendencies, though, and I had to wonder why she decided to go freestyle in the middle of the current crisis. Maybe it’s just a side-effect of the incubus’s influence, I guessed uneasily. Or maybe there’s something else going on. “Olivia, why don’t you go make sure Melissa and Dara are okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t they be?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, that’s why I want you to check on them.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” she frowned. “Are you just trying to get rid of me so you and your dad can have a man-talk or something?”

  “Amy’s still here,” I pointed out, “and she’s a girl, technically.” Amy rewarded me with another raspberry. “Go on. Give us a holler when everyone’s ready to go.”

  “Okay,” she agreed reluctantly. “I still think you’re trying to get rid of me.” She got up and walked over to the stairs, giving me a suspicious look over her shoulder before she descended out of sight.

  “Watching you talk to a ghost makes me question your sanity,” Dad confessed. “I’d suggest seeing a shrink if I didn’t know better.”

  “I might need one after all this is over,” I told him. “I’m not sure –”

  “Peter!” Olivia’s shrill call brought me to my feet with my heart pounding. “Get down here!”

  “Olivia!” I raced for the stairs, bounding down three steps at a time and almost twisting my ankle on the landing when I changed directions. I burst into the second floor hallway and spotted Olivia standing just outside her bedroom, one hand over her mouth and the other one pointing into the room. “What’s wrong?”

  “Stop her!” she shouted. “Get her off Dara!”

  “Shit!” Visions of Melissa following her orders to kill Daraxandriel flashed through my mind and I jumped through Olivia into the room. I found Melissa straddling Daraxandriel on her bed, gripping her head and biting her neck like she was trying to rip her throat out. Daraxandriel’s writhed under her, pushing at Melissa’s shoulders to try to free herself as her tail wrapped itself around Melissa’s thigh.

  “Stop!” I yelled. I grabbed Melissa around the waist and tried to pull her off but she held on with all her strength. “Simon says, stop!”

  Melissa immediately let Daraxandriel go and sat up, looking at me with a puzzled frown. “What are you doing, Peter?” she asked, annoyed at the interruption.

  “What are you doing? Dara, are you okay?” Daraxandriel tried to lever herself up on one elbow, rubbing her neck with her free hand. She was naked except for a damp towel tangled around her waist. “Are you hurt?” I asked anxiously.

  “Nay,” she said, shaking her head. “I was taken unawares by Melissa’s unheralded attentions but I am unharmed.”

  “Peter!” Dad appeared in the doorway, his hand on the grip of his service pistol. “What’s –?” He paused and took in the scene. “Would someone care to explain what’s going on here?”

  “Melissa was trying to kill Dara,” I told him grimly. There was no denying it now. She was still under Not-Peter’s control.

  “No, I wasn’t,” Melissa insisted. “I would never hurt Dara.”

  “They were kissing!” Olivia insisted, sounding aggrieved. “Right in front of me!”

  “Kissing?” I echoed doubtfully. “You weren’t biting her neck?” I asked Melissa incredulously.

  “Well, I might have given her a little nibble,” Melissa confessed, looking away as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Wait, let me get this straight. You came down here to make out with Dara?”

  “Of course,” she said, as if that was the most natural thing in the world to do. “I love her more than anything.”

  “Oh my God,” I breathed as everyone else stared at her open-mouthed. This was my fault. My attempt to keep Melissa from killing Daraxandriel turned her feelings for her on their head and now she was convinced she was in love with her. I had to fix this before things got even further out of hand. “Melissa, listen to me. Simon says –” Melissa gazed at me, waiting for my command, but I faltered. I’d already caused one problem by being careless with my words. What if I screwed things up even worse? “Never mind, cancel that,” I sighed. “I’ll think of something later. Just let Dara up, okay?”

  Melissa frowned, as if she didn’t want to obey, but she dismounted Daraxandriel’s torso, or at least tried to. Daraxandriel’s tail still held her leg in a death grip.

  “Are you sure you didn’t encourage her?” I asked Daraxandriel suspiciously.

  “Nay!” Daraxandriel protested. “I spurned her advances, yet still she forced herself upon me. I feared I would hurt her, were I to use my full strength to dislodge her.”

  “Your tail doesn’t seem to agree,” I pointed out.

  “Pay it no heed!” she insisted. She tried to tug it loose but it hung on for dear life, its spade head hiding under Melissa’s skirt. “It is drawn to the taint of the demon’s touch, as a bee seeks the scent of a flower.”

  Dad cleared his throat. “Dara, why don’t you finish getting dressed? Melissa and I will wait
for you in the Jeep.”

  “But –” Melissa started to argue but then she caught Dad’s eye. “Yes, sir,” she agreed meekly.

  It took all three of us to unwind the tail and free Melissa but she finally slid off the bed and followed Dad out of the bedroom, casting one final forlorn look over her shoulder. Daraxandriel stood and fluffed up her spiky hair, trying to appear nonchalant. There was a dark spot on her neck that looked a lot like a hickey.

  “Bide but a moment,” she said, “whilst I find suitable clothing.” She surveyed the contents of her closet with her fists on her hips while her tail flicked back and forth like a cat’s. Olivia watched her with narrowed eyes and pouting lips.

  “I don’t think Dara should be kissing other girls,” she complained. “Just because I’m a ghost again doesn’t mean she can just dump me like that.”

  “I think it was the other way around,” I told her. “Melissa was kissing her. Olivia,” I explained to Daraxandriel when she looked back at me. “The incubus kind of messed up Melissa’s mind.” I wasn’t ready to admit my own culpability just yet.

  “He told Melissa to make a move on Dara?” she asked with a dubious grimace. “I thought she was supposed to kill her.”

  “For the incubus to attempt seduction instead of violence against me would be an unexpected tactic,” Daraxandriel observed thoughtfully. I was momentarily distracted as she wrestled her own white polo shirt over her head, struggling to get her horns through the neck hole. “Melissa’s advances were most disconcerting,” she admitted.

  I cleared my throat awkwardly. “Well, I doubt seducing you to get the journal back is really a winning strategy, especially since Amy has it now.” I couldn’t imagine Melissa giving Amy a hickey no matter what compulsions she was under.

  I can, Little Peter informed me.

  Daraxandriel pulled a pleated plaid skirt from its hanger and stepped into it, tucking her tail underneath before zipping up the side. I couldn’t help but wonder why she ended up picking the same sort of outfit Melissa was wearing.

  Maybe she wasn’t as bothered by Melissa as she pretended, Little Peter suggested slyly. Dara’s very strong, after all. She should have been able to push her off if she really wanted to.