I wasn’t getting up in there without a fight, or someone allowing me in. Then again, I didn’t need to be in the booth, just needed to know what the fuck was going on. Like a magician performing a card trick, out from a wave of my hands came a small palm-sized stick, conjured by my earth talents. It was the same type stick I had Emily fetch at the docks, one that my mind became one with.
I danced my way to the staircase, acting like I was too drunk to notice the bouncer I bumped into and slid my hands into his pocket.
“Oh, I’m so, sorry!” I said in a dizzy voice, releasing the stick from my grip quickly, leaving it in his pocket.
I locked my eyes on the bouncer’s chest first; it looked like the muscles on his chest were trying to burst out from his top. My tongue gave my hungry lips a lick as I faced him, not hiding the growing succubus hunger within me.
He liked it and smiled back. “All good, girl!”
A wink of my eye finished the interaction, and I went to sit at the bar. The bouncer thinking about my hands close to his pockets would be the last thing on his mind, his head was probably too busy fantasizing about me.
Now I need a reason for him to leave.
I ordered a drink and then snapped my fingers when no eyes were on me. Small, but notable vines grew within the VIP booth. I forced them to tickle the ankles of one of the demons inside. I couldn’t hear it but looking up at the glass window that covered the overhanging VIP booth; I saw two men point at the floor were my vines rose up. They looked spooked at the sight and called for the bouncers to come up.
I kept my eyes on the bouncer, the one I slipped the stick into his pocket, as he entered the booth. When he was near my vines, I had them rise up and pull the stick from his pocket, then retreat back into the floor, and vanish. The process happened so fast, it looked like the vine just grew to the size of a man, slapped him, and vanished.
Nobody noticed the stick lying on the floor, or my ability to hear and see all around it when I shut my eyes. Of course, sitting at the bar with my eyes shut would look weird, so I had to retreat to the washroom, and act like I was in my stall handling my business.
When my eyes shut again the view of the VIP booth appeared, it was like watching a camera that had fallen to the floor. The bouncers left at that point, leaving the gathering of dapperly dressed demons to talk, drink and sit at their personal bar that was part of the booth hanging above the dance floor.
A man was brought in. His hands were tied behind his back, and a black bag draped over his head. The lead demon faced the black-bagged man. “Welcome comrade,” the demon said with a Russian accent. “Sit, drink, we have much to discuss tonight.”
These weren’t any demons; they were the ones the Russian mob brought into the world. The bound man with a bag over head was forced to sit by the two strong men that dragged him. They yanked the bag off his head, unveiling Giovanni’s battered and grimacing face. His eyes squirmed at the sight of the bright strobe lights from the club painting blue and purple colors across his face and the demons around him.
The lead demon swirled his drink, took a sip, and then asked. “What the fuck happened at the docks?”
“I don’t know, I wasn’t trying to fuck you,” Giovanni said. “Someone attacked and took out your men.”
“And our demonic brothers,” said the Russian demon. “Those losses will set us back.”
“How far back?”
“I don’t think we’ll be able to go ahead with the exchange with your people.”
The movement of Giovanni’s chest got all erratic. “You gotta believe me man, this wasn’t a setup!”
“I really hope not, or there’ll be major consequences for this.”
“So, the contaminated blood?”
“We don’t have much left,” the demon continued. “The blood we had was limited; it’s all that remains of Lucifer’s faction’s failed plans for the city. Lucky for us, a fixer managed to get his on the last of it. It gave us a chance to you, know, help the homeless people with their problems. But, after the docks fuck up, what you see here is what’s left of the demons working with the Russians.”
“Was wondering why those demons didn’t look like they were part of the mob.”
Giovanni had a point, Russian mobsters all had gang tattoos on their bodies. The demons here and at the docks lacked them. Proof the Russians weren’t turning their own men into demons, just homeless people from the streets that got voluntold for their project.
“Nobody is going to give a shit about homeless people going missing,” the demon spoke again, before grabbing his drink.
“They might now with all these missing people reports,” Giovanni said.
“Yes,” the demon’s face cringed with worry. “That is indeed a concerning matter.”
“Shit, don’t tell me you guys were behind it.”
“No, we have nothing to do with that,” said the demon. “We grabbed the homeless and turn them into demonic brothers who help us conduct business with the Russians. It’s not easy to find work as a possessed and stay out of the crosshairs of that fucking Reika bitch.”
“Hey, so,” said another one of the well-dressed demons sitting at the back. “What was so important about those fucking plants that we had to give away almost all our stock of blood for it?”
“We need it,” the lead demon replied. “There’s a war in the Umbral right now. Lilith’s forces have taken over, forcing Asmodeus and his remaining brothers to flee.”
“Ah,” Giovanni murmured with a smile on his busted face. “So that’s why you guys are so desperate to come to Earth now.”
“Everything went to shit after we lost Lucifer,” the demon said. “Asmodeus had a plan to fix things, and then Reika had to send him and Lilith back, which started this whole conflict. We need to get as many demons disloyal to Lilith here on Earth. Lilith’s planning to take this realm, and we need to be spread out across the globe in preparation for that.” The demon moved to Giovanni, looking down at him and the chair he was forced to sit on. “And who better for the job of smuggling people across borders than the Russians, right? But now? Well, not sure what’s going to happen. We might have to kill you, send a message to the fae—”
“For fuck sakes man!” Giovanni spat. “I didn’t know the Mandragora got released!”
“We can’t claim Earth as our domain and reward the Russians with power and amnesty when the fighting is over, as long as the fae are here. We were supposed to get the flowers and use it to control the fae. You were supposed to get the blood and send it to your boss to distribute it in places we can’t.”
The demon gave a nod, and the men next to Giovanni grabbed him, forcing him up from the chair. He had them strip the clothing off Giovanni’s body, underwear and all, gave him a look then grabbed a dagger off one of the tables. The blade of the dagger burst into flames, much like his body.
“We’re fighting a war on two fronts,” the demon said, inching the flaming blade to Giovanni’s hairless chest. “A war with Lilith and the fae, so forgive me for being a little pushy right now, I’d rather we not lose.”
“How does killing me help you?”
“Simple my little fae. I mail your body back to your people as a warning not to fuck with us or the Russians—”
My eyes opened, cutting the link at that point, running from the washroom stall. Giovanni was my target after all, shady or not, my job was to find and recover him. And if I didn’t get to him quickly, those demons were going to set his body ablaze, then throw it into the gasoline spill that was the fae and demon war.
I made my way to the staircase to the booth, ready to fight the bouncers if I needed. Lucky for me both weren’t there. Unlucky for me, they went into the booth. Looking up through its window I saw why. Someone entered and started a fight.
If it wasn’t for the loud music being played, I would have heard the crashing noise of the VIP booth’s window shatter, raining thousands of razor-sharp fragments over me. A body came spiraling out of the
booth landing next to me on the floor with a thud.
I kneeled down to look at the dearly departed, as the drunken people danced, having too much fun to notice the violence erupt. The man was one of the dapperly dressed demons, his neck covered in the thorny covered vines that shredded the flesh on it, oozing out demon blood everywhere.
The vines had Lux energy lift away from it, sapping away the Umbral energy the demon’s fading life had.
Five bucks say the bouncers got turned into plant zombies by a Mandragora.
Chapter Twenty-One
My feet charged up the stairs to the booth, ready to storm into a fight I knew little of, not giving a fuck that people were about to witness the paranormal shit I did my best to keep secret, like my own powers.
My skin hardened like a rock with the stone skin talent. At least that will make me bulletproof for a bit when the guns came out, and immune to the effects of earth magic … but weak as fuck to fire talents, like the one the lead demon was seen using.
I saw long vines covered in rose thorns, they were stretched out across the floor, leading into the door to the VIP booth, their ends wrapped around the waists of the two bouncers. A Mandragora was hiding somewhere, turning the bouncers into zombies. I need to stop being right, it’s only getting people hurt.
I went for my katana. Wait, I left it in the car, never mind. Nobody was going to let me bring that or a gun into the club. If you weren’t keeping track, I basically ran into a fight with no weapons with the exception of magical talents, which will drain my Umbral faster, fuck it.
Three stone daggers appeared in my hands, one each for the three demons that rose with flaming pistols in their hands taking aim at my face. The adrenaline pumping through my body full of Umbral energy, made everything around me play out in slow motion. I watched as the stone made weapons spiral and spin to my targets, while flame covered bullets charged at me. My stone skin took the brunt of hits from the flaming bullets, keeping me alive, but inflicting a hell of a lot of pain across my body weak against fire.
Dagger number one sunk into the chest of my first target, the second dagger gave my second target a third eye when it plunged in between his existing ones. The third demon got lucky, the stone dagger, spun, hit, and stabbed his arm.
As he fell to the floor screaming, he muttered to his friends. “It’s Reika!”
Just what I didn’t need, someone to recognize me.
The led demon that held the burning dagger at Giovanni faced me. “Fucking kill that bitch! She must have brought this!”
Now everyone wanted a piece of me.
I had to dodge vines from the zombies, waste more of my Umbral energy to reinforce my bulletproof stone skin when more guns came out, and holy fuck was there a lot of guns. It was a three-way fight, everyone taking shots at each other while the strobe lights of the dance floor keep on shining and flickering.
If you were watching the fight as a third person, you wouldn’t be able to make out shit. A body was intact one moment, and then in two pieces the next with thorny vines working as a saw, flashes of a pistol one moment, then a head with blood spilling out the back the next. Don’t worry, that wasn’t my head since I’m the one that found a fallen pistol during the chaos.
That’s when I remembered what earth imbued bullets did. I emptied the pistol’s clip at no particular target, watching as the diamond enchanted bullets thanks to my powers made them ricochet off the walls, floors, and ceiling. If Giovanni and his naked body were still alive, he’d better take cover.
I heard the music stop a minute later; the unexpected silence that followed from the dance floor was filled with echoing screams from fleeing clubbers. Guess they finally took notice of the bullets, zombies, and bodies getting flung from the VIP booth.
The demons were put down from what I saw. I tried searching for Giovanni, but was rudely interrupted by the bouncers turned zombies, spitting out soil from their mouths, while deadly thorny vines grew out from their chests. It was a fate Belyana and Charles were probably seconds away from experiencing.
The vines came at me like tentacles from a horror flick and nearly picked me up before I leaped through the shattered windows, tumbling down to the dance floor that was getting cleared out quickly. This would have been a perfect time for the DJ to play that Evacuate the Dance Floor song, but his ass fled with everyone else, and for good reason.
When I got back to my, feet multiple vines punched out from the floor, snagging people that were too slow or too drunk to get outside, wrapping around their chests or waists, turning them into the plant zombies. The Mandragora, wherever the fuck it was, was like a kid picking up a bunch of dolls to play with them.
I counted at least sixteen people dressed in their sexy clubbing attire now turned into zombies that limped toward me, blocking all exits. The zombie bouncers leaped down from the booth behind next. I couldn’t kill these people, even if I wanted to. The fae had self-healing magic, and I was going to have to mess them up real good to drop them, which meant spending a lot more Umbral energy to do it.
The source of their possession had to be found, the Mandragora, and it was near. I went searching for it, following the long vines still tied and wrapped around the two bouncers. The path of thorny vines led me into the basement level of the club.
I doused my body in the flaming coat when I attuned to fire. Crossing my hands together, I ejected my flamethrower talent aiming it at the vines controlling the two bouncers that came from the basement. The vines caught on fire, but didn’t break, I needed to channel more Umbral energy into the flames. That’d also drain my fading Umbral stores fast, all to free the two bouncers and not everyone else. If I wanted to break the hold over the innocents upstairs, then I needed to break the source.
The basement was dark, with flickering lights periodically illuminating my path, and it wasn’t the entertainment type of lighting. Above me were the damaged lights on the ceiling, and fragments of thorns stuck to them, missed attacks from a Mandragora by the looks.
The hallway took me to the indoor pool the club was famous for. There wasn’t a soul in sight, just knocked over beverage bottles and glasses by those that fled when the Mandragora showed up. I couldn’t find where it was, but the long line of vines on the floor told me I was on the right path.
I followed the path of vines and noticed a dozen or so other ones had punched up through the ceiling. They were all coming from the swimming pool. I stepped to the pool slowly, the flames covering my body created a glow of light around me in the darkness.
I didn’t get the chance to eye exactly where in the pool the Mandragora was, a woman swimming in the pool alone, acting like nothing bad had happened distracted me. She was naked from what I could tell, her skin looked green. Our eyes met when my flaming form neared the edge of the pool, the red and orange ripples of the flames covering my body reflecting off the water of the pool.
The woman gave me a half smile and stood up straight, standing on the shallow surface of the pool. She went to step out of the pool from the side steps, the water raining off her sizeable green breasts and nipples, proved that I wasn’t going crazy, her whole body was green. Leaves and small branches made up her hair, small jungle vines formed around her body, they were blossoming flowers rapidly as if they were clothes for her, and I use that term loosely, her pussy hair was still exposed, it looked like freshly mowed grass.
They say it’s rude to stare, but had I not been checking her out, I wouldn’t have realized who the woman was. It was Alice.
I pointed the flaming pistol I stole from the Russians at her, even though it was out of ammo, and too badly burned to work correctly.
“Alice, I should have known,” I said to her. “Or, is that your host’s name?”
Alice’s bare feet walked away from the pool, water fell off her body like rainwater dripping from a tree. “You can call us that,” she said. “We’re the same.”
“Not really, you, whatever the fuck you are, possessed her.”
“Dryad possession isn’t the same as demonic,” Alice said. “You see sweetie, unlike your kind, or other fae, we Dryad share our host’s mind, body, and soul. Alice and I are the same; a symbiotic relationship.”
I grunted. “My kind? You must not know a lot about me.”
“We know you who you are, Reika,” Alice said, walking closer, not caring about the flames covering my body. “We know you’re the key to Lilith’s grand plans, we know you’ve become the most powerful demonic force in the city.”
“I’m flattered.”
Alice walked circles around me, stroking my legs and back with her jungle-like vines. They caught on fire and she pulled them to her face, curled her lips into a seducing o shape and blew them out.
“You’re hot,” she said with a warm smile. “There was a survivor from the VIP booth, where is he?”
“Survivor? Is that all your brother Giovanni is to you? Just some survivor?”
“Brother?” Alice lifted an eyebrow and paused for a moment lost in thought. “Well, yeah, we guess you’re right. He is our brother as well.”
I had to remind her who her brother was, guess she wasn’t kidding about the whole sharing body deal. The pause must have been the Dryad and Alice’s mind both exchanging thoughts, coming to the realization why Giovanni was important to her.
It gave me an idea. The flames around my body vanished like they were never there to start with. With what remained of my Umbral energy within me, I went into succubus mode flicking on the lure. The aggression and the heightened sense of awareness in me got replaced with a friendlier playful version of me.
The fae wanted me dead, that included the Dryad too, and Alice didn’t. The tree nymph woman next to me had half of Alice’s desires, and half of the Dryad, meaning she half wanted to kill me. Here’s hoping the lure removed that half thought of wanting me dead.
Deception of the Demon Girl Page 12