Deception of the Demon Girl

by Eddie R. Hicks

  “Whoa!” Emily’s voice bellowed. “Well, well, what do we have here?”

  Emily stood next to the dormant candles, looking down at the rose Charles had left behind. By the time I stood next to her, the rose had grown in size, and continued to do so, taking on a life and shape of its own. Arms and legs formed first and then came a head, body hands and feet.

  Belyana looked on, her body was trembling, holding her hand to her mouth. Charles adjusted his glasses, rubbing his hands together grinning. I’m surprised the words ‘it’s alive’ didn’t come out from his mouth.

  “Maybe you did summon something,” I said to Belyana. “Into the rose.”

  The rose grew into a humanoid monster. Thorns, just like the ones I saw with the zombies, covered its body, as the ruby petals of the rose became its hair. Multiple vines looking like the ones that attacked me hung from its back, moving like tentacles from a squid. And if you think that was creepy, then you should get a load of its eyes. They were completely black, giving us a stare through our souls.

  I gave the monster holding our attention a nice long look up and down using my scan talent. You better believe there was a lot of Lux energy emanating from it. Hell, the whole living room got flooded with Lux energy. No wonder my head was starting to spin.

  “I think I’m going to have nightmares about this,” Emily said, backing away from the monster. “Assuming this isn’t one already …”

  “It’s a Mandragora,” Belyana said after finding the right page in the heavy as fuck tome in her hands. “It’s a familiar for the Dryad, type of fae.”

  The Mandragora stood still, barely showing any signs it was alive, continuing to take turns looking into our souls with its shifting head. Once again, my hands inched really close to my katana.

  “They are gathering at the Aura Gardens,” said the Mandragora.

  Emily’s face grimaced. “Say what?”

  “They are gathering at the Aura Gardens,” it repeated.

  Emily and I exchanged glances, then faced the Mandragora. “Sure, buddy,” I said.

  The Mandragora repeated the parse over and over, a gathering at Aura Gardens, whatever the fuck that was.

  “Why does it keep saying that?” I asked Belyana.

  Belyana searched the tome for answers. “It’s processing the last thoughts it received from its master.”

  Now my facial expression looked like Emily’s. “And that master would be a Dryad?”

  Belyana nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Cool,” I said, trying to keep my relaxed composure. “Now what the fuck is a Dryad?”

  “Earthen fae,” Belyana said, reading the text. “They use earth elemental magic exclusively and require a special tree and humanoid host to live.”

  “Wait,” I said, keeping my eyes on the Mandragora. “So, a Dryad could possess a human and tree?”

  “They need both according to this,” Belyana said. “The tree is the powerhouse; the possessed host is the tool it uses to move around. The Mandragora are the pets the Dryad use.”

  Alice’s stunning figure came to mind. She had to have been a fae Dryad. Why else would she have the rose? Why else would she have been growing the Lux flowers in that greenhouse?

  “What exactly did you do, Belyana?” Charles asked, the tone of his voice showing no signs of worry.

  “The rose must have been a part of a Mandragora that came off it,” she said. “I guess I forced its thoughts back into the rose here, making it take the shape of it.”

  Charles took out his phone and flipped on the record function, sidestepping around the standing Mandragora, still keeping that smile on his face. I had to shake my head and say, “Figured you’d be taking notes.”

  “Oh, I am,” Charles said. “Video notes, this will be a wonderful addition to my database on the paranormal.”

  “They are gathering at the Aura Gardens,” the Mandragora mumbled again.

  “You already said that,” I snapped at it.

  “And I have to kill you,” Mandragora said, facing me directly. “You must die, Reika Araya.”

  “That … you didn’t say.” I pulled out my katana with a loud shink noise when the Mandragora’s motor functions came back to it, launching its body at me. “And I kinda wish you didn’t …”

  I used my katana as a shield, deflecting the slashes the Mandragora made at me with is claws, as it yelled. “Demons must be cleansed!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Remember when I said Belyana had a tendency to summon bad things into the world?

  I hate being right.

  “Belyana!” I shouted to her while keeping my blade steady to parry the next attack. “Unsummon it or something!”

  Belyana had run back into the kitchen, frantically flipping through the tome. “I’m trying!”

  Try harder is what I wanted to say, but I was too busy trying not to get ripped apart like the Russians and their demons when the plant zombies first made their strike. Why? Because this Mandragora motherfucker had the same powers.

  The thorny vines on its back grew larger, its ends pointing at me, moving like snakeheads preparing to make an attack. The first vine came at me like it was trying to impale me. I rolled across the wooden floor before it hit, watching the hole it put in the brick wall as I came to.

  Emily entered her combat stance. Three quick mudra gestures forged kunai covered in icicles in her hands. I did a similar thing, igniting the Umbral energy stored within me, attuning to the element of water. Fire made sense since the Mandragora was earth-based and should be weak against it. But I really didn’t want to be the one responsible for burning down Charles’ place, bad enough this fight was going to turn it into shit real quick.

  The power of water imbued my katana, it looked like it was made of ice water while bubbles rose away from it. My hair and trench coat were covered in frost and icicles, beads of ice water circled my form. The cleared out living area turned from a place of summoning into a fighting arena where Emily and I went to keep our aggressive guest at bay.

  Three thorny vines launched in my direction, hitting my well-timed glacial shield that rose from the floor. I dove out from new cover, swinging my water-enhanced blade at the vines. It was like taking an ax to a large tree, the blade of my katana got stuck in the first vine. I had to use a lot of force to get it out, and then make another slash. The only saving grace was that each hit I made slowly forced the vines to snap freeze, crystallizing into ice. Eventually, the vines were too stiff to move, and my boot slamming against it made them shatter, raining bits of ice onto the floor.

  Emily’s kunai had similar problems when she attacked the Mandragora from behind. It was like watching a ninja take their weapons to fight a tree in the woods, the Mandragora’s flesh was harder than it looked. A summersault backward took her away from the Mandragora’s fist that was intended to hit her face.

  Her hands made another ninjutsu mudra and a flash of razor-sharp hail fell from the ceiling, cutting away at the Mandragora, its body was turning into ice. It wasn’t enough to stop it.

  A new set of thorny vines sprung out from the floor like rapidly growing roses. They moved like a giant whip, smacking across Emily’s form. Her body went airborne into the bedroom. The sound of bookshelves and all its contents crashing and tumbling to the floor signaled the end of Emily’s trip. And what did Charles do? Stand back and kept recording the action on his phone. I’m glad he’s enjoying his place get wrecked.

  A snap of my fingers shaped ice missiles out of thin air ahead of me, and a wave of my hand sent them hurling at the head of the partially frozen Mandragora. A new set of twisting vines sprouted from its back and went to swat my giant ice missiles away. They were reduced to fragments of ice clattering on the wooden floor.

  I heard the floor behind me rumble, I’m going to guess that was a new set of vines coming to blindside me from behind. A shrunken pulled out from my coat came into my hands, I left my spirit mark in it, and flicked, sending it spiraling through the air at the
Mandragora.

  My body blinked right where the shrunken landed, and I swung my katana making an upward swing. The blade didn’t hit. A stray vine got close enough to tie around my waist, lifted me off the floor, and tossed me. I went airborne like Emily, feeling the air whoosh around my body.

  I saw the walls and the ceiling turn into a blur during my high-speed launch through the air, then felt the front door crash against my body. I was tumbling and rolling violently into the hallway after that, the fucker threw me through the door!

  As painful as fuck as that was, I wasn’t done. I’ve been thrown through a lot worse things.

  Leaping to my feet, keeping the katana in my hands steady, I saw the slow-moving Mandragora come to finish the job, stepping past the remains of the front door into the apartment’s hallway, the ice that covered its body reducing its movement speed. To my left and right were the doors to other suites on this apartment floor. Fighting in the hallway was bad, what was going to stop the battle from spilling into other people’s places? What was going to stop the Mandragora from killing them to get to me? I had to end this quickly, or at least take the fight back where it started.

  My attack plan was simple, move fast, and run in swinging, nothing else mattered. I had to turn this walking rose into solid ice to finish it off. I took two steps into my reckless assault then stopped.

  Belyana and Charles stepped ahead of the Mandragora; their waists were wrapped up in the thorny vines. Belyana dropped her tome to the floor, and Charles phone was no longer in his hands. The two moved closer to me like zombies, groaning sounds from the mouths that made no sense. The Mandragora was the cause of the plant zombies, the vines that grabbed their victims must have been the source of it. My two human friends just became my enemy against their will.

  I couldn’t go forward with my attack, which sucked because the Mandragora did while forcing zombie Belyana and Charles to run for me.

  No vines or soil came spitting out of their bodies, my guess was they weren’t zombies long enough to make that happen, making the stakes higher. The longer they stay that way, the more likely they’d become freaks of nature.

  A loud zombie-like roar came from the two when they neared me. All I could do was get behind glacial shields, and freeze the floor ahead of them, hoping to slow them. And let’s be honest here, hope was a shitty plan. What I needed was a real plan, and as luck would have it, Emily had just that.

  Emily’s battered body emerged behind the Mandragora while it was focused on controlling Belyana and Charles. Her ice-covered kunai struck it in the back, slashing and carving swathes across, stabbing it rapidly, each hit spreading a sheet of ice over the Mandragora’s body. By the time she was done, it was completely frozen over, as with half the vines that had stretched away from it, wrapping around Belyana and Charles. It was up to me now.

  I threw a shrunken, making it land between the frozen Mandragora and zombie Belyana and Charles, placing me next to the frozen solid vines that controlled the two. A downward swing of my blade shattered the first one, freeing Charles. A second swing turned the spot on the vine which I hit into ice cubes, freeing Belyana from the vine that took her.

  From there I gave the frozen sculpture of the Mandragora a stare down, flipped it the bird, then pushed baseball bat sized ice missiles through its chest. The impact of my projectiles attack reduced the Mandragora to a pile of diamond-like ice fragments on the floor.

  A door behind me opened, it was one of the other suites on the floor.

  “Hey,” said the tenant of the suite. “Can you fucking keep it down?”

  I looked at the tired eyed man sticking his head into the hallways still wearing his pajamas. His tired eyes looked right at me, ignoring the icy aftermath of our fighting, and the two recovering bodies of Belyana and Charles.

  My middle finger was still sticking up, so I aimed it at him. “Get fucked.”

  “Some of us are trying to sleep!”

  “Some of us are trying to make sure you wake up from that.”

  “Listen here—”

  “Get fucked and go back to sleep!”

  Seriously, I just fucking saved him and everyone else from becoming plant zombies. Show some fucking respect to your secret ruler and protector of New York!

  The man slammed the door to his suite shut, while Emily and I recovered Charles and Belyana, dragging them back into Charles’ place. I’d shut the door if it wasn’t mangled and tossed halfway down the hall.

  Charles came to first, his face looking like he woke up to a hangover.

  “Sorry about the mess,” I said to him. “And, possible noise complaints that’ll be coming to your landlord soon.”

  “And totally worth it,” Charles said, shaking off the lingering effects of the zombie state. “We now know the strength of a fae familiar.”

  “And that it has a mean left hook with its vines,” Emily groaned, rubbing her bloody head. “Wait. That was a familiar … right?”

  “Yeah,” Belyana said, pushing her body up from the floor. “A pet to its master.”

  “Aye, so its master is probably way stronger,” Emily said.

  “And wants to kill me,” I said with a grimace, and then kicked the tome across the floor to Belyana. “Please tell me there’s more in there that could help us.”

  “I need more time to read through this tome,” she said, taking the tome back. “But I won’t be able to do it from home with all the Umbral I got there.”

  “You can stay the night if you want, Belyana,” Charles offered.

  The tome fell from Belyana’s grip as he said that, her pale face flushing. “Oh, I, I’d like that, I’ll let my mom know.”

  I sighed, looking at the damage we brought to Charles’ apartment. The point of this was to ask the summoned fae questions, instead, all we got was a demonstration of its power, the fact they knew who I was and wanted me dead, and its meaningless ramblings. Like seriously, what the fuck is an Aura Garden?

  To humor myself I pulled out my phone, thumbing in a search on Google. The first page that loaded was the website to a nightclub in the city, called Aura Gardens. According to its address, it wasn’t far from Central Park, or the greenhouse Alice worked at. My lips curled into a grin when my head made the connections.

  Someone was gathering there tonight, and a Dryad sent those thoughts to its pet Mandragora before Belyana summoned it and forced it to take shape into the rose. A rose that was probably a part of it sometime during its life.

  “Hey, Emily,” I called out to her. “Wanna go clubbing?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Aura Gardens was a bumping nightclub where the vibrations of the music emanating from it could be felt a block away. I gave the building it was in a hard look before entering and then gave a nod to my Bakeneko shifter off in the distance. When no one was looking, Emily made the ninjutsu mudra that forced her body to shrink and turn into a tabby cat. She vanished into the alley next to the club, searching for clues.

  Emily’s job was scoping out the exterior of the club. Mine was the fun one, going inside.

  The place was well-lit with a strict dress code, forcing everyone to wear their best and be sexy as fuck. I took full advantage of wearing a backless long-sleeved lace dress, leather boots, and stockings. The black wig I had on with dual buns up top was long, covering my exposed back and the Yakuza tattoos on it.

  It took me a while to slither past people dancing and shaking their asses, as the vibrations of the thumping music hit my body. Strobe lights flickered and flashed, if you suffered from seizures, then this wasn’t the place for you. And if you had a fear of succubi, this wasn’t the place either.

  Me walking past the people dancing was like entering a grocery store. All it took was me hitting the succubus lure talent and I’d have a whole lot of people hitting on me, more so than I do now. One kiss, one stroke of their head, and they’d be dragging me into the washroom to fuck.

  Put the mission on hold and feed is what my inner succubus wanted, as I
did burn some Umbral not long ago, fighting that Mandragora. I knew better than to listen to her, no matter how powerful my girl boner was right now, gawking at the fit men working their hips to the music, or the women in the shortest skirts I’ve ever seen, wave their hands and groove. I had the Umbral pills in my car, if things got bad, I’ll go back outside and pop another.

  I danced for a bit, but it was more like cover. What I really wanted to do was get a better view of the lay of the land. There was a gathering that was supposed to go down here, one that a Dryad knew of. I managed to learn that there were three levels to the club, the main dance floor where I danced, a basement level with a swimming pool, and a top-level holding a VIP booth and bar.

  If movies told me anything, the VIP booth was where things were going down. I inched my way closer, playing it cool like I was trying to get to the lower level bar that sat underneath the upper deck VIP booth. When I neared, I looked up at the booth, men in expensive business suits were gathering. I sensed Umbral energy radiate from a few of them. Demons were in the club, this was the gathering, and the fae knew of it.

  The Dryad must have been planning an ambush, using its Mandragora familiar. The Mandragora did say something about cleansing the city of demons, before trying to kill me, being the half-succubus that I was.

  I had to get up to the booth, even if the fae didn’t attack, I needed to know what the demons were up to, they weren’t exactly on my side either. I found a staircase leading up to the booth. The two brawny men standing before it made it clear with their emotionless glares that nobody was to go up, no matter much cleavage I showed them.

  I couldn’t charm them, not without activating my lure and going full succubus mode, magnetizing everyone nearby to come up and grope me. Given how unpredictable I got embracing my succubus side, there was a risk I’d lose control, quite possibly turn half the club into a giant orgy. Oh, and I probably wouldn’t have made it to the booth, even after I was given access.