by Tom Bont
Icy cold gripped Angela’s neck. Before she could react, the ghostly old woman stood in front of her, clutching her by the throat with an overpowering clasp. Angela’s feet dangled while she struggled for air. The specter swiped her pistol from her hand and into the tall grass. Its gaze burrowed deep into her eyes. A memory, one she had never experienced, rushed up: she lay on a slab of granite while a dark nebulous being with her brother’s face took her without remorse or sorrow.
The witch muttered in a throaty tongue. Angela understood the meaning of the words even if she didn’t recognize them. “You’re the other half and not mine!”
It dropped her to the ground and glided back to Clint.
Aghast, Angela rolled over and glowered at the ghost. It raised its claw into the air, preparing to skin Clint like her previous three victims.
Too far away to stop it! No weapon!
She shoved herself off the ground, and a familiar object molded itself into her fist; Clint’s pistol.
She fired three shots into the ghost’s back.
With a shriek louder than the previous two, it dissipated into a rainbow fog, filling the air with the scent of a recently field-dressed carcass.
Angela rushed over to her partner and checked his pulse. Her shoulders slumped in relief to find him alive.
“How you feeling this morning,” Angela asked as they sat down for breakfast.
“Like shit,” Clint groaned. “I think I’m coming down with something.” He set his cup of coffee down. “Maybe I was off my game last night. Didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“No worries. I…hello…” she muttered as she peered over Clint’s shoulder.
An old Indian—older than anyone she’d ever set eyes on before—stared at them as he sauntered over to their table. He wore a copper-colored snakeskin blazer over a black, silk shirt buttoned up under a turquoise bolo, matching black slacks, and cowboy boots with shiny, gold tips on the toes. He slouched when he walked, but there was still strength in his legs. As he approached, his skin revealed itself weathered and as wrinkled as a wadded-up paper bag. He’d pulled his hair back so tightly into a ponytail, his head was as smooth as a bowling ball. And it didn’t show the first sign of gray.
He stopped next to their table. “Are you the FBI agents?”
Angela was embarrassed to admit it, but she expected a Native American accent, “How” or something, not his flawless English. “Yes,” she said as she and Clint stood up. “Can we help you?”
“Not really, no. But I can help you.”
Clint waved his hand at a chair. “I’m Senior Special Agent Clint Lane. This is Senior Special Agent Angela Hollingsworth. Why don’t you have a seat and tell us who you are.”
“Thank you.” The old man sat down and scooted his chair close to the table. It didn’t look like he planned on leaving anytime soon. “My name is Lorne Tall Water. I’m a Wichita, and probably the closest thing my nation has to a shaman these days.”
Mr. Tall Water reached across the table and took a piece of Angela’s toast. She chuckled to herself and stopped. She had no concern about his lack of impropriety. In fact, she trusted the man as surely as she trusted her dad and had no clue why. She slid the rest of her food closer to him, and they dug in together.
“I had a dream last night,” he confessed. “I saw you two in it. You almost died, Agent Lane. Agent Hollingsworth saved you.”
After what she and Clint had experienced the night before, a Wichita Indian, dressed like a Hollywood movie producer, appearing at breakfast and disclosing he’d witnessed the entire skirmish in a dream didn’t seem too outrageous.
Clint must have felt the same way. “You know who the old woman was?” He dropped a slice of his bacon on a small plate and set it in front of the shaman.
“The Wichita call her Skin Shifting Woman. She is what the white man calls a demon.”
Now demons?! “What can you tell us about her?” Angela inquired around the huge bite of egg-smothered toast rolling around in her mouth.
“A long time ago, a great Wichita chief took a beautiful young woman as his wife. Her beauty was a legend among all the Wichita, and it was matched only by her generosity. One day, one of the tribe’s old women came to her and asked for her help collecting herbs. The young bride stopped what she was doing and immediately followed the old woman into the woods. When the young bride leaned over to pick up the bundled herbs, the old crone wrapped a leather rope around the younger woman’s neck and strangled her to death.
“Once the young girl was dead, the old woman skinned her and put the skin on. She could no longer tell the difference between the pretty bride and herself when she looked at her reflection in the lake. She went back into the village and relished in the newfound attention and respect. She enjoyed the love the chief lavished on her.
“In time, the skin rotted. The chief brought the tribe’s medicine man to his house, and he discovered the ruse. The men in the tribe took the old crone from the chief’s house and buried her alive, piling dirt on her grave every night for three full moons.
Angela covered her mouth. “Spain, Craven, and Aster disturbed her grave!”
“Yes,” Mr. Tall Water agreed. “But she is not dead.”
“Yes, she is,” Clint claimed. “Angela shot her with silver.”
“Silver only makes her disappear for a single sunrise. The cairn must be resealed.”
Clint’s phone rang. “Hold on a sec,” he begged. “The sheriff.”
While Clint roamed outside, Angela finished the last of her eggs. “You had a dream about us, huh? How does that work?”
“Don’t know,” he admitted. His eyes twinkled at her, and a round smile lit his face. “If I did, I’d be dreaming lottery numbers.”
Clint came back in and sat down. “Elroy found out that Spain and Craven were cousins. And Aster worked for the oil company looking to put a well on Spain’s land.”
Angela scowled at Clint. “How many people you think have been over that plot of land?”
Clint’s own face flared with surprise. “More than those three.”
“Mr. Tall Water, how do we reseal the mound?” Angela asked.
“I can do that, but you must ensure the cairn can never be disturbed again.”
“I can assure you of that,” Clint proclaimed. “Angela, call Kent and have him pass the word up the chain. Tell him we need a Form 1-63.A1 approved for the mound and the forty acres surrounding it.”
Angela wrote it down in her field book. “What’s a 1-63.A1?”
“It’s a Task Force W form that requests an emergency ruling on declaring a location a federally protected landmark. Keeps the tourists off the hotspots.”
“That’s it?” Angela asked.
“That’s it. Our job’s done.” He turned to their visitor. “Mr. Tall Water. Thanks for your help. You should be contacted today by the National Park Service. They’re going to come in and fence the area off.” He looked at his watch before pointing at Angela’s plate. “I got a big date tonight. Eat up.”
Angela had been filling out reports all Monday morning when Kent called her to his office. “Where’s Clint?”
She stood before his desk and uncomfortably shifted her feet. Ratting on her partner wasn’t her first choice for an answer, but if Kent didn’t know where he was at, she was now more worried than not. “I’m not sure. I assumed he was taking another vacation day.”
An icy glare froze his face for a moment. “He didn’t say anything when you guys got back Friday night?”
“Other than he had a date, no sir.”
“That’ll be all,” he said as he picked up his phone.
And with that, their meeting ended.
An email from Archives waited for her when she got back to her desk.
Angela,
Here’s the information you requested on Late-Onset Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria. It wasn’t hard to find once I knew which questions to ask. Most of the information was in the CDC reporting warehouse.<
br />
Numerous cases have been reported over the last 100 years. However, there are three clusters of particular interest. Each of the clusters consisted of four cases reported within a month of each other. And they all occurred within 50 miles of each other too. Each cluster was spaced 30 years apart from the next one. It was almost like clockwork.
Based on these data, I was able to determine that we’re experiencing another cluster right now. Three cases have been reported in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The patients’ names were William Hardison, Tony Hall, and Walter Hernandez.
One final piece. All patients were men under the age of 40.
If the clusters follow their progression, we should see another case within the next week.
I hope this information helps.
Bill.
P.S. What are you chasing up there?
Angela transferred the email and all the research attachments to her tablet before sticking her head in Kent’s office. “Need to meet asap.”
He was putting on his inexpensive black wash-and-wear sports coat. “Make it quick.”
She handed him the tablet. “Do succubae exist?” she asked. “I mean, I’ve read paranormal romance novels before. I know what they are. Mythologically speaking, anyway. But—”
“The short answer is yes. There is no long answer. Silver will kill them, though.”
“I want permission to reopen the Hernandez case then.”
“Granted.” He handed the tablet back to her. “The first place we need to go is Lilith Blank’s house.”
Angela pulled up short. “We?”
“Clint’s phone—” He stood and strapped his pistol onto his waist “—is at her address. Someone just used it to call Domino’s Pizza.”
Angela stood three men back from the SWAT team member with the battering ram. She didn’t believe anyone inside would hear the noise; Led Zeppelin blasted through the walls. As soon as they received word over their ear comm they had a valid warrant, battering ram man dashed across the yard and swung his hunk of pipe steel at the doorknob. The door crashed open, and SWAT members poured into the house like water pours down a funnel. The team members cleared the house one room at a time.
All communications ceased.
“Master Bedroom, check?” Angela signaled. When no one responded, she rushed down the hallway. “Master Bedroom, respond!”
After surviving encounters with werewolves and an ancient Wichita demon, Angela considered herself an experienced supernatural investigator, but what was happening in the bedroom reminded her there were still things—weird things—her mind had yet to accept.
Every SWAT team member in the room stood staring at the peep show on the bed with glazed eyes and slack jaws. A young, well-shaped, blonde woman, younger than the Lilith she interviewed if the girl’s muscle tone and skin were any indication, straddled an old man, giving him the ride of his soon-to-be short life. The air smelled of woman…and a touch of something else. Impending death. Like the reek of the old folks’ home where her great-grandfather lived out the final months of his life.
She brushed past the men and raised her pistol. “Lilith Blank, stop what…what you’re doing and get on the floor. You’re under arrest!”
Lilith raised her head and shined a face on Angela 20 years younger than the one from a week ago. It belonged to a teenager on the cusp of womanhood. A loving smile glimmered on the succubus’s face when it saw Angela’s surprise. “This could be you,” the demon revealed with a maturity in her voice out of place on a face so fresh. “You could stay young forever.” She put one hand on Clint’s chest and lunged out with the other, grazing the back of Angela’s hand.
She wasn’t sure why she didn’t shoot, but by the time she realized she should have, electricity sparked. Her areolas constricted tightly as her nipples spasmed more violently than she had ever experienced before. The bolt of electricity scurried down her stomach, melded at her belly button and continued on its course of pleasure-pain until it crashed into her heart of femininity. Stars flashed in her eyes as the explosive orgasm ravaged her body and warred with her reluctant mind. She dropped to her knees along the edge of the bed as the ecstasy surged through her limbs and stirred her mind like pudding. It took every remaining bit of her mental faculties to maintain the grip on her pistol and not give in.
Before she had a chance to recover, another torturous flood of pleasure crashed over her. Stomach muscles ached from tension yet quivered with furor. Her body convulsed. Too much pleasure; she couldn’t breathe. A primal blush exploded up and through her face. She fought the sensation, but lost control and stumbled into her second orgasm. Nothing existed as her body betrayed her through successive, cramping waves of pleasure. The animalistic grunts rolling from her mouth horrified her. As she settled down, her body forsook her one last time. She climaxed, and her hips scrubbed against air, seeking the source of her pleasure. Mortified and degraded, she slid down her teary whimpers to unwanted bliss.
“It can be like that all the time, Angela,” Lilith cooed, her voice, a silk negligee, slipping over Angela. “Let me live, and I’ll show you how to take it anytime you want.”
A crackly noise slipped through the thunderous pounding in her ears. “Agent Hollingsworth!”
“Look at the men,” the demon enticed. “See how easily they’re controlled.”
She examined each frozen SWAT team member. They pulled a pang of hunger from deep in her gut. The crackling in her ears strayed closer, a storm far away on the horizon moving towards shore. “Don’t listen to her!” the voice urged.
“The Master can teach you how to take what’s yours!” the sultry voice promised.
“Agent Hollingsworth!” The turbulent voice moved closer still. “I order you to do your duty!”
“Duty,” Angela murmured. She blinked and gazed down at Clint, at the love in his eyes for Lilith.
I want that!
Angela mashed her eyes shut in pain when a high whine of audio feedback whistled in her ear comm. When she opened them, her tall, dark, and mission-oriented partner no longer squirmed under Lilith. Instead, a feeble man, skinny and boney, lay dying there.
The spell ended like a wave on a rocky beach.
Compassion and pity replaced the aching lust. She snapped her gaze back to Lilith. Fear lived in her eyes where victory did moments before. Angela squeezed her trigger in rapid succession, and each bullet hole erupted in a kaleidoscope of dark colors while the ancient fiend’s screech pierced Angela’s mind with needles of icy terror. The body crumpled to the floor, aged centuries, and disintegrated into sand, while the demon’s dying squeal left behind a potent migraine.
Clint cried out in anguish.
“How did you know?” Angela implored.
“Know what?” Kent posed back. He relaxed into his chair and sipped his coffee.
“Not to come into the bedroom?” Brutus the Bobblehead’s smile taunted her. She so wanted to poke it.
“I had a hunch,” he rasped.
She snorted. “Powerful hunch.”
His tone was low and firm. “Not my first rodeo.” He took another sip. “It was talking too much for something that should have been dead. It’s the most powerful succubus I’ve heard about. Our other offices say the same thing.”
Angela nodded. “Thanks, boss. You saved my ass.”
He slid a typewritten sheet of paper across his desk. “I’m suggesting a change to our Standard Operating Procedure.” It stated, going forward, all encounters with succubae would be handled with at least one heterosexual woman on the team armed with silver bullets.
“You did good. You saved Clint’s life.”
She frowned. “There wasn’t much left to save.”
“Not your fault.”
She stared into her cup of coffee but could tell he was watching her. Her frown deepened. “How’s he doing, anyway?”
“Fine, I guess, if you forget he’s a ninety-year-old man who’s lost his mind. They’re giving him a full medical retir
ement.”
“Will he ever get it back? His mind?” The agony in his bawling as they wheeled him from Lilith’s bedroom gave her the night sweats.
“Doctors think so, but he’s going through withdrawal.” Another sip. “She did a number on his pleasure center. They’re putting him in the same nursing home as his mother. They’ll be next door to each other. He’s actually physically older than her now.”
Neither one of them talked for a few minutes as the ramifications of Clint’s condition sank in. Finally, Kent broke the silence. “You’ve been touched.”
“Touched?”
“By the supernatural. Those who’ve been touched usually end up with white hair. Yours is light brown. I guess you didn’t hang on long enough.”
She didn’t tell him it had been light brown in college. It had darkened to black by the time she hit thirty-five. The succubus had shared with her whatever it had taken from Clint. Not much, just enough to gift her a taste. Even Heather and Chris had noticed the differences. She begged it off as the effects of being on vacation. Her gray hairs were gone. Her breasts stood out with a college-age pride. And her libido? Overdrive. She’d spent the four weeks she was on investigative leave prowling every bar in Fort Worth. And she’d slept with more men than she cared to admit. She didn’t recall being that horny in college.
Maybe it was the flood of hormones all at once.
His voice brought her back. “Shooting was good. You’re cleared. Don’t have a partner for you, though. Hard to find one not in the funny farm after an encounter with the supernatural.”
Angela grimaced. “I’ve been thinking about that.” He stared hard at her, waiting for her to continue. “What all do you know about Redstick?”
“Everything that’s in your report.” He tilted his head to the side. “Why?”
“Danny? Why him?” Chief Jim Wilcox asked. He slouched across the Lucky Star Diner table from Angela as she finished her lunch salad.
She dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “He was sharp enough to get the cash machine pics at the 47 without being asked.” A slight nod from him confirmed her evaluation of the officer’s abilities. She put her fork aside and set her bowl at the edge of the table. “Plus, I need someone with supernatural experience, however light it is.”