01- Succubus!

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “Oh, sorry, but shut up now if you want to live.”

  I closed my mouth and listened to the sound of my terrorized heart slamming into my ribs. Besides the sound of my panic, the hiss and ping of the boilers, and the sexy breathing of Charlotte, I couldn’t really hear anything.

  “Fuck, he is coming this way. I’m not even sure if this is my target.” The beautiful girl sighed slightly and shook her head. Or, I guessed that she shook her head, I could only tell because of her glowing eyes.

  “How did you know to come down here? Who told you this was your target? Was that the phone call you got?”

  “How do you know about my text?” she whispered.

  “I was sitting at the table with you in the cafeteria when you got it,” I sighed. This felt like a conversation with my parents.

  “Oh, that’s right. I remember now. My target is a devil. He should be a big one, but he is a barbazu.” I felt her press the half of my books that she carried into my arms.

  “What does that mean?” Loud footsteps echoed off the stone hallway of the basement, and I leaned in closer to where I thought the girl’s ear was in an attempt to whisper quieter. She smelled like burnt flowers, and the scent made my mouth water.

  “Long beard, bald, gray or reddish skin that is really oily. Most of the time they have a big belly.”

  “Mr. Roberts looks like that.” The footsteps thumped closer now, and I didn’t think I could say anything else without alerting whoever it was to our presence.

  “Hmmm,” the girl let out a soft noise.

  Then Mr. Roberts walked into the boiler room.

  He stood almost seven feet tall, with a large gray dome of a head, tiny horns angling back from his temples, and a long twisted beard that fell from his tusked maw. His hands were the size of cantaloupes, and his arms were layered with hundreds of veiny muscles. Somewhere under the devil’s teaching uniform, his skin changed from the oily grey to greasy scales that allowed his feet to end in lizard-like claws.

  Charlotte was right; I should have gone insane by now. My mind should have cracked like an egg thrown against a brick wall by a professional baseball pitcher. I had just thought all this was normal, and while Mr. Roberts was terrifying to gaze upon, I saw dozens of ‘devils’ every single day. I had gotten used to it.

  Except now I knew about this crazy war. I wanted to ask Charlotte more about it, but Mr. Roberts was not even twenty feet away. The big man/monster/devil snorted, and I wondered if he could hear my heart screaming in my chest or smell the terror pouring from my body.

  He stood in the center of the crumbling boiler room for what felt like another year, but finally he turned his bulk around and walked back toward the hallway. I realized that I had been holding my breath, and I let it out with a long thankful exhale.

  Then the big devil stopped his walk and turned his head slightly.

  One of my shoes lay on the ground. It must have fallen off when the succubus yanked me into the air. The devil-teacher bent down at the waist, and I heard him sniff loudly at my sneaker.

  I felt Charlotte move from my side.

  I wanted to gasp, or grab her, or do anything to keep her from leaving me. I didn’t know if I felt more afraid for her or for my own safety, but a hero shouldn’t worry about his own skin, so I decided that I was probably worried about the love of my life getting smashed by a devil more than twice her size.

  My fingers did reactively grab for her arm, but our hiding spot was in perfect darkness, and my fingers just closed around air. She slid between the hissing boilers as quietly as a shadow and then glided behind Mr. Roberts with a gentle spread of her wings.

  Then she pounced on his shoulders as he stood from sniffing my shoe.

  It was a sudden spring; a movement almost too quick for me to comprehend. Her perfect legs had wrapped around the big devil’s shoulders, and her right arm swung like a scythe into the front of his neck. I couldn’t really see her claws sink into Mr. Roberts’ throat from my hiding spot behind them, but he let out a surprised roar as soon as her attack landed. It seemed like a gallon of dark blood sprayed across the walls on that side of the room, and Charlotte's arm cocked back to make another strike.

  I would have thought that the attack would have killed the big devil, but it only seemed to anger him. His melon-sized hands reached up to grab at the demon girl I loved, and his fingers closed around her tiny waist as if she were a doll. Charlotte didn’t seem to mind our teacher’s grasp, since she got three more slashes into the devil’s throat.

  Mr. Roberts spun around in the room, and the front of his neck lay open like an angry chainsaw wound. Gallons of pudding-like blood poured from the cut and sprayed across the boilers like a sprinkler. The devil-teacher managed to yank Charlotte off his shoulders, and he flung her at the wall by the rusted-metal desk.

  The winged girl tucked into a tight ball, spun through the air like a Ferris wheel, and landed with her feet against the crumbling brick a few feet above the desk. She pushed off the wall like a swimmer would and dove with her claws outstretched toward Mr. Roberts. The devil-teacher tried to smash her back with a hamfist, but he was too slow, and the winged girl slashed a deep cut across the monster’s fat belly.

  He screamed, and the gash opened instantly to pour a rancid sack of wiggling intestines, stomach bags, and strange beating organs. My teacher moved his left hand over the wound in an attempt to keep the parts inside of his body, but the cut was really wide, and half of the wiggling tubes sagged around his giant hand.

  The devil was still fighting though, and the injury only seemed to piss him off more. He screamed again and swung his right fist at Charlotte. My love was way too fast though, and she ducked under his punch as if performing a playful dance. The big teacher’s knuckles smashed into the brick of the wall like a wrecking ball, and I felt the boilers shake near me.

  I missed the succubus’ next series of quick climbing movements, but she was suddenly perched on Mr. Roberts’ shoulder again. Her arms swung back and forth like a crazy fast set of windshield wipers, and then the devil’s head rolled off his thick neck with a fire-hose spray of blackish blood.

  His headless bulk of a body collapsed a half second after Charlotte leapt off her perch, executed a single flip, and landed on her feet like a gymnast. The neck of Mr. Roberts’ corpse still sprayed blood, and I saw the dark ichor flow over my lost shoe like an ocean wave.

  “It’s done. Let’s go,” Charlotte called over the boilers to me.

  I took a gulp of air and stepped between the pipes of the boilers. Then I jumped over the growing pools of smoking devil blood to reach the start of the hallway where the winged girl stood. There was a bit of blood on the ground, so I stood on my one foot that still had a shoe on.

  I spared a glance back at Mr. Roberts’ headless corpse. The blood smelled like fresh sewage mixed with copper, and I did my best not to vomit while I balanced next to the girl. He had been a great teacher, and I felt a flurry of conflicting emotions tumble through my stomach.

  “We need to get out of the school,” she said once she had pulled me down the hall past the smell of the devil’s corpse.

  “Why?”

  “He’s not the only devil here. They’ll all know he was just murdered. If we don’t get out of here in a few seconds, they will come looking for us,” Charlotte explained.

  “But how will they know we killed him?” I almost winced after I asked the dumb question. My love was practically covered with his dark blood and smelled almost as bad as Mr. Roberts’ bloated gray body.

  “They would have felt his death in the basement. We’ve moved quickly though. We just need to make it out of the front doors of the school and then get back to my house.”

  She pulled me to the base of the stairs, and her grip tightened on my arm when she sprinted up the steps. The girl practically dragged me now, but I doubted that I was much of a burden since she’d just sawed the head off a monster twice her size. Fortunately, it looked like her hands had change
d back into human-looking ones, and I wasn’t worried about the razor-sharp talons ripping through my bicep like they had gone through my friendly physics teacher’s body.

  “Hi Charlotte!” a cheerful voice greeted us as soon as we crested the last step and emerged into the brightly-lit hallway.

  Charlotte skidded to a halt, and I slammed into her back. It was pretty much like colliding with a wall though. I bounced off her, and she didn’t even seem to notice my collision.

  “Hello ladies,” my love greeted cautiously as I peered around her blood-soaked uniform blouse.

  Three of the black-winged erinye girls had formed a semicircle around us.

  Chapter 4

  “Where are you going?” asked one of them. Her name was Mia. She wore her long black hair loose over her shoulders, and she also wore her cheerleading outfit instead of the usual school uniform.

  All three of them actually wore the bright yellow and purple cheer shirts paired with the shorter skirts. It was Wednesday, and, if I remembered correctly, the basketball team had one of their playoff games tonight. Anyone on the cheerleading squad or the basketball team was allowed to wear their outfits instead of the usual uniform.

  “Maybe she’s thinking about cutting class,” said another one of the black-winged cheerleaders. This one had long red hair, and her wings had a crimson hue to the dark feathers. I knew her name was Ashley, and she was the captain of the varsity cheer squad.

  “Ohhh, no. That wouldn’t be fair. We are supposed to stay in school… all… day,” moaned the last girl around the stick of a lollipop. Her name was Kelsey, and she had her strawberry-blonde hair styled in bowed pigtails.

  All three of the black-winged girls were beyond-a-wet-dream beautiful. The each had perfectly smooth skin, shapely legs, full boobs, and pert butts. They looked just like angels, except for the color of the feathers that extended from their shoulder blades.

  And the sharp, evil glow to their eyes.

  “I’m heading to history. We have a test.” The brown-haired girl pointed at the clock on the wall above us, “and we are seven minutes late.”

  “We?” Ashley asked. The three girls tilted their heads to the side and seemed to notice me.

  “Yes, Shawn and I are going to class.” Charlotte’s voice was calm, but her tail twitched against the smooth tile of the school hallway and then brushed against my leg.

  “It’s actually Sherman,” I whispered in her ear, but the beautiful succubus ignored my correction.

  “Is that--”

  “--blood--”

  “--on your uniform?” They trio spoke like something out of a horror movie, with each of them saying a word in the sentence, but with Ashley finishing.

  “No, we had an accident,” Charlotte laughed, but it was obvious to me that she forced the cheer. “Seth and I were downstairs in the basement making out, and we broke one of the pipes.” I gasped when she lied about kissing me, and the three gorgeous cheerleaders turned their eyes to me.

  “You were making out with him?” Kelsey asked, and I didn’t think her arched eyebrows could get any higher on her perfect forehead.

  “Yes,” the succubus answered as she grabbed my arm and pulled me to her side. “He’s my boyfriend.” Charlotte pushed her lips to my cheek, and I felt warmth fill my body from her kiss.

  My vision swam. My knees grew weak. I felt as if I was about to float into space.

  She. Had. Just. Kissed. Me.

  ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!

  “Ha, he has a boner!” Mia’s laugh ripped me from the pleasurable replay of Charlotte’s kiss. The three cheerleaders, and my dream girl, were all looking down at the crotch of my school pants with obvious amusement.

  “Uhhh, s-s-s-sorry,” I stuttered and then moved to put my books over the front of my pants.

  “Where is your other shoe?” Kelsey asked.

  “Hey, hey. If you three want to make out with him, you’ll have to wait your turn. He is my boyfriend,” Charlotte wrapped her arm around my shoulder and then stuck her cute tongue out at the other girls.

  “What are they? Do they have black wings?” my newly-appointed girlfriend moved her lips to my ear and whispered to me.

  “Yes,” I hesitantly wrapped my free arm around the girl’s waist and then leaned toward the delicious curve of her neck. She still smelled terrible from Mr. Roberts’ blood, but I didn’t care in the slightest. I couldn’t believe I was actually touching her. This was crazier than what had just happened in the basement.

  Charlotte had just kissed me on my cheek. She had told other girls that I was her boyfriend. She had let me wrap my arm around her slender waist. The terror was real, but so was the joy that put a dumb smile on my face.

  This was a day filled with unlocked achievements!

  Could the black-winged cheerleaders see the blood on her? It seemed that they should have noticed it and also smelled the stench of the devil’s death on us. Maybe they couldn’t see the gore just as Charlotte said they couldn’t see each other’s true forms? Whatever the reason, the cheerleaders weren’t attacking.

  “You said a broken pipe? We should go down and look,” Ashley said.

  “You care about the school’s plumbing?” the succubus asked with a mocking tone.

  “No, but I care if you are lying.”

  “Why would you care if I am making out with my boyfriend? You are being weird. Or are you just jealous? Mind your own business.”

  The three cheerleaders looked at each other, and, for half a second, it seemed as if they were debating their next move. I had no idea why they didn’t just attack, but my video-game-playing and comic-book-reading mind had come up with a reason that might have made a bit of sense: If everyone looked like a human, then the three erinyes might hesitate to kill someone who they didn’t know for sure was their enemy. Maybe there were rules or something about killing humans, or devils killing demons? I could only guess, but it was looking like we might get out of there without Charlotte having to battle the three hotties.

  “Fine, you two lovebirds.”

  “Go run along.”

  “We’ll go down to the basement and look around,” the three girls spoke again in rapid succession, as if they shared a mind.

  “See ya.” Charlotte gave a half wave and then pulled me with her.

  “We might just see you soon,” Ashley said, and the two other cheerleaders laughed. The sound was a cross between deliciously sexy and terrifying.

  “Simon, tell me about Ashley,” the succubus asked once we had taken twenty hurried steps away from the trio.

  “It’s Sherman,” I sighed.

  “Oh, right. Damn, I keep forgetting. Sorry.” She glanced behind us and then turned to me. Her face did seem to show that she was upset about forgetting my name.

  “That’s okay. What about Ashley?”

  “Her hair is red? It looks red to me.”

  “Uhhh. Yeah. It is red,” I answered.

  “Shit, but you said all three of their wings are black?”

  “Well yeah, but Ashley’s kind of have a red tint to the feathers.”

  “Fucking shitballs. We need to run.”

  “Why does the red on her wings matter?” I asked when my heart surged with another burst of nervous adrenaline. Charlotte hadn’t seemed worried when Mr. Roberts came into the boiler room, but she couldn’t disguise her fear from me now.

  “Just shut up and run, please!” She let go of my arm and pointed at the next turn.

  It was hard to sprint with only one shoe on, and the winged girl was in much better shape than me. After only ten seconds of the activity, my breath came out in painful rips. She had gained thirty feet, while I slid on my sock-covered foot to slam into the wall of lockers. Charlotte had to sprint back to me, grab my arm, and tug me after her.

  Then a scream welled up from the corridor behind us. It was unbelievably loud, and the combination locks on the wall of lockers rattled in resonance. Even the florescent light bulbs seemed to dim in synch with the s
cream. The pain of the shriek seemed to worm into my eardrums, and I had to cover my head with my arms while I tried to run.

  “You Hellspawn bitch!” There was no mistaking Ashley’s voice. She had emitted the scream, and it caused a pane of glass to break on the award-display mount on the wall next to us.

  “Shit! Go, go, go!” Charlotte yanked on my arm again.

  “Charlotte!” Ashley let out another scream from far behind us, and this time it was joined by two other female shrieks. I guessed Mia and Kelsey.

  “Damn it, Shawn! You are too slow; they are going to catch us!” Charlotte yelled at me. Even though she ran not even a foot away from me, her voice was still a tenth as loud as Ashley’s screech.

  “Fire alarm!” I pointed at the red switch up ahead. “Everyone will come out of class!”

  “Great idea!” she yelled as she yanked me toward the wall and flipped the switch.

  The shriek of the alarm rang almost as loud as Ashley’s earlier screams, but we didn’t wait to see if our schoolmates exited the classroom. We were still in the middle of the hallways, and there was probably another two hundred yards of twists and turns before we made it to the front entrance.

  “Charlotte!” the scream sounded again, and I risked a glance over my shoulder while the purple-winged succubus tugged me on.

  The three black-winged cheerleaders had turned the corner and were only a hundred feet behind us.

  They looked really pissed off.

  I tripped, but then Charlotte’s hands caught me under the armpits and pulled me upright. She was still running, or actually flying backwards with powerful flaps of her wings. I felt my legs lift off the floor, and my other shoe dropped from my foot.

  It was probably the least of my worries.

  The doors of a few classrooms opened in front of us, and I looked back again to see the hallways fill with more monster students exiting their classes because of the alarm. My plan had worked perfectly, and the trio of super-beautiful cheerleader devil girls would have to push through the crowd of high schoolers to reach us.